RE: Food

Let's not forget that the olive branch is the universal symbol for peace.
The reason for that, I was told, is that it takes an olive tree 11 years to
bring fruit. Therefore, a people must have been at peace for some time in
order to have olives.
"middle-eastern trivia" tina

>
>Interesting, Olives traditionally have been used to make anointing oil for
>prophets and for healing and it is used as lamp oil and as a symbol for the
>Holy Spirit in parables. It is what some virgins lack and some have in
>that
>parable of the returning bridegroom. Olive trees have been used allot
>along
>these lines and many Jews believe that the Olive tree is a symbol for the
>nation and people of Israel or at least Judah. Olive trees are usually
>associated with grafting in live wood and pruning off dead wood. This goes
>beyond food in the day to day sense but if you remember after Jesus fasted
>for 40 days one of the first temptations was food but his reply was not a
>condemnation of food but its insufficiency. Some mystics immolate the body
>with starvation but the most striking holy men were deeply involved with
>food like Elijah being fed by crows. the feeding of the 5000, and of course
>manna. If you remember the Temple ordinances, portions of the sacrifices
>offered to God were given to the priests as their food allotment. Now
>there
>are abuses in appeals to its sufficiency and to its valuelessness but it is
>significant in that food reminds us daily of our external dependence on
>things to live. It may be a sort of chain or manacle but it is one that we
>are unable to function without and maybe to those who can it becomes
>jewelry, adornments, pleasure in proportion. A pig that shuns food for
>other things dies and the pig that gorges dies, no absurdity but design
>boundaries, proportion.
>
>Daniel
>
>
> I agree, there is definitely something interesting with food in
>Salinger. One thing which always pops up is olives
>
>- Franny eats nothing in the whole meal with Lane but the olive from his
>martini, which she asks for even though she doesn't really want it, then is
>obliged to eat it 'with apparent relish'
>
>- Sybil has a thing about olives in Bananafish. Again, I think she gets a
>martini olive, this time from her mother's martini. She also talks about
>olives with Seymour "Do you like olives? DO you like to chew candles?" and
>he replies "Who doesn't?"
>
>- In one of the early pre-Catcher stories, which tells the bit of the story
>where Holden goes back home and talks with Phoebe, there is also a baby
>sister, Viola, who has a thing about olives.
>
>I'm not sure why olives should be this significant, maybe it is partly a
>class thing because all the characters are the kind of people who would
>drink martinis as a regular thing and have lots of cocktail olives. Also, i
>guess, they are not really very nourishing, even so, the olive in Franny is
>too much for her.
>
>Other foodie things
>
>- Holden doesn't eat much, mainly malted milk and swiss cheese sandwiches.
>In fact, I'm not sure he ever finshes a meal in the whole book. He comments
>on the fact that he doesn't eat and has been told he should build himself
>up
>
>- In Down At the Dinghy, Boo Boo wants to give her son a pickle but they
>are
>all gone, the maid seems to take some spiteful pleasure in telling her that
>they're finished
>
>- I can't really remember well, and don't have a copy of the book with me,
>but doesn't Esme eat in "For Esme..."? I think there is a reference to her
>eating in a ladylike way but with gusto, but it's possible I made that up!
>If it is true, it does fit with an idea that the characters who don't have
>a
>problem with eating are the most human.
>
>- Offering food is in several places a way of offering help and love.
>Bessie's 'sacred chicken soup', Les's tangerine, and the chicken sandwich
>in
>'Just before the war with the Eskimos' (one of my persobal favourites).
>
>- Finally, one of the books is dedicated in 'as nearly as possible, the
>spirit of Matthew Salinger, aged (=), urging a lunchtime companionto accept
>a cooling lima bean'.
>
>I'm sure there are more and I definitely think it's worth looking more
>deeply into this line of thought. It seems to be true that Salinger does
>not
>usually describe food in terms of taste, nevetheless it often provides a
>form of communication . It seems that perhaps the 'food people' and the
>'thought people' cannot meet, Bessie, Les and Selina's brother all offer
>food, Holden wants to pay for the nuns' meal, but they find it difficult to
>communicate in words, whereas the other characters are so bound up in words
>they can't accept the loving gesture involved in eating.
>
>Lucy-Ruth x x x
>
>
>

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Received on Tue Jun 10 21:27:28 2003