Food, Glorious Food

I'd just like to give another shout-out to Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! for putting together one hell of a riveting show yesterday. (If you come to this post or follow the link a bit after the fact, it's the Monday, August 3rd show in the archives.)

Please give a listen. It's about food (which I love) and bacon (which I love), and about the associations our brains make when we have a food experience, especially one that includes any delicious combination of sugar, fat, and/or salt. Chalking American obesity up to "laziness" has recently become a pet peeve of mine, and this is further dissection of the very complex issues around the food industry and American diets.

I tell you what else: it got me thinking about Shea Stadium. I'm talking about the Old Shea and not the New Shea officially known by another name.

At the Old Shea, a Mets game meant an Italian sausage with peppers, onion, and mustard (and I kid you not, I just salivated typing that) during the early innings, and a Carvel twist in a cup with hot fudge at some point in the middle of the game.

It never felt like a routine. It was genuinely what I wanted to eat every time I went to see the Mets play at Old Shea. The neurons in my brain required that this be my dinner (or lunch) at the stadium. It had all of the pleasurable experiences of being at a live Mets game (and if you remember, I also had a hell of a win streak there for a while), and between the addictive qualities of the sugar, fat, and salt and those good associations, I was helpless before the call of those obesity-causing sirens.

During this past off-season, I gave up sweets. I was actually concerned that I would need to blow my sugar fast during my first visit to the Mets new stadium. I so associated Mets games with Carvel (especially), I didn't know if I could do it.

But it was the place itself that had the association. Shea Stadium was where I ate Carvel. To keep me from eating Carvel, all they had to do was tear down the stadium! Thanks, Mets!

My visits to New Shea have created new food associations. Now I can't help but dream of barbecued pulled pork and fried flounder sandwiches. It's the same thing, really, only of a slightly higher brow. Better? Probably not.

At least gotten off the Carvel. There's not a lot one can say about Carvel's positive effect on one's health. But it does taste delicious on a hot summer's day.