Food For Thought: Five Ways of Talking About Food

This is how we talk about food:

I. The Literal

In fourth period, the clock doesn't tick; it taunts. I sit there with a stomach like a cavernous hollow, whispering to Sarah that lunch is an eternity away. We trade stories like war veterans: how I skipped breakfast for a history paper, how she is surviving on a single stolen granola bar. We wear our hunger as a personality trait, a casual badge of honor. To us, "starving" is just another word for being bored before noon.

II. The Comic 

At 3:00 a.m. on Saturday, food is the punchline. The kitchen is a stage lit by the blue hum of the refrigerator. My friends and I call cold pizza "B.A.E” (before anything else) because it’s the only thing that shows up without a second thought. We laugh until our ribs ache, failing to catch grapes in our mouths, the fruit rolling under the stove like discarded marbles. We treat sustenance as a prop, a luxury we can afford to drop on the floor.

III. The Casual 

By Sunday, food is a social map. I scroll through an Instagram poll to decide on brunch, groaning when the group vote lands on Burger King for the third week in a row. Later, I pick up an apple from the bowl, stare at it for a second, and put it back. Health feels like a chore when the fridge is already full of better options. It’s Thanksgiving break, and I am busy clearing space for the intentional gluttony of the week.

IV. The Figurative 

Then, the tone shifts in English lit. My teacher leans over his podium, citing Thomas Foster like a priest. "Communion," he whispers, "is whenever people eat together. It is a shared vulnerability. To take food into your body with another person is an act of trust." He points to a dinner scene in Wuthering Heights, where a broken meal signifies a broken soul. Suddenly, the table feels heavier. I realize that saying "Let’s share this" is often disguised as "Pass the bread."

V. The Profound 

The realization finally hits me on Monday afternoon. I am standing at the kitchen island, scraping half-eaten mashed potatoes into the trash, watching the steam rise from the porcelain. I look at the waste in the bin – the easy, thoughtless discard of it – and feel a sharp, sudden chill. We don't just eat; we consume the security of knowing the bin will be full again tomorrow. I see the secular communion of my life not as a given, but as a miracle of luck.

So that night, I make my family say grace before we have our dinner. They give me a weird look, for we have never been strictly religious, but inside, I hope that this is the start to a tradition of communion.