Granta 52: Food The Vital Stuff

An aphorism: you are what you eat. A second aphorism: the discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star. A third aphorism: dessert without cheese is like a pretty woman with only one eye.

The French philosopher-gourmet Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote all three almost two centuries ago. Like most aphorisms they have the cracked ring of the nearly true. Brillat-Savarin was on surer ground - ground as hard as ungrated Parmesan - when he wrote:

The world is nothing without life, and all that lives takes nourishment.

So: you are what you eat, and if you don't eat, you aren't.

This issue of Granta examines the vital stuff. Food as indulgence, certainly (gastro-pornography - blinis with caviar, roast puffin), but also food as a taboo, a cruelty, a repulsion, a desperate need, a failed sex aid, and a way of earning your living.