November 2009

Food and Culture, Life and Death. 

This essay was first published in Athens Food and Culture November 2009 and is Copyright Will Leamon.

In the Spring of 1996 I was twenty-one and in trouble. Nothing life threatening, just that I had dropped out of college (for the first time) and felt something dying within me. Now for the longest time I thought it was 'the theatre' that had been my passion for almost 10 years that was at risk. But it was something far deeper than that and far more dangerous since I had no idea what on earth it was.

I explained this(in a fashion as I am not the most articulate man in the world now and this was almost 15 years ago) to my Uncle Antony, who was sitting on his couch 3500 miles away in south London. His answer? You better get on a plane my dear boy. Fortunately for me my parents agreed and a few weeks later the wheels touched-down at Heathrow and Uncle Anton stood by the baggage claim waiting to collect. For the next month I would crash at his apartment and roam the streets of London and while I had a lot of adventures the thing I remember most was Sunday Dinner.

Food in my family is something one shows respect. It has an acknowledged history and culture that is so definite it almost transcends we mere mortals who make and consume it and becomes an entity in an of itself. To sum up it is the family motto that food is someways divine. Uncle Antony hated his job but loved to cook. On those Sundays he would pull out all the stops serving meals that were literally fit for kings. Gorgeous wines, exotic appetizers, a main course that was essentially incomprehensible to a 21 year old but would strike at the very heart of your being and all followed by a dessert that would make the world feel as if it had slipped back into the garden of Eden. All of this was prepared for just two sometimes three people. The next morning Antony would wake up at the crack of dawn and take the tube to his office to resume his duties as an international business lawyer – and be miserable..

Whereas most people cook in order to impress their friends or essentially show off to the world, Antony took a different approach. For my Uncle literally gave himself over to cooking and he would let it define him instead of the other way around. I realized that food and cooking are mankind's first true art. It was at the dinner table that we discovered that one can surrender themselves to the needs and desires of others. That story-telling and the places where those stories are told are truly enlightening and help bring meaning to our otherwise pointless existences as hot-shot international business lawyers. This is the meaning and function of all art. It is something you surrender yourself to and wait hopefully for the results. Think about this the next time you settle down to watch your favorite movie or TV show.

Those dinners saved my life in a way. I realized through a haze of food and wine that my whole artistic life up till that moment had been a relationship of me trying to define art. Antony's Sunday dinners challenged that and made me realize that art (and theatre) are not mine to forge and mold into my own image. Instead art forges me and helps me discover who I am. I left London not only with my artistic-self still alive but reinvigorated and willing to accept a life long journey of discovery of others and myself.

Now as we mourn the loss of dear Uncle Antony and prepare to commit him to his final well deserved rest I am brought back to that Sunday dinner table and I am reinvigorated once again. I have met a lot of surprises in the last 15 years but one thing that I am not surprised by is the fact that I am still committed to theatre and that I write for a magazine called Athens Food and Culture. Everyday opens a new chapter in that saga of discovery and for that I will always praise and cherish my dear Uncle Antony. Rest in peace my friend.