A brief philosophy of the meal.

Life, death, freedom, happiness, religion... These are philosophy's big questions. How can the meal be of any interest? Obviously we must eat to live, but unlike animals, humans make their own meals. They control their needs and appetites to feed their desire. Eating may be natural, necessary, and universal, but the ways we do so are always cultural, contingent, and particular. We often tend to reject what seems strange to us, even foreign. But if all tastes are in nature, they are also in culture. Meals bring us together in a spirit of sociability, equality, and fraternity. They invites us to reflect on ourselves, to know ourselves better.