The seats were placed right next to a conveyor belt, close; with only one of us next to the belt to pick the plates we (I) wanted. I picked one, for myself. The next, also for myself. I never put one down entirely, for there was no plate to put those rice and raw fish down: there were no tanks, aquariums and rivers to make the quick escape. Dead raw fish. The sound of my gulps. Gulp. She turned the pages of the menu, quick to be drawn to pictures that deceive, and as I feared, we were establishing a unity, slightly apart, almost apart, touching, but with our hands busy with different aspect of the same table. A belt, a menu. The upper part for my hands to pick the cycle of life. The lower part, staring, as she picked the linear path of the inevitable and the inexorable. Gulp. White on brown. Together we formed the moving still picture of a cinematic set, like an unfinished cut, contained within the frozen frame, our independent behaviours and dependent symmetry. The word - Sashimi floated up into the air, escaped us, and like the absolutely alien sounds from a pious Zen monk who chants his εΎηε to the dead fish, I could not guess what those words mean. Raw rotten business - the chef beside me, with the belt in between us, is peeling the meat from a large mussel, an invalid, touched by an unforgiving blade that earlier cut a salmon fish. And so, together we created this haiku convergence, possessed by the precision of the moment - cutting, biting, swallowing, turning the pages of pictures. Sa-shi-ni ....We chose not to say it too quickly.
"Do you want anything?" I stare at the moving meat without looking at her, expecting no answer from her. I took another plate.
"Share with me?" She said without looking up from the images.
And the waitress came and took her order.
The rest of the dinner proceeded to be a comparison: between my efficient and mechanical rendering of raw dead fish as, well, just raw dead fish with soya sauce, and the life-revitalising stare of hers that made the dead resurrect. With a satisfying soft moan, and its fats once again burnt to the flaming tongue of hers, she devoured the tender life to participate as a sacrifice to Poseidon. Perhaps, the difference between my Sashimi and hers, was the simple unconscious gesticulations made prior to the final act of eating. Mine held in my right hand, hers quivering in her left hand, together in some strict accordance to an unspoken composition, we merged in the moment of savoury, lost in our own thoughts of how the fish tasted. Perhaps, the difference was really a difference in our ceremonies, the rituals to our eating and sharing of the same space.
"Nice?"
"Nice."
It's not easy to describe meat and how it tastes. Each bite has its own mix - a mix of salivating, a mix of the portion chewed, the precise cut of the teeth, the slow rot of the flesh, the strength exerted by the chef, and the company. And yet, the meat is not always our actual customer, though it is the great sacrifice that preserves us. It is the company. Who you sit with in the course of a meal. And this moment is grotesque and simultaneously sacred. It is when you open your mouth, and reveal the raw sight of your flesh, and salivate your way into a conversation, which is sometimes secondary to the main event; or vice versa. Whatever it is, to eat together is to be vulnerable to the gaze, the judgment, when the judge is equally the judged. And so, erect as we were, not facing each other, we faced each other by way of not facing each other - we knew, we were one in the same situation. And this is why such moments are precious to us. It is when a breathing can be laboured, a stain can be forgiven, a gasp or a sucking sound can be understood, and an eye contact possible since the next available sight below is not always pleasant to view. There is nothing more intimate (apart from sex) than eating a meal together. It is when the signs of suspicion, alarm, horror, of your nose smelling, your tongue licking, your canine teeth cutting, your forehead sweating, and the meat, yes, the meat sacrificed , enjoyed or hated but eaten. And we all can honour the food, for dying that we may live a bit longer (or choke to death over a moji ball).
And so we all assume our utterly human functions and isolate the meal to more than just a meal, even if we eat as beasts must. Again, between the belt and the menu, exercising our primal senses, and engaging in the most ancient of human acts and name our food in a mysterious language. But sometimes, it does not matter, because the food you eat, will churn itself out as another word, universal and necessary.
So what then could keep us from being just merely humans and beasts in one?
"Oh no, I'm full and pregnant."
"I'm pregnant too!"
