The Judgment of Paris Forum - View Single Post - Nigella Lawson: ''The Joys of Food''

It's been far too long since we made mention of Nigella Lawson on this site. Just a few months ago, she released a new cookbook, and my goodness, the way in which she describes the pleasures of food, for women, are heavenly.

Those who called for a plus-size Miss Italy, saying that such a winner "should not be an erotic figure," haven't read Nigella. The idea of a voluptuous vixen indulging herself, in the way that Nigella describes, is the epitome of feminine sensuality.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news...15875-22521463/

Just listen to what she says:

Quote:

Nigella Lawson says diets are a fat lot of good

29/08/2010

Domestic Goddess Nigella Lawson is urging women to give up going on diets.

The curvy TV chef says they worry too much about their weight - and she believes eating fattening food leads to a better life.

Nigella said at the launch of her new cookbook yesterday: "The joys of food are so great that I really do believe that those who cannot allow themselves to wallow in them have lesser lives.

"It's all about savouring food without guilt or shame and not thinking that less flesh - either on your plate or your skeleton - is better."

Applause. I think Nigella is promoting something more than a cookbook here. She is advancing a philosophy - a philosophy to counter the "aesthetics of guilt" and the "minimalism" that have imprisoned society for almost a century. This is Maximalism. This is the freedom, for women, to eat whatever they want and as much as they want. Not to be ashamed of their naturally insatiable appetites, but to revel in them and to take pleasure in indulgence, knowing that doing so makes them happier and more physically attractive.

The Daily Mail concurrently ran a longer article under Nigella's own name.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you...-principle.html

Every word is gold:

Quote:

Nigella's pleasure principle

By Nigella Lawson

7th September 2010

There’s something intensely satisfying about cooking and eating, says Nigella Lawson – whether it’s feeding family or snatching a greedy treat – and the kitchen, her ‘messy, ramshackle sanctuary’, is no place for guilt or self-denial. Here, introducing her new cookbook, she explains what the kitchen means to her, and why food is not just for body but for soul, too.

I often feel that those of us who like cooking get an unfairly good press: we are hailed as loving, warm and nurturing. And it’s true that I am – to a fault – a feeder; there is scarcely a person who can leave my kitchen without something wrapped in foil to eat later, and just thinking about what I might cook for the next meal gives me a surge of absolute if greedy delight.

But sometimes I wonder if the interest I pay to what I might be giving someone to eat is more selfish than anything else. Of course, I want to give pleasure, but life in the kitchen is, for me, as much about personal gratification.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this is not such a bad thing...I appreciate more and more that enjoying what makes you happy in the everyday is crucially important, and that self-denial (never my forte, let’s be frank) is not the path to virtue but to unhappiness.

So yes, for me the kitchen is not merely a room, but a pleasure palace, an interior garden of sensual delights...whether it be the gorgeous, fatty richness of some long-braised belly of pork, or the melting intensity of a chocolate lime cake, dolloped shamelessly with margarita cream.

Besides, I do think that enjoying food is a way of celebrating being alive. People often say that no one lies on their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time at the office and what I’d add is that I am sure that no one lies on their deathbed saying I’m so glad I turned down the bread, the cheese, the pudding, so thrilled I spent all those years on a diet.

We are all shaped by different things in our lives, but the memory of my perpetually dieting, self-denying mother saying – once she knew she had only a few weeks to live – that this was the first time she had eaten what she wanted and could enjoy it, is still shocking to me. She was such a fantastic cook and actually understood food and the joys it could bring, but the lesson I have learnt from her self-inflicted deprivation is as much a part of her legacy to me as is My Mother’s Praised Chicken, which is the fundamental, actually essential, dish to emanate from my kitchen, as it did from hers.

I feel I eat very healthily, just a lot. So yes, I allow butter, cream and other unfashionable delights into my recipes.

I don’t eat cake every day, but when I do make one I don’t feel bad about eating a slice; having said that, even food that I can’t quite make a case for, such as crisps, I am grateful for. In the kitchen I may be more of an Italophile than a Francophile, but still I cleave to the French saying, ‘Everything in moderation – even moderation’. I may have immoderate appetites, but that gives me immoderate pleasure. And for that I am greedily grateful.

Listen to the words that she so joyfully reclaims: "selfish," "personal gratification," "immoderate pleasure," "greed." She is in tune with the themes of this Web site. These are quintessentially feminine principles.

It's tragic that we live in an age that has brainwashed women into denying themselves the food that they naturally crave, an age that has programmed them with artificial guilt. I hope that many women take Nigella's words to heart, not only as recipes for creating delectable repasts, but as recipes for personal happiness as well.