Airport Eating
I am eating a rye smoked salmon egg and lettuce sandwich in Helsinki International Airport. I discovered during my PhD (and with help from TikTok) that a high fat, high protein breakfast is best for my brain and nervous system. Coffee is in order so ask for a cappuccino, not my usual, but it feels festive. I’ll be meeting with my Mum shortly after I arrive in London and cappuccinos are our favourite mid-expedition treat. On the way to Nordic Kitchen, I passed a Starbucks loudly advertising its latest confection. I didn’t go inside, doing so would be in violation of the BDS boycott* protesting the war, illegal occupation and genocide ongoing in Palestine. Their neon sign is highly effective though and I was unable to help imagining as I walked past what the ‘crème brulee your way’ UFP** extravaganza would taste like.
At the Nordic Kitchen I am two bites in when I remember that I have decided to say my own version of ‘grace’ before eating, in order say thank-you for my food. Clearly I have a ways to go, only remembering to say thank-you only because I am prompted by the fact that my mouth is already full. Growing up, saying grace was reserved for special occasions like Christmas dinner, Sunday roasts or time at my grandparents’ houses. In Cheshire, England, “Dear Lord, for what we are about to receive, may the lord make us truly thankful amen”. In Lambeg, Northern Ireland “God is great and God is good. Thank-you God for all our food” (if said with the appropriate accent, God and Food do in fact rhyme). Neither aligns with what I want my prayer to be. The first asks God to make me thankful as if I am not already, rather than being in gratitude for the food and the circumstances, relationships and labour that made the eating possible. The second is better, but the rhyme does not work in my voice, and I yearn for a more expressive prayer.
I am not religious. The Christian God I grew up around does not reflect the soul deep divinity to which I devote my spiritual practice. Back to my sandwich. I haven’t settled on formal words, but pray as I usually do, by sinking into the deep place inside me and feeling into the gratitude, wonder and curiosity that connecting with God brings me. In my gratitude and curiosity, I take seriously the food before me and already sending a thousand chemical messages through my mouth and into my blood. My saliva comes faster, my brain alight with ‘yes, food, finally!’. The bread is rough, the mayonnaise slickens my fingers, salt delights my tongue. Taking seriously my prayer, I wonder where and who my food came from. I consider about each component. Today I asked for my coffee with cow’s milk instead of the usual oat because I fancied a cappuccino and oat milk doesn’t foam well. So may ‘I’s. Which herd gave their milk for me? The salmon probably originated from an industrial fishery perhaps with added nitrate laden carcinogenic ‘smoke’. The eggs probably weren’t free range. My rye bread is likely laden with palm oil and gut washing emulsifiers. Perhaps not. I don’t know. I don’t usually eat this way, I try to strike a balance between the care-full selection of food that I buy and prepare and the anorexic impulse to restrict, monitor and control that this process can often disguise.
Before eating, I washed my hands, knowing that norovirus is not killed by hand-sanitizer. I think about the new bird flu strain and how only a tiny mutation in its genetic code could transform it into a virus of pandemic potential. The flu vaccine is cultured inside chicken eggs.
I wonder if I should be wearing a mask because the Covid-19 pandemic remains ongoing. Probably. I have a PhD in medical anthropology and I am in an airport. It’s empty in this part of the terminal. To get here you have to pass through border control. I went through the passport gate for all passports, I am not sure which of the three gates to use because I have two passports. The handsome border control guard tells me I can use any gate because I am an EU citizen. I am an EU citizen because my dad was born on the island of Ireland. Ireland is colonised by people who were born where I was born. The border guard smiled at me and answered my questions warmly. He called me ma’am gently when I went the wrong way through the gate and met my eyes warmly. I move freely through the world. I do not know what it is like to not do so. I am a beautiful thin white woman. My transgressions are met with largely with kindness and understanding; I expect nothing less. I am one of the very few people in the world who have this privilege. This is the case is madness. The people who were born where I was born make it so.
If I have more ease, I have more space. What must I do with the extra space afforded to me if I know this ease is unjustly gained? If I am what I eat, then what does that make me? If I say thank-you for my food, what am I thankful for? What does my gratitude ask me to give in reciprocity? If I am who came before me, then what do I owe to those who come after?
Question. Prayer. Action. Question. Prayer. Action.
** BDS or the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) Movement. Look it up and consider participating if you haven’t already. From palestinecampaign.org: “The Palestinian-led movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a global campaign initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organisations, including trade unions, student groups, women’s organisations and refugee networks. It calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions to be used to bring pressure on Israel to end its regime of settler-colonialism, military occupation and apartheid against Palestinians.
Similar to the BDS campaigns which helped put an end to apartheid in South Africa decades ago, today’s BDS movement provides a set of tactics for people around the world to make a meaningful difference by putting pressure on governments, corporations and institutions to end their complicity in Israel’s system of oppression against Palestinians.” Learn more here
*UPF refers to Ultra Processed Foods. I reccomend reading this book by Chris van Tulleken to learn more.