A Friend in West Virginia, Part Four

Let's face it, food is about as important as it gets for living things. Regular readers here already know I like to write about food and recipes from all over the world. Now, not everyone on the planet is a lover of such diversity in food, and my West Virginia friend is one of those "picky" eaters; "picky" being the word he frequently used to describe himself. The thing is, I'm not sure I've ever known anyone so "picky." He likes pizza, especially his own homemade, although he generally uses already made pizza dough, a convenience I also use many times, but not always. He likes French fries, plain home fries and pasta in butter. When I asked if he liked the pasta with cheese, he asked in reply, "Did I say anything about cheese?" It wasn't meant in any nasty way, and he was joking, although he most certainly meant just "pasta in butter," that's it. On the "plain" home fries, when I mentioned I make really good home fries, with several ingredients, he wrote back, "What's tough about making home fries? You cut up some potatoes and throw them into some hot oil, that's it!" You gotta admit, that's plain!

Now, if you're wondering what else was on his food list, that was really about it, but some conclusions can be drawn from things he told me he doesn't like: at various times he said, "I don't like soup, it's just flavored water." "I don't eat salads, I don't like vegetables, I don't eat fruit," and as for casseroles, "I've never eaten a casserole and never will .... it's all mixed in together, eeewww." And then there was his remark about chili, which he said looks like "vomit." When I once mentioned that I had stopped at a Chinese restaurant, he made the standard remark that I must like cat meat, but then he said how he NEVER eats food from such places (I took it that he meant Asian restaurants, but I didn't ask), because, "I read some things about how they fix food in those countries and NO WAY!" You can tell there's fear involved here and a mind focused on very negative things. We don't all like the same things, but if we allow our minds to become fixed on negatives, we deprive ourselves of some great experiences. Most of us will never get to visit other countries, but trying, or better yet, making, food from these places, even if not quite authentic, helps to bring us closer to how other people live.

If you add in my friend's very limited food choices with the things I've mentioned in the previous articles about him, you begin to see a picture of a man with some problems centered around fear and negativity.

The links to previous articles:

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-friend-in-west-virginia-part-one.html

 http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-friend-in-west-virginia-part-two.html

 http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-friend-in-west-virginia-part-three.html  

WORD HISTORY:
Fruit-This word, closely related to "fructose," and more distantly related to the verb "brook," ^ goes back to Indo European "bhrugh," which had the notion of "to use, to make use of;" thus also, "to have the enjoyment of." This gave Latin the verb "fruor," which meant, "to enjoy, take pleasure in," and one of its participle forms was "fructus," which was used as a noun directly meaning, "enjoyment," but also had a secondary meaning of, "produce; crops," that is, the source of the "enjoyment;" thus also, "profit." Old French, a Latin-based language, rendered the word as "fruit," and English borrowed the word in about the mid 12th Century and its meaning gradually became the narrowed "seed containing part of a plant, usually, but not always, having a sweet taste." The definition of the word and its actual application by the general public has long been in conflict, as most people think of tomatoes and cucumbers as being vegetables, but most science people (botanists) view both as "fruits." Close English relative German has two words for "fruit:" "Frucht," which was borrowed directly from Latin "fructus," and "Obst," a Germanic word and close relative of now archaic English "ovet" (earlier it was "ofett"), which was gradually replaced by "fruit." The further extended definition of "fruit" from the Latin meaning continues, "profit, proceeds;" thus, "the fruit(s) of one's labor."

^ The verb "brook," with the meaning of "to tolerate," came from the idea of "to enjoy food;" thus, "to be digestible;" thus, "to tolerate (stomach wise); thus, to the more general sense of "tolerate." The verb in more modern times, at least in the U.S., is often used in the negative sense, "I can't brook his drinking and gambling." "Brook," like its distant cousin "fruit," once meant "to use," and its close German cousin, "brauchen," still means "to use."