Pickles and ice cream, goat cheese and Nutella on Wheat Thins, pretzels with crunchy Jif reduced-fat peanut butter - the cravings of a pregnant woman. Fortunately I have never been in such a position, but somehow we all know about the crazy, irrational, oh-so-urgent hormonal needs of expectant females. Except that it is not simply women about to give birth who demand special treatment.
To a lesser extent, when we are feeling under the weather, we all are coddled and showered with sympathy, our every food wish fulfilled. What is it exactly that gives human beings permission to make asinine gastronomical demands (which, at any other time, would be deemed excessively high-maintenance, selfish and entirely unreasonable) when our bodies are under distress? Why do mothers drop their daily agendas to heat a pot of chicken-noodle soup when their children's foreheads feel warm to the touch? Why is food such a cure all?
Food enables the person who is well to do something; it provides a tangible, immediate remedy to the one who suffers. The parent who cannot bear to see his child cough and sniffle needs to offer something, anything, which promises relief.
We all know deep down, however, that Campbell's salty broth contains no magic power, no instant medicine. Yet we desperately cling to soup's healing hope, an association we have held since childhood.
In a similar vein, we remember the comfort and reassurance we experience when a loved one brings a steaming mug of tea garnished with a squeeze of lemon and honey to us when we feel achy and miserable, and we want to pass on that sense of satisfaction and relief to others. Preparing food for the sick lets us feel useful and productive. We feel we are not helpless bystanders. We need not feel guilty that we are well and others are sick, for we have paid the price of health with service and charity. We readily put others' needs before our own. And so, on those occasions when our bodies do admit defeat, we succumb to the same treatment. As superior as we feel when we are the ones who are well - the generous, kind able-bodied ones who serve the injured or the infected - we experience a twinge of smug satisfaction when we enter the early stages of a winter cold. We know that the humble, self-denying (but of course still commendable and praiseworthy) service we lavished upon our sick loved ones will be returned.
While our bodies may not obey our every demand, those around us do. No request proves too extreme or unjustifiable. After all, we are ill, completely pathetic. Anyone who is not heartless should take pity, drop everything and cater to our every wish.
As inconvenient as a sports injury or a surgery or a virus may be, we all secretly relish the license physical illness gives us to verbalize any imaginable desire. When we are sick, we have no censor, and the labor-intensive, homemade macaroni-and-cheese that takes your girlfriend three hours to prepare, or the blue raspberry popsicles that your brother locates only after outings to three different grocery stores, are absolutely necessary to your recovery.
How could anyone refuse you the one measly thing that will make you feel the slightest bit better? All you are asking for is a batch of warm oatmeal raisin cookies, hamburgers fresh from the grill, a glass of Cheerwine with half cubed, half crushed ice...
We begin to store away our favorite food cravings, anticipating the rare moment when it becomes perfectly acceptable to disregard the needs and likes of others and think only of our own stomach's satiation.
Do I truly take so much time to find my brother's favorite brand of soda when he has a fever because I hope to lift his spirits, or does my quest stem from a more selfish motive? Namely, that I want to ensure that when my turn comes, he will owe me a late-night run to the ice cream shop to bring me a chocolate-brownie sundae, the only thing that can soothe my aching throat?
I suppose the old adage is true: What goes around comes around. And I'm not just referring to viruses.
Emily's column runs biweekly Wednesdays. She can be reached at e.rowell@cavalierdaily.com
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