Food: The agony & ecstasy

Unfixed video

"I survived and flourished in COVID because of peanut butter. I rediscovered peanut butter as so nurturing and sensual and every morning I learned that I need to ask someone to feed me exquisitely slowly, so slowly it’s painful for other people, but that’s the way I really love to enjoy my food—really slowly. So I take a spoonful of my crunchy peanut butter, then I take a sip of hot, bitter coffee, and I just let the peanut butter melt in the roof of my mouth. It's a weird, very personal ritual and I love it. It feeds me so much—the texture, the thickness, the sight. Everything about it is a total, sensual experience." - Elizabeth Jameson

For many, food plays a significant role in holiday traditions. And even as interpretations of these traditions evolve and mature (thankfully), the fragrant, savory abundance of breaking bread is still central to our shared rituals of gratitude, remembering, hope and love.

So with the holidays upon us, there’s no better time than now to talk about food. Food and the unfixed, that is.

I know what you might be thinking. This is going to be yet another episode about nutrition—an anti-inflammatory, rolled in chia seed, kale manifesto.

But for the unfixed, food is also community. Food is comfort. Food is ritual, meditation, communication and joy. It can also be isolation and pain —a plastic bag of nutrients administered through a feeding tube or a burrito that sends us to the ER. For some, a trip to the grocery store requires a nap in the parking lot before safely driving home. For others, restaurants with bright lights and noisy crowds can be nightmarish. And of course, we can't talk about food without addressing our culture's obsession with it. Our dysfunctional ideals of beauty. Our food dogma. Our privilege. In this Unfixed episode, we hear it all. 

If I’ve learned one, cardinal truth living unfixed, it's this: the two-headed monster of adversity is intrinsic to our vitality. One head spits fire. The other, sings. The agony can't be severed from the ecstasy. So this holiday season, let's lean into the full catastrophe and celebrate this paradox of our existence, starting with food. 

So without further ado, I present, FOOD: THE AGONY & ECSTASY. 

(And when you’re finished watching, queue up Unfixed podcast: Sustaining Ourselves, Sustaining Others for a deeper conversation on sustenance between award-winning author

Elissa Altman

and Elizabeth Jameson.)

Are you new to Unfixed? If you’d like to read the story that began it all, I invite you to read my serialized memoir. I post chapters every Sunday and you can catch up by clicking the button below. Thank you for being here!