The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature

"Leon Kass is a physician and a bioethicist who is an Emeritus Professor of Social Thought at the University of Chicago. So, he is really rooted in the humanities and the sciences, as is clear in this book. The book is about how food is a form of expression for civilizations, from pre-Roman days to the present . The Hungry Soul is a telling title. Kass tells us that we eat and how we eat becomes part of who we are. For example, as he points out, we typically eat facing an interlocutor. We have napkins; we have forks; we have plates; we have knives; and we cut the food into small pieces. We talk while we are eating, while the person across the table is looking right at us. “Every meal is a virtuoso performance, a demonstration of how civilized we humans have become” Seeing food in someone else’s mouth is very off-putting, but we manage to eat, talk and breathe through our mouths. Every meal is a virtuoso performance, a demonstration of how civilized we humans have become. It’s an act of virtuosity to be able to carry on this biological function while talking about politics or the weather. He’s focused on the meal. Americans do a lot of snacking, but in most cultures the meal is the time when people eat. The French, for example, don’t think it’s a good idea to eat while they’re walking. In Kass’s view, eating McDonalds drive thru food in the car is a breakdown of civilization."