Sin Is In
Two new books ask, what's so sinful about gluttony, anyway?...which is different from being a gourmand. In the words of Boston Globe reviewer Jim Holt:

St. Thomas Aquinas -- a hefty fellow himself, as it happens -- declared that gluttony had "six daughters": "excessive and unseemly joy" are the first two, followed by "loutishness, uncleanness, talkativeness, and an uncomprehending dullness of mind." Others have claimed that gluttony paves the way to lechery. "When the belly is full to bursting with food and drink, debauchery knocks at the door," wrote the medieval German monk Thomas a Kempis. Now, there may be some validity to the "drink" part of that: After seven Cosmopolitans, people will do just about anything. But does a gargantuan repast really put one in the mood for fornication? More likely it conduces to slumbrous chastity.

In Dante's "Inferno," the gluttonous are consigned to an even lower circle of hell than the lecherous because of the sheer animal grossness of their vice. Gluttony may have seemed bestial to the Carthaginian church father Tertullian, who complained of the mass belching that soured the air at great Roman feasts. But there is more to this alleged vice than just stuffing one's face. Pope Gregory the Great identified five aspects to gluttony; eating too soon, too delicately, too expensively, too greedily, and too much. And no one has accused Americans of eating "too delicately." In fact, it may be our very lack of delicacy at the table that gets us into trouble on the scale.

Is there a link between quality of national cuisine and fatness?

The European countries that have the nicest food -- Italy, Switzerland, and France -- also have the lowest adult obesity rates, below 10 percent according to the latest figures from the International Obesity Task Force. The countries that have, shall we say, less nice food -- Greece, Finland, and Britain -- have the highest adult obesity rates, in excess of 20 percent.

Even in the age of celebrity chefs and the Food Network, there is still far more fuss over food in France than there is here in the United States. What American expatriate in Paris, for example, has not had to endure an excruciating dinner-party debate over the best wine to pair with white asparagus? (Viognier, of course.)

If an "inordinate interest in food" is the mark of gluttony, as Prose herself says, then aren't the French as much a culture of gluttons as we are? They would, of course, prefer the nicer term gourmand, which has come to mean someone who loves food and eats for pleasure (even though la gourmandise remains the word for the deadly sin). The most discerning and cerebral of gourmands might claim the honorific of gastronome -- like the great Brillat-Savarin, who famously said that the discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a new star.

The French play up the epicurean side of gluttony, eating daintily and expensively; we play up the bestial side, eating excessively and greedily. In the eyes of Pope Gregory the Great, as he looks down upon us from heaven, we are all sinners.

Actually, eating a tiny, seared piece of foie gras with blackberry sauce shows respect for existence in a way that eating a huge, tasteless plate of over-processed crap never can. Americans are fat because we (and I use this "we" loosely, having reformed my American eating habits after many trips to France)...we eat huge portions of tasteless, hormone and chemical-laced crap, and don't move off our fat, gluttonous asses after this Divine-sized "pleasure." (The ridiculous, scientifically stupid "fat-free" movement also has much to do with the ever-expanding American ass -- since those who eat food without fat never feel full.) The French literally love to eat -- which makes them food lovers -- as compared to gluttonous Americans, who are engaged in a lifelong gastronomic gang-bang.

(via Arts & Letters Daily)