Thursday, July 21, 2005

Food For Peace

Condiments are the basis of civilization.
You might think it's something else, like law, religion, agriculture, or family, but this is not the case. Humans are an argumentative lot, and weare especially nasty when we are under pressure. One of the best and most common ways to both relieve the psychological pressure, and improve personal relationships is eating together.
This stems from two basic physiological and psychological facts. We instinctively build friendly bonds with people we eat with, and having eaten, we are more relaxed. A hungry lonely lion is inherently more dangerous than a sleepy, well fed pride.

What are the foods that define americana? The hamburger, the hot dog, pizza. These are the foods we build our memories around because these are the foods we can share with the most other people. If you and your father have different tastes in food, when you go to a ballpark he might get his with everything and you might have just some mustard, but what you remember is you and you dad having hot dogs at the game. Condiments make it possible. With a little planning, even strangers with wildly different tastes can share the same pizza.
I propose a project: Food For Peace, an organization that delivers humanitarian food aid, with a broad range of condiments, to war-torn areas of the world. By shipping a wide array of food items, and an even wider array of condiments, we will make possible, even likely, for members of various factions to share meals together.

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