The Virtues of the Table: How to Eat and Think is a book about ethics by a very opinionated journalist, Julian Baggini. He’s really quite preachy. But I still enjoyed reading the first half of it, because I like his way of challenging commonly-held ideas. The second half was a bit tedious, rehashing a lot of concepts that are often mentioned about food and cuisine, and I kind of speed-read it.
Here are some quotes that appealed to me. (Note, the Kindle edition doesn’t have page numbers).
“The idea that novelty is a cardinal virtue in food can only emerge in a culture where the food tradition is weak and the daily menus not packed with favourites passed down the generations. Routine need not lead to boredom, but ironically, the constant pursuit of novelty can. There is nothing more tedious than culinary innovation for the sake of it.”
“In the 1950s and 1960s the Spanish costas were ruined by tasteless developments built to attract mainly British holiday-makers in search of a cheap break. Now, behind the beaches, the foothills are being ruined to provide tasteless food to, often British, consumers in search of cheap meals. The Spanish have blown their inheritance in search of quick rewards.”
“Excessive rigidity about the desire to cook everything from scratch is not a character trait I wanted to reinforce. It would be wrong to become moralistic about what is in essence a luxury. Before the widespread use of domestic ovens, the poor did little home cooking as we would now recognise it. In the slums of the developing world, takeaways and simple restaurants are the cheap option, not an indulgence, since it is more expensive to buy the fuel to cook at home for a single family than it is for one person to cook for many. In the modern West, doing a lot of home cooking is the privilege of the time-rich, or at least time-flexible.”
Time Marches On
The essays in this book were collected for publication in 2014, meaning they were written and in some cases published elsewhere earlier than that. I’m surprised at how many of the ideas were being explored in detail back then (as I recall) but have gone dormant now, though they would be just as relevant. I think the whole question of ethical eating was discussed much more a while ago than it is now. When was the last time I saw the term "food miles" and heard all the fuss about eating local? No longer an obsession, I guess.
I’m also surprised at how several of the “facts” known a decade ago are now very much in question, especially those theories of weight control and hunger that have been demolished by the widespread use of GLP drugs like Wegovy.
“Why do people seem to think that people ought to lose weight by willpower alone?” asks the author when discussing weight-loss surgery. He argues that such surgery should be a perfectly respectable and unquestioned procedure, but he didn't think it was accepted.
The same judgy question comes up for people on weight loss drugs now, but the whole issue has shifted as it’s become apparent that the control of food thoughts and hunger is simply much more difficult — or not possible — for many people, whose problem can now be solved by drugs, not surgery with all its risks. Reading the viewpoint from a decade ago sheds light on how much things have changed because of effective weight-loss drugs.
I wish I knew what inspired me to get this book! The author is still producing many articles, so maybe he mentioned it himself? I can’t really recommend it, though it has some good chapters.
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| Julian Baggini (Wikipedia) |
Review © 2025 mae sander
