Foodie Pseudery (10)

A key feature of any foodie pseudery is a fatal lack of perspective: a belief that choosing dinner is as significant as the most momentous political act. This article by Francine Prose likens religious belief with a taste for pork.

I understand why others find comfort in faith. Though I sympathize with their longings and sometimes envy them the consolations that sustain them, I myself have fallen away from religion—my own and everyone else’s. That’s partly because of the intolerance with which the world’s religions so often seem to encourage their members to treat members of other faiths. But if, however unlikely it seems, I ever find myself making one of those late-life turns toward God, one thing I can promise you is that this God will be a deity who wants me to feel exactly the way I feel when the marbled slice of pork floats to the top of the bowl of ramen or when the platter of sliced suckling pig arrives, crisp and moist, emitting curls of fragrance and steam that carry a message of bliss along the length of the table.