MANILA, Philippines -- There’s a saying that “Humans used to eat to live, but now we live to eat”. In my case, I was brought up to eat to live. In my childhood home, meals were always home cooked. I don’t remember ever going to a restaurant, except for wedding parties. Food was just a functional fuel. How did that change? Well, the change started when I went to Oxford. Almost every night I had two dinners. First there was the free dinner in my college. Then late at night, a group of friends used to meet in a cheap Indian restaurant to eat and talk. The food was not great but the cooks used fresh spices which ensured delicious flavours.  In England, even 50  years ago, every town had at least one Indian and one Chinese restaurant, so we Brits became used to a variety of tastes which has stayed with us to this day and made us adventurous about trying different types of cooking. As I became more prosperous, and became used to expensive business lunches and dinners, my palate was educated and, yes, you could say that I came to live to eat.

How come humans, unlike all other animals, can live to eat? I blame the invention of cooking. Even if you are not hungry the smell of roasting meat is guaranteed to get the digestive juices going. From earliest history, gathering together to eat has been a central part of our society. If you are interested in the history of food, you can read on line some ancient cookbooks, from Ancient Rome and from Medieval Europe and the Arab empire. These give you a feel for how much and how well rich people ate in the old days.

Nowadays, there is a real choice between quantity and quality of food. The big quantity side is represented by the all-you-can-eat buffet. I try to stay away from these, because I just can’t resist temptation and eat far too much, even though the quality is not great. On the other side, high quality dining is represented by chefs’ “tasting” menus – multiple courses of tiny dishes paired with perfect wines. Sometimes even these can be too much. A journalist friend of mine recently went to a charity dinner cooked by famous chefs, with 10 or 12 courses. I asked how it went and he said. “It was hell – after six courses I already felt I was dying.” So I asked why he did not simply leave the food. “You amateurs don’t understand”, he replied “I am a professional – it was my job to eat the food – anyhow it was delicious.”

Isn’t it an odd world that we live in?