What's for Dinner?

I was a Classics major in college. I think about it at the funniest times, like this morning as I rummaged through the cupboards to find ANYTHING for breakfast. While I tried to persuade V to choose between popcorn or canned manderin oranges for the most important meal of the day, I remembered the topic that consumed me for a whole year in graduate school.



The lofty title of my master's thesis was "What's for Dinner? Issues of Food and Control in the Cena Trimalchionis of Petronius's Satyricon". My argument was that the imagery of this particular portion of the Satyricon deliberately equated food--access to, preparation and presentation of--with control. Throughout this famous section of the bawdy Roman tale, the host, Trimalchio, served outrageously constructed dishes at a lavish banquet. The more elaborate the presentation, the more subserviant were the consumers and the more control the master exerted. Other vignettes revealed less powerful players serving or providing less complicated meals.

Whatever.

I really enjoyed writing that paper and I even tried to expore the theme throughout the entire longer work, but every time I set out to complete my thesis, I got pregnant with another child. Three kids later I finally changed my major.


It occured to me this morning (as I looked behind the cans of coconut milk and green chilis) that if I tested this thesis in my own life-- measured my own power by the presentation and preparation of food-- that I'd test out with about as much control as a plastic bag in a windstorm.



So I threw together a jelly sandwich(no peanut butter) on the last hamburger bun (the only bread in the house) and fed the kids ramen for breakfast. I never was very comfortable being in a position of power anyway.

What do you cook when there is nothing in the cupboards?

Do you have a power meal that makes you feel in control?