CityView Magazine

8 | October 2019 O F A I T H Radishes and croutons and community BY MIKE GARRETT O ne of the wondrous things about food is that it is always on the thin edge of being something more. It doesn't have to be. Ketchup on the tie, crumbs in lap, while eating lunch in the car is oen all there is to it. Like much of life, eating can be a mindless moment while we rush on to another mindless moment. But the simplest meal can become that grain of sand in which we come to see the whole world. I've been thinking lately about salad – an artful combination of raw ingredients in which the whole manages to be more than the sum of its parts. I've not always had such a glorified view of salad. When I was a child, salad was the opportunity to pick through the bowl, avoiding the many parts I didn't like while I collected in a pile the few that I did. Radishes and cucumbers always stood among the rejected while croutons got preferential treatment. But honestly a great salad is an accomplishment. rowing a bunch of diverse, raw vegetables into a bowl doesn't guarantee a salad anymore than putting a diverse group of people in a room guarantees an agreement. Careful combination, artful chopping and thoughtful blending is essential. For most of us even something more is required. We'll need the right dressing, the secret sauce that manages to unite the whole without overwhelming the parts. Let's not forget the toasted croutons and crumbled bacon. Now that's a salad, humble components combined in a glorious outcome. In the Christian tradition the Bible oen sees food, even the humblest kind, as being on the thin edge of becoming something more. Grapes are the fruit of a Promised Land for those who have eyes to see it. e mysterious manna, gathered and eaten in the wilderness by the Israelites, is evidence of a God who can be trusted to provide. e foods of the Passover feast each tell the story of a God who frees an enslaved people. Bread and wine in the hands of Jesus become a meal where God is present in the world, a table where sin is forgiven, hope is restored and the Kingdom of God is promised. It is the most amazing sort of wisdom which says you can remember the story of your life with what you put in your mouth. Back to that salad for a moment. I'll admit I have yet to find one in the Bible. But is it too much to hope that a God who shows up in the reality of bread and wine, might speak through a mouthful of tossed salad, revealing in its artful unity God's divine intentions for raw and diverse people like us? Is tossed salad something that happens only in the kitchen? Or does it reveal God's intention for this city? Does God intend a tossed salad country? Or does God intend to Cooking is all about people. Food may be the only universal thing that really has the power to bring everyone together. No matter what culture, everywhere around the world, people get together to eat. – Guy Fieri

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