The Pasta King Trusted Us

Yes, Specially in Latin countries.

When I was like five years, we don't have money for food. Then maybe once a week we had liver beef (cheap meat).

Then my mother will cut one beef for each member of the family, But you always had the one that is the biggest.

My brothers and I fight for it.

To make things fair, we did a draw to select who will choose the first beef. We call it "Sorteio do Bife".

Later as the country/economy progresses, it became a joke. Like if you don't hurry for something, you will lose the Draw.

It was not uncommon to NOT have enough, and the parents just look at the kids eating while they did not eat anything. And If you have other parents, you get your kids and ""appear"" by surprise at someone in lunchtime.

It was intended and a costume that if someone arrives at your house in lunch/dinner time, you share the food.

If you and I are going to a coffee place/bakery, I would ask something and offer to pay you because I don't know if you are in a good financial state or not. So by default, you Always offer to buy you something.

It is so ingrained inside you that I feel very sad when I throw away food. And I have a hard time leaving anything left on my plate.

I have to remind myself to eat less and that it is ok to leave food on my plate. That excess of food is bad but still.

I remember that my dream when I was a child was:

When I grow up, I will be rich, and I will eat filet mignon and Pepsi every day. That was the peak of being rich for me.

Disclaimer: Today is Thanksgiving. Things are not perfect. Things are not all we want. But let's be thankful for the good things we have. Be thankful for your friends, health, good humor.

If you don't have something to be thankful you still have power to do any good.

We argue, we downvote, we rage. Be thankful we can still do it.

I don't believe it's cultural, in as far as we're not conflating culture with shared misery (poverty, struggle for daily survival, food for self and family, roof over head, etc). For context: I emigrated from Eastern Europe in the mid 90s.

I've worked restaurants and blue collar jobs much longer than white collar ones, and it was easily the most formative period of my life. The heart that those of lesser means have, sharing whatever they can, is truly enlightening. It's an expression of care and comradery that seems to come out almost involuntarily and it's incredible to witness. Can almost categorically say it's not the case with upper middle and upper classes (in terms of my anecdotal experience, at least).

Obviously those with means can (AND DO) make a much greater impact in terms of charitable contributions and investments fighting poverty and homelessness, not dismissing that at all.

I wonder if it's related to the nature of the societal safety net.

Here's a somewhat strained comparison: a few years ago I listened to a podcast featuring Juan Pablo Villarino [1], who's hitchhiked through nearly 100 countries. If I remember correctly, his observation was that the hardest place to hitchhike was northern Europe, and that by comparison poor and even war-torn places were quite easy. The suggested explanation was that in northern Europe, the expectation is that if you are hitchhiking and relying on strangers, then you've done something weird to fall outside of the normal run of things, and you must be a weirdo. By contrast, in more chaotic places it's more plausible that you have just fallen through some cracks that anyone could fall through, and it's perfectly reasonable to need a lift (or a meal, or some other helping hand).

[1] https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/tyler-cowen-juan...

it is true for any culture where there is visible poverty. and where there is a stark scarcity of any particular resource that will make survival difficult.

for example, if you go to the middle east, they are very generous with food. poor feeding is part of islam. bedouin hospitality is a thing. in the old testament, there are stories too as nomadic communities set up their tents around water. because in a desert, if you are lost and you dont have the generosity of strangers, you will die.

in india/hinduism, the day starts with feeding the crows, dogs, cows, birds..and then the poor and hungry. even the ghosts and spirits of ancestors are fed. god is fed and because stone doesnt eat, the rest of us partake communally.

poverty has become invisible in today's world. especially the modern world. and you dont think that someone is hungry if they are wearing fancy shoes and has an iPhone. that makes you clench your palms tighter. so in america, they will send money to africa while your neighbour is probably starving.

also: food is so plentiful these days..and cheap. people go hungry because they dont know how to cook. at least in the western world. the other day, someone told me that children are in poverty and starving because all they had was vegetables and beans. i was dumbstruck. thats a feast to this vegetarian indian. you have milk, vegetables, rice and beans..thats a veritable feast!

so i offer food to those who are experiencing poverty of culinary knowledge too. they are hungry because they were never taught the most important survival skill of all..cooking.

Feeding people in Italy is important. I was never for want of money there, so I can't speak to that aspect of it, but I recall arriving in places that were close to closing, or otherwise not really set up to feed you a normal meal. I never went away hungry though, even if it was a sandwich and some apologies.

In Austria, on the other hand... we arrived at one place about 15 minutes before closing time, and the guy said sorry and kicked us out into an approaching rainstorm. No food, no bottle of beer, no nothing. Had several other similar experiences there.

I've seen the same when visiting Brazil. It's more common to give the homeless food than money. Pai would go out to give someone food and a "fica com Deus" pretty regularly.

It easier to make sense of these kinds of things if you try to understand them in the moment. That is, go talk to the specific people you see behaving in this way and see why they do what they do. I've got a friend who would give out free meals to poor people on the street. I won't tell you what race he is, because I think it kind of misses the point to fixate on the circumstances of one's birth. He said he had some experience with poverty and being hungry so he took it pretty seriously when he saw it in our community. That may or may not be what is going on with that specific person you observed feeding that other poor person. We don't know. You have to ask.

As far as I can tell, most cultures in the world have a tradition of feeding guests and whomever needs a meal. Japan, Greece, Ethiopia, Italy, Britain, Hawaii, etc. I think this is because in many parts of the world, it used to be common for people to go hungry at some point.

If you've gone hungry before, you remember how painful it is. But most of us don't, because we literally have so much food we throw it away. But that's definitely not everyone's reality.

How many countries are we putting into this Latin category? In mine that is not the case.

It’s more that a poor man is much likelier to share his last loaf of bread with you than a rich man.

i second volpi. i drive through petaluma often because it's between my farm and orchard. so petaluma is often the break i need in the 2 hour drive. petaluma can be a tad twee these days..but still good food. you can tell ingredients are super fresh and local.

also: della fottaria http://dellafattoria.com/ and petaluma creamery https://www.springhillcheese.com/

and my fav deli ray's delicatessen and tavern..https://www.rays-deli.com/history ...local breweries too.

lol angelo’s email is moregarlic@foo.com

Volpi's has killer gnocchi to boot

There are plenty of generous people out there. Unfortunately we spend most of our time idolizing greedy and selfish people. Kindness and generosity does not have high ratings.

I don’t know if this counts, but there is a place in Redmond, Washington that sells honey using roughly the same approach. They leave jars of honey worth up to $100 each on the shelf outside their barn wall with a locked cashbox and you just pay on the honor system.

There are quite probably a LOT of people like him, at least I choose to believe there are.

Buy Nothing Project. If you want to practice opening your heart and focusing on what you have to give, I recommend this so much.

(I lost touch when I deactivated my Facebook account but I’m happy to see they’re trying open source and a crowd funded social network called “soop”.)

https://buynothingproject.org/about/