A Sin Not To

Today at Whole Foods a young woman was serving slices of pork sausage that she took from a griddle beside her. I took a piece, bit a tiny chunk from it, blew on it, and gave it to Annalee, who (I happened to know) was hungry. She began to make her loudest stream of "this-is-delicious, give-me-more" sounds and I was reminded, as I have been before, how insane it is that we are taught to unlearn this instinctual behavior. Food is a miraculous blessing, one that not everyone enjoys every day to their heart's content, and to signal pleasure audibly in the experience of eating is like shouting "Hallelujah." And it is a sin not to.