Written by: "Hunter Cardinal"

“‘ We want man-food for twenty-five,’ the Ents said, so you can see that somebody had counted your company carefully before you arrived.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

My favourite memory of summer was picking up a gluten free pizza (akin to what the Ents consider ‘man-food’) after finishing a show.  There was something profoundly rad knowing that in half an hour I could be at home and eating one of my favourite meals. However – It got me thinking a couple things.

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Hello beautiful people – I hope all has been well! I am writing in response to the current backlash about being “gluten-free”. There are tons of articles being posted around facebook