The Pleasure of Food: Transcending Nigella Lawson’s Sexiness
The pleasure of eating is a trope that’s been fed to us for as long as anyone will remember, with early memories of well-meaning parents closing in on us with a spoon — their enthusiastic cooing and encouraging smiles attempting to impart a fondness for food that will help us sup it up without fuss.
Deep down, of course, we know that our relationship with eating is a complex one, for while one day we can gorge with unbridled happiness on bowls of pasta or chip away at a chocolate cake until there are only crumbs, other times we feel shamed by our appetites, judged for how it might relate to our body, our social class or our perceived moral build-up.
But sometimes we find ourselves able to lean into the safety of the positive associations we have with it, taking comfort in the familiar and the exciting and the indulgent, and transcending food’s basic, primal purpose as fuel into something we actively enjoy.
And nowhere is this truer than in the safety of the television screen, where celebrity chefs happily guide us through blushing beef wellingtons and perfectly coiled cinnamon rolls as if this is all you need ever worry about, each 30-minute episode pushed along gently by small talk and pleasantries.
Everything seems easy, affordable and delicious. The painful backstories that often come with meals are stripped away; cheap eats don’t have the subtext of poverty or financial struggle, healthy recipes don’t come with any acknowledgement of obesity issues, quick and easy meals are served as an antidote to busy lives, without any detailed mention of the struggle that comes with them.
It seems bizarre, then, that when many speak of Nigella Lawson — the woman whose name is practically synonymous with joyful eating — they speak not of pleasure, but of sex.
She may hum and moan and smack her lips, but so do we, because this is what humans do as they eat. I make these noises regularly and, I’m sorry to say it, but you do as well.
Over in the staged, cheery world of another programme, Jamie Oliver will follow suit, giving a blokey wink to the camera before telling the viewer to ‘Get your chops around this!’. Ainsley Harriot swoons and flirts flamboyantly around his kitchen, while James Martin makes satisfied, guttural noises as he pulls out his towering Yorkshire pudding from the oven. Gordon Ramsay bounces up and down like he’s genuinely about to jizz his pants.
Viewers optimistically assume Lawson is attempting to seduce them, but in reality she is just doing precisely what the others are: taking pleasure in her creations, just like we do.
After all, the mouth is not a silent organ. It slurps and crunches and gulps, sometimes it belches, too. It’s a body part that works hard, and the release of sound it makes is a normal, natural process — a positive affirmation of a good meal. (Just imagine serving dinner to a table full of people, only to be met with complete silence; you’d simply be left to deduce that there had been no enjoyment whatsoever.)
Lawson’s language itself may be playful, but again not necessarily suggestive. She is not teasing us by referring to Pasta Alla Puttanesca as ‘Slut’s Spaghetti’ in 2008's Kitchen, she is harnessing the power of her own, unique vernacular to put a creative twist on a well-known food concept, through both alliteration and humour.
By reducing her words to sexual foreplay, we’re denying Lawson not only of her genuine linguistic intellect, but also her dual passions for language and food — in turn also dismissing a degree in Medieval and Modern Languages from Oxford University and a background in literary journalism.
Her legacy isn’t in soundbites from TV shows spliced together into a fruity YouTube compilation (something you could do not just for any cook, but also for anybody), they are within the pages of 12 books — in which she gushes about ingredients and flavours and memories. She revels in the happiness that can come with eating, even if she remains self-aware about how everyone’s experiences are different.
In her most recent, Cook, Eat, Repeat, where there is even has an entire chapter dedicated to ‘Pleasures’, Lawson writes: “I am very aware that the joy I celebrate in food is a privilege. And for me, it’s vitally important not to belittle that, or to forget it. Taking pleasure in the food we eat is an act of gratitude. And truly, the world is not always rich in occasions of joy. I know I might seem soupy when I say that I see every mealtime, every mouthful, as a celebration of life, but (with lamentable exceptions) I do, or try to. It’s such a waste otherwise.”
To diminish Lawson’s clear emotional connection to food to this worn-out, sexualised parody seems somehow unfair, especially when she has written at such length about it, and so eloquently, too.
And on TV, meanwhile, the focus surely doesn’t have to be her knowing glances to camera or her rich, plummy voice, but the simpler thrill of pottering around the kitchen with her for half an hour. The fairy lights and the upbeat Motown soundtracks and the knowledge that we won’t need to wash up.
Again, we know it’s not real, but it’s a real pleasure.