It happens every year during the holidays. That's right, 'tis the season of public food. Even if commercialism were to up and disappear from our culture and abscond to the islands, I would know the holidays arrived simply because of this phenomenon. Public food ranks right up there with Christmas-decorations-next-to-Halloween-candy as an early sign that the holidays are on their way.
I spotted public food just today. Watch out, it's everywhere. Public food makes appearances at the doctor's office. It beckons to you from mom and pop retail operations and turns up on every last reception desk in the city. I am quitting public food this year (and gifting locally, but maybe that is a topic for next week).
Public food is hard to resist, and it knows it. Public food laughs in the face of studies demonstrating that caloric restriction results in a longer life span. Public food knows all about the equation between less food and a lower body temperature. Public food knows, in its heart of hearts, that no one really wants to be cold and hungry for the sake of a few more years. I can play that game; I am eschewing public food this month (bless me).
Public food has a year-long background presence and comes in many forms. Starlight mints qualify as public food, although they are evocative of absolutely nothing suggestive of starlight. Andes mints? Yup, public. Even though I suspect they were invented by a guy named Andy who decided to get fancy on us. Even those little pastel colored candies usually found in a dish with a spoon (and which have a cringe-worthy nickname unprintable here) are officially listed in the government database dubbed the National Public Food Registry (www.NPFR.com)
But at Christmas time (Oh!), at Christmas time public food comes out of hiding and runs smack into the middle of the town square, where it does a jig for all to see on the brickwork in front of the North Church.
During the month of December public food is elevated to an entirely new level. It strives to achieve 'public food as art form' status by showing up at all the coolest places in town, including at Le Club Boutique, the Nahcotta Gallery and of course the Button Factory open house. It hobnobs by rubbing shoulders with locals and visitors, the comfortable and the impoverished, the breeders and the non-breeders alike. Indeed, it endeavors mightily all month long to be public-food-everyman.
During the month of December, public food even rousts itself out of bed in the morning and (gasp) goes to work. Only during the month of December, however. Public food wouldn't think of making an appearance in a radiology suite in, say, May.
Before the politically correct police make a traffic stop, I offer an aside. I don't mean to be exclusive of other traditions by referring to the Christian incarnation of the month ahead of us. I am simply used to calling the season by that name. I could easily sanitize and call it any of the following: holiday, season, jubilee, fest or gala. Alternatively, I could take the inclusive tack and refer specifically to Hanukkah, Rohatsu, Ramadan, Kwanzaa or Yule. With the exception of Rohatsu, there is a gift giving expectation.
And where there is a gift giving expectation, one is sure to find ...; public food. Public food and gift giving go hand-in-hand and have a long and well documented history. In fact, they go back together as far as the mists of antiquity. There is some evidence (fossilized of course) that early Lucy in the caves put out a dish of pebbles for guests to munch on during an ancient celebration. Unfortunately, the fossil evidence also shows that the party was crashed by a wooly mammoth with really big feet and an appetite for proto-humans. Oh well. Sad, but at least this early hostess informed the scientific record as it relates to public food.
And so, public food will prevail this year, as it has in years past. There is, however, one contemporary and burdensome worry when it comes to public food. Although baseball season is over, contract negotiation outcomes are in the news. And I fear that one of our very own BoSox'ers is going to encounter major challenges this season.
Poor Curt Schilling. How will he manage to make it through this month's random weigh in? Can Curt even pass by public food, do you think? And what kind of public food do you think is left out for the masses in his world? Lobster? Coq Au Vin? Caviar? What will he do without that extra $333,333 if he goes up by even a quarter of a pound?
And quarter pounds count, let me tell you.
Suzanne used to look forward to public food all year long. Not so much any more. Detail your preferences to suzanne.danforth@gmail.com.
