Dinner Plate #9

Food has symbolism. I'm not superstitious, and I don't believe I can work magic simply by choosing a combination of ingredients, but I do think that we can use symbols to remind ourselves of things, sometimes, to sort of act as a positive thinking tool. And I needed some positivity.

So I made the stereotypical "good luck" meal of the American South: black eyed peas (recipe from Nora Cooks), collard greens (recipe from Real and Vibrant), and cornbread (recipe from Minimalist Baker, but made with soy milk).

Black eyed peas symbolize luck, prosperity, and hope. Collard greens symbolize paper money, and cornbread symbolizes gold. The greens have tomatoes, which symbolize health.

So far is taste is concerned, I think the peas were too soupy, but adding the greens in really elevated the dish. I probably could have cooked greens with the black eyed peas, but I was being overly industrious out of the need to work off anxiety. Having these things all together was perfectly tasty and comforting.

But it is also a reminder, for me and maybe it can be for you, that all is not lost. Black eyed peas probably don't possess powers to mystically bring me good luck, but I am choosing to be hopeful, and eating foods people eat in order to express hope is a way of reinforcing that to me. But I am not hopeful in the abstract. I will invest my time and energy to make my hopes reality, where I can, while trying not to think that everyone else is going to give up and abandon this effort. (I have worried about that a bit, this past week.)

I don't know that much about the readership of my blog. I know it significantly exceeds the number of people who comment, but that's about it. I would imagine at least some of you are probably feeling as unsteady and anxious as many of us are feeling these days, though. And I also know that for some of you seeing me here is a kind of comfort, a reassurance of normalcy while things change around you. So I didn't want to just post a meal today. I wanted to provide some solace where I can.

Here's an excerpt from something I wrote recently for a different, private audience that I think may be more broadly useful:

He will injure us. Some of us won't make it. I'm not even sure that the losses won't include me. And I am at peace in that, because once I reach such conclusions, it has a clarifying effect. That may or may not work for you. I hope it does, though, if you try it--if you commit to trying anyway, even if the system you fight against to save someone else ends up killing you, too.

As bad as things may get, this place you've made, that you'll continue to make, will still be a beacon of hope for people from worse places. I have regular contact with people for whom that's true. It's an occupational reality for me. Yesterday, I had a chat with a young man whose parents are desperate to flee his home country and, in spite of everything, dream of seeking asylum in the United States. He's trying to figure out how to save them, and this week didn't change his resolve. There are still worse places. People still want to come here, in spite of how bad it is, in spite of the warnings, in spite of the realities, because of us--because of YOU--because there is still so much more to us and so much good we can still do. And yes, some of those worse places will start to be in your own communities. But you can decide that there will still be better places than that, in the tiny spheres you can control. There will still be the places you create, the places you sustain, through your commitment and your refusal to give in to the terror that your enemies hope will paralyze you.

The number one rule in situations like this, from all I have ever read about it, is that you must not obey in advance. You must not let your imagination tell you what horrors will be heaped upon you and then freely comply to an order that was never actually given. 

And there is something else, too, that I've never said here: One of the things that has sustained my commitment to veganism has been, and has remained, my desire to resist the encroachment of tyranny over freedom. As Timothy Snyder has written, one of the keys to resisting is to be willing to stand out, to be willing to do something different than the people around you. If you can do this one thing, you can keep true to yourself while people around you slowly change to conform.

And it also gave me a good thing to do, a regular reminder, that I have ethics, and I can follow them. I have choices, and I can make them. I have agency, and I can exercise it.

I realize that for some of you, all of this may seem overly dramatic--or at least it could seem that way, because I really don't know who is out there reading these things. Maybe nobody is and the blog stats are all about people wanting to look at the pictures. And maybe I'm saying this to myself as much as anything. But regardless, I still want to say, that a symbolically hopeful meal reflects my commitment to myself and my own ideals.

And I hope, too, that enough of the rest of us will also remain committed to our ideals to make it count.