5 Delights of Food

Have you thought lately about what you love about food, or what about food delights you?

If not, I don’t think you’re alone. All too often, we’re more encouraged to think about carbs or calories or points, or to feel bad about wanting a certain food, rather than celebrating what we enjoy.

I thought about this after reading The Book of Delights by Ross Gay. As the title suggests, Gay decided to spend a year writing about what delighted him, and it ranged far and wide, including nicknames, babies, and birdsong, to name just a few.

In the introduction, he also commented that he started to develop a muscle for finding delight, and I felt a little of that even by reading the book. Once you start focusing on something, you notice it more, and I started thinking about all the mundane things in our lives that truly are delightful – and of course, food is a big part of that.

So, with that in mind, here are five things I find delightful about food.

Wonderful scents

I do a lot of my cooking and baking for the week on Fridays, and if I go out to run an errand, take a walk, or even check the mail, as soon as I step back inside, I’m greeted by the wonderful smells of food. Those scents can linger, too, for quite a while after I’m done cooking or baking.

These smells are a big part of what makes a house feel like home, at least to me. Nor am I the only one. I’ve heard that real estate agents use the smell of freshly baked cookies to help sell homes, though I don’t know how common that is.

But it’s very true that much of our enjoyment of food comes from the smell. If you’ve ever had a stuffed-up nose, you’ll know you don’t appreciate food nearly as much. And when you can start smelling food again, it truly is delightful.

Appealing sight

Not all food is pretty, but most of the time you can find a way to make your meal look appealing. And that matters, since appearance is one of the things we appreciate about food. That’s why we have the saying that people “eat with their eyes first”.

There’s a reason fancy restaurants spend time on plating and deciding which plates to use. That can influence how you think about the food and even how much you enjoy it.

And, if you’re paying attention while eating, you may even eat more slowly with a nice plate, or at least more neatly. I know that happens with me sometimes when I use one of my prettier plates because I want to maintain a delightful appearance as much as possible.

Variety of textures

One of the other things I love about food is the textures, sometimes multiple textures in one dish. For example, take a grilled cheese sandwich.

Done right, the outside of the bread is a crispy, golden brown that crunches when you bite into it, while the interior of the bread remains soft. The cheese, meanwhile, is gooey and creamy and melty, a wonderful contrast to the crunch of the bread.

Sometimes a food is all one texture, like mashed potatoes smooth and creamy (at least, if they’re done right), or carrots being crunchy. What I delight in most is having some combination of soft, chewy, crunchy, and smooth in a meal. That makes it extra satisfying.

Delicious tastes

Now we come to taste, which is probably what most people think of first when it comes to food. And with good reason because liking a food mostly does come down to taste.

One of my favorite tastes these days is my Sungold cherry tomatoes, fresh off the vine. I have some red cherry tomatoes, too, but the Sungolds are extra sweet and flavorful. They’re a bright, tasty burst of freshness and sweetness, and I can (and do) eat them by the handful.

We all have our own opinions about what foods taste best, whether they’re sweet or savory, salty or spicy, or some combination of those. But I think we can all agree that the taste of some foods does bring delight.

Connections

Finally, food also helps us connect with each other. Sharing a meal, or preparing food, with someone is a powerful way to bond, and those connections linger. For example, I still remember canning green beans with my mom in the summer. She liked to put up lots of beans for the winter because they were one of her favorites.```

More recently, a friend and I have developed a tradition of taking each other out for ice cream or gelato for our birthdays. We went for her birthday a couple of weeks ago, and while the ice cream was tasty, it was also nice to sit on a bench on a warm summer day with a cooling sea breeze and visit with a friend.

Those connections are so important, and they can also bring a lot of delight.

Many delights of food

Food has so much that can delight us, from smell to taste to texture and more. We may not always take time to think about it, but it can be good to take the time to remember what we truly love and find delightful about food.

And now that I’ve shared some of my delights, if there’s anything you find delightful about food, I’d love to hear about it!