Men have three emotions. Happy, angry, and hungry. I am hungry, and I am angry.
My brother texted me about a month ago, which is uncommon. There is no tension or beef in our relationship, but we are the very model of modern Midwestern men who grew up in small towns in the ’80s: we ain’t great at feelings. When we see each other, we now voice how much we appreciate each other, but that is a recent development. Probably because the proximity reminds us of mortality, as it relates to our own lives and the lives of those we love. But we don’t call, and we don’t text.
My awareness of the fragility of life causes a sinking feeling in my stomach when I get an unexpected text or phone call. Deep breath, open the message. My brother texted me about a lentil soup that I made on a hunting trip a few years ago; he wanted the recipe so he could eat healthier. (He probably still wants it, since I haven’t sent it to him yet. Sorry, Jay.)
This text makes me angry. I’m not angry that my brother wants a recipe; I’m angry that my brother needs this recipe.
There is no recipe for this soup. It is an easy, weeknight, thrown-together dish I make when I want something healthy, quick, and cheap. The recipe is a byproduct of my general curiosity about food. It is the result of me learning how to make a stock. It is me learning that beans are cheap, delicious, and fill you up. It’s me learning that meat isn’t necessary. It’s learning that healthy, quick, and cheap is possible—if you have a grocery store near you.
The “recipe,” as much as it is one, goes like this: roast a bunch, like a LOT, of root vegetables, and use half for the soup stock. In the process of making stock, your veggies will lose all their flavor. Since it annoys me when things without flavor are in my soup, I suggest you discard this roasted mush. Add the rest of your veggies, lentils, maybe some greens like kale or collards, probably some fish sauce (fish sauce makes everything better), and roasted garlic to the stock. Cook until the lentils are tender, and add some salt. That’s pretty much it.
I had to acquire the skills and knowledge to throw together this soup. It is a really fucking easy soup. Something this rudimentary is relatively exotic where I grew up. I’m angry that my brother wasn’t offered the skills and knowledge about food to eat healthily, cheaply, and satisfyingly.
Cheap and fast food has a stranglehold on the country, but it ain’t healthy, and it ain’t satisfying. When I moved to Chicago almost 20 years ago, I would read articles about so-called “food deserts” and be shocked. What a fucking baffling concept. While sitting in the middle of one of the wealthiest countries in the world, I was reading about a common phenomenon happening in the poorest parts of large cities: vast areas with little-to-no access to fresh food. Sure, you can get candy, or processed, shelf-stable shit food in your local bodega or gas station—but produce and fresh meat are virtually nonexistent.
Like a plague, food deserts have spread from the city to less-populated parts of the country. Whenever I go back to my hometown, I get angry. Angry because fresh herbs are expensive and half-rotten. Angry because the produce is average at best and overpriced. I can’t believe I’m typing this, but maybe I should just be thankful that there are any fresh vegetables available at all. (Though fuck that: it is hard to be thankful for a basic need.) I was raised in one of the most bountiful agricultural regions of the world, and the produce sucks, and costs a fortune.
My brother and sister-in-law are raising my nieces and nephews in a town smaller than the one in which I grew up. There is an old lady who runs a small market in that town. They do their main grocery shopping in a larger—but still small—town 30 minutes away. Between those trips, they get by with what is available in the local market. My brother doesn’t know how much longer they will have that choice. I’m hoping the old woman lives long enough until my nephews get out of high school. I’m not holding my breath.
It’s an election year, and honestly the only thing that will probably matter is jobs. Our government (either party, pick one) has decided that the ultimate signifier of quality for higher education is how often their graduates get jobs. And frankly, this philosophy is plaguing our educational system as a whole. Elementary and secondary schools aren’t teaching S.T.E.M. so students can balance their checkbooks and rewire their basements. It’s all about employability. It is about making a living, sure, but also about making other people, rich people, more money. We are being prepped as chum in the job market at an earlier and earlier age. More Americans work more than one job than ever, and access to affordable and healthy food is quickly going away when we need it the most.
