Food as a proxy.

I was chatting with an old friend over a beer last night. He works with the Government of Canada in the Foreign Service office. Well, everyone was repatriated so he’s now home. Living with his folks, because his house is rented out to a very nice family who expected he wouldn’t be needing it for another couple of years. His wife and daughter are also with his folks. Good thing it’s a big house. It’s my understanding that as wonderful as that situation might be in an abstract form, it sets up many opportunities for interpersonal friction.

Our conversation was wide-ranging, as they always seem to be, but he did comment on something that has me thinking: He brought up the notion of food being a proxy, as he had been spending a fair amount of time in the kitchen, cooking for his own family and his parents.

A proxy is, according to dictionary.com:

proxy [prok-see]

noun, plural prox·ies.

1. the agency, function, or power of a person authorized to act as the deputy or substitute for another.
2. the person so authorized; substitute; agent.
3. a written authorization empowering another person to vote or act for the signer, as at a meeting of stockholders.
4. an ally or confederate who can be relied upon to speak or act in one’s behalf.

I saw these definitions and I thought, “Oh boy, where to start?”

Thankfully, it was a lighthearted conversation we were having, but his thesis was that in cooking for his family (and especially his parents) and in making food that they were obliged to eat, it set up a power dynamic that caught him off guard.

On the one hand, it’s dinner. We all have to eat.

On the other hand if you’re cooking for another, what is the message that the food is replacing?

Man, now I’m in way over my head. There are two issues here. One is what is the food acting as a proxy for in terms of inter-personal relationships? The other issue is what the food is saying? Or what the creation of the food is saying.

I’m staying with the first one for this post.

Thinking about myself, because that’s what I do so well… There are a few people in my life where food has played a major part. And in every one it has been (as far as I can tell) positive. No one used food as a weapon. No one used it as an improper tool to control a young, foolish boy. (Well, except when it was something like profiteroles or a nice piece of perfectly cooked salmon and then it was decidedly Pavlovian, but let’s agree that was done in the name of science and just move on.)

For me, food really isn’t used as a proxy, as far as I can think. It is used to communicate. I’ll deal with that in a later post.

But as a proxy? I don’t think so. But I can see how you could use it as such – there was an anecdote I read about years ago: A young woman was returning from her studies in Canada to her European home at Christmastime – I can’t remember specifically where it was. As she stepped out of the taxi in front of her childhood home, both of her parents greeted her with their own, individual, versions of the same dish. Jetlagged and exhausted, not to mention freezing, they insisted she try both versions then and there on the front porch… …and then decide which of the two was better. Can you imagine being welcomed home by that?

The food was acting as a proxy in that story, for sure. But I shudder to imagine what role it was actually playing. I prefer my food to be a proxy for just how much I enjoy my family and how much I appreciate them. There is no better way to show how you feel about someone than by cooking them a meal they will love.