Episode 11: Flavor as Icon & Ritual

I grew up in a fundamentalist religion, and when I left as a young adult, it felt like I’d lost some invisible but essential internal organ. You don’t lose belief all at once; it goes in pieces, and what it leaves behind is a patchwork of religious vocabulary and existential fear held together by an interstitial tissue of spiritual expectation that will never again be satisfied. I left behind belief a long time ago, but the language and imagery of the religion of my childhood still informs my speech, my writing, my way of framing questions and explanations.

As I fell in love with craft beer in my twenties and eventually bean to bar chocolate in my thirties, and as I grew in my proficiency as a home cook, I noticed something curious happening: the role faith had once played in my young life of pushing me to explore my identity and experiences, contemplate my world, and experience wonder and connection to something bigger than myself was now transferring more and more to my senses. The quest for the eternal had become a celebration of the ephemeral. 

Today’s episode is a break from our normal format. We’re not going to talk about any specific beers or chocolates. We’re going to talk with my sister, Shan Escobar, about the experience of interacting with flavor, how we both approach that, what it satisfies for each of us, and how that experience is informed by our childhoods. This is a conversation made all the more poignant during the holidays, when we gather the with family and friends and, as my sister says, “the veil is thin.” Listen in on this candid, vulnerable conversation, and I think you’ll understand more of what this project of mine is all about.