I have this film looping continually through my head. It is from 1994, when Congress wrangled the top executives from the seven biggest tobacco companies to discuss the addictive properties of cigarettes during a hearing. I think I’m obsessed with it because my college roommate owned “The Insider,” and it was frequently thrown on while killing time between classes. “The Insider” is a dramatization of the events that occurred when a whistleblower provided proof that these tobacco companies lied to Congress, and knew that cigarettes were addictive. They enjoyed a lucrative fucking business, selling addiction. Lung cancer kills people, and companies knowingly added addictive properties to a product that is a significant delivery method of lung cancer. Profiting while contributing to the deaths of millions of people. It is reprehensible, and I’m fucking pissed that none of that matters anymore.
Our diet affects our lives (and therefore our deaths) through obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and osteoporosis, just to name a few. Our diet is leading to a higher frequency of chronic diseases. The poor and shrinking middle classes work longer with less access to fresh, healthy, cheap food, leading to greater dependency on unhealthy, cheap, and processed food. These products shorten our lives.
It seems fucking quaint that we needed a whistleblower 25 years ago to risk his life so we could discover how much Big Tobacco knew about cigarettes’ addictive properties. Now, it is readily available knowledge that junk food titans pour money into finding a perfectly perverse balance between increasing the desire to eat while dulling the satisfaction of eating. These are addictive actions. It isn’t a secret; it is good business. Good business is all that matters. Big Junk Food is honing the blade of addictive food, so it’s ready when we all reach the point of impaling ourselves. Currently, diet-related deaths are killing one in five people worldwide, more than tobacco.
“Be a man.” If you were born with a penis, you heard it growing up. What does it mean? What it meant for me was that emotions were bad. Emotions were something that children had. Emotions were something that women had. Men were strong, stoic, all desperately and harmfully routing out any drop of emotional nuance from their bodies to become the rock. Not The Rock, but a strong, silent type. You can’t be dependable if you are emotional. You can’t be the load-bearing wall if you are confused, sad, or scared. And if you aren’t dependable, if you can’t lift up those around you when everything else is crumbling, what is your worth as a man?
You get to be happy, angry, and hungry. All those other feelings humans have need to be channeled into one of those three categories. It is better to eat your feelings than show them. Men eat meat. Men eat meat covered in cheese. Men could eat veggies only if covered in bacon. Men don’t cook; they grill. And in the absence of that, well, there’s nothing in your life a frozen pizza and an extra-big bag of Doritos can’t fix.
On the morning of January 17th, I got a phone call from my mom. I felt the reflexive wave of anxiety wash over me, but it wasn’t early enough in the day for me to be overly concerned. It was a perfectly acceptable time for a mother to call a son.
“Hon, I have some bad news…”
My cousin died that morning.
I’m still angry. I’m angry that my aunt and uncle had to bury their youngest son. I’m fucking angry that my cousins lost a brother and a best friend. I’m angry that my cousin’s wife lost a husband, and I’m really fucking angry that my cousin’s son lost a father. This whole thing—capitalism, society, life—fucking failed him. It failed him, and it continues to fail everyone who loves him.
He was 38. I’m 41.
My aunt and uncle did their job with flying colors. They raised an intelligent, sensitive, curious man. He went to med school and became a psychiatrist. However, he stood out as a doctor not satisfied with merely handing out prescriptions. He counseled, he mentored. He cared about people. He was a good man in a world that can’t stand to lose good men.
He stress-ate. Seeing him every Christmas went from, “Jeez, Nate got tall,” to “Jeez, Nate got big.” The past two years added more stress, and it killed him. I’m guessing many people in my family are blaming themselves. Bludgeoning their souls with unknowable scenarios like: “If only I would have said this,” or, “If only I would have done that.” But how do you push back the infinite tide of a society that cares more that you can work than if you can live?
I’m not going to lie and say we were especially close. We didn’t call, and we didn’t text. We spent time together as kids, and then chose to spend time together as adults. I’m fucking angry that the people I love lost a person they loved.
Almost a month later, and I’m still not happy. I’m still fucking angry, and, yes, I’m hungry. I don’t think I’m going to eat anything, though; I owe my brother a recipe.