In eating, we come very close to ourselves, our needs, our sensations, our proper and natural calls and pangs, and our reactions, affects and effects from start to end and its repetition. And it is during this moment that we produce the secret language of love; such that eating goes beyond the food that we eat, but convenes back as the unison of our teeth moving and the shape of our tongues changing, kissing passionately as if the seasoned meat will never be fully consumed; no, as if meat is always meant to be gone, shared and eaten. We merged, instead of eating each other, full after rituals and ceremonies of the human-animal. Food was gone from the plate, and we were once again placed in the convergence of mouth to mouth, eye to eye, nose to nose, person to person.
For that to happen, one must always just give food its due place - in between the belt and the menu; the salmon and the rice. Wa-sa-bi. (She loves it, I hate it.) In between lovers, friends, family, and strangers.
"Do you want anything?" I stare at the moving meat without looking at her, expecting no answer from her. I took another plate.
"Share with me?" She said without looking up from the images.
And the waitress came and took her order.
The rest of the dinner proceeded to be a comparison: between my efficient and mechanical rendering of raw dead fish as, well, just raw dead fish with soya sauce, and the life-revitalising stare of hers that made the dead resurrect. With a satisfying soft moan, and its fats once again burnt to the flaming tongue of hers, she devoured the tender life to participate as a sacrifice to Poseidon. Perhaps, the difference between my Sashimi and hers, was the simple unconscious gesticulations made prior to the final act of eating. Mine held in my right hand, hers quivering in her left hand, together in some strict accordance to an unspoken composition, we merged in the moment of savoury, lost in our own thoughts of how the fish tasted. Perhaps, the difference was really a difference in our ceremonies, the rituals to our eating and sharing of the same space.
"Nice?"
"Nice."
It's not easy to describe meat and how it tastes. Each bite has its own mix - a mix of salivating, a mix of the portion chewed, the precise cut of the teeth, the slow rot of the flesh, the strength exerted by the chef, and the company. And yet, the meat is not always our actual customer, though it is the great sacrifice that preserves us. It is the company. Who you sit with in the course of a meal. And this moment is grotesque and simultaneously sacred. It is when you open your mouth, and reveal the raw sight of your flesh, and salivate your way into a conversation, which is sometimes secondary to the main event; or vice versa. Whatever it is, to eat together is to be vulnerable to the gaze, the judgment, when the judge is equally the judged. And so, erect as we were, not facing each other, we faced each other by way of not facing each other - we knew, we were one in the same situation. And this is why such moments are precious to us. It is when a breathing can be laboured, a stain can be forgiven, a gasp or a sucking sound can be understood, and an eye contact possible since the next available sight below is not always pleasant to view. There is nothing more intimate (apart from sex) than eating a meal together. It is when the signs of suspicion, alarm, horror, of your nose smelling, your tongue licking, your canine teeth cutting, your forehead sweating, and the meat, yes, the meat sacrificed , enjoyed or hated but eaten. And we all can honour the food, for dying that we may live a bit longer (or choke to death over a moji ball).
And so we all assume our utterly human functions and isolate the meal to more than just a meal, even if we eat as beasts must. Again, between the belt and the menu, exercising our primal senses, and engaging in the most ancient of human acts and name our food in a mysterious language. But sometimes, it does not matter, because the food you eat, will churn itself out as another word, universal and necessary.
So what then could keep us from being just merely humans and beasts in one?
"Oh no, I'm full and pregnant."
"I'm pregnant too!"
In eating, we come very close to ourselves, our needs, our sensations, our proper and natural calls and pangs, and our reactions, affects and effects from start to end and its repetition. And it is during this moment that we produce the secret language of love; such that eating goes beyond the food that we eat, but convenes back as the unison of our teeth moving and the shape of our tongues changing, kissing passionately as if the seasoned meat will never be fully consumed; no, as if meat is always meant to be gone, shared and eaten. We merged, instead of eating each other, full after rituals and ceremonies of the human-animal. Food was gone from the plate, and we were once again placed in the convergence of mouth to mouth, eye to eye, nose to nose, person to person.
For that to happen, one must always just give food its due place - in between the belt and the menu; the salmon and the rice. Wa-sa-bi. (She loves it, I hate it.) In between lovers, friends, family, and strangers.
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