Two potluck suppers in one week gave me more social activity than I'm used to. Since my days as an active cook are long past, I view potluck suppers with some ambivalence. They are both a threat and a treat. The threat is that I have to figure out something to take, and then fix it, or dash to the store for something already fixed and sneak it in, hoping that nobody will recognize which item is mine. The treat is eating all the good food that other people have slaved over and, of course, the sociability that is the major reason for having potlucks.
Food has always been more than simply a necessity for survival. It has been and is the center of our social life. I can envision the cave men and women sitting together in the mouth of the cave sharing a juicy bone. Then somebody accidentally dropped a mastodon leg into the fire and discovered how much better it tasted and how much easier it was to chew when it was cooked. So they sat around the fire and gnawed on hot food. The image that runs through history and myth alike is of people sitting around eating together.
In our modern world we don't have the communal bonfire, except when we go camping, but we continue to build social ceremonies around food.
In my youth most women were at home, did lots of cooking and entertained a lot. My mother would often spend hours or days preparing a "company meal." Many still do, of course, but with most of us that kind of entertaining has become a luxury we can't afford. As some wise soul said, "Life is too short to stuff a mushroom." Unless, that is, we live in Ciceley, Alaska. Recently on "Northern Exposure" Maurice Minifield, with unlimited money and time and money, put on a blowout that would shame kings. To say that it was catered is a gross oversimplification.
The potluck supper has become one of the most popular forms of communal eating. I went to two last week and gained a pound or two at each one. My trouble is self-discipline although I try to take Miss Piggy's advice, "Never eat more than you can lift." Most good cooks who take food to a potluck make a special effort to provide dishes that are both fattening and lay down a thick layer of cholesterol. Since I try to avoid that sort of thing in my usual diet, such luscious food is very tempting when I'm away from home. I find myself trying to decide whether to have the corned beef or the ham casserole or the lasagna, but have little trouble rushing through the veggies. I'm always in a hurry to get to the positively obscene chocolate pie while there is still some left.
Lunch has become another important social ceremony. A casual glance around local restaurants shows a wide variety of reasons for eating lunch out. The most traditional one is the business lunch, which ranks right up there with the golf course and the locker room as a location for major decisions. One thing that I know happens in the big cities and on television startled me a bit when it happened in Grand Junction. One noon in a busy local meeting/eating place I heard a phone ring.
The woman at the next table opened her purse, hauled out her cellular phone and made a deal - I suppose. Or maybe it was a date for dinner.
Lots of businesswomen center their social life around lunch. They don't have time for seeing their friends any other time. One very busy professional woman I know says that her only purely social contacts are at lunch. After work she is engulfed with softball games and music lessons and kids' homework and laundry and all the million other things working mothers do.
I don't have much inside information about why men lunch together when they are not conducting business, but I think it is possible that they are simply hungry.
I am extremely glad that we have progressed in our food ceremonials from mastodon bones to chocolate pie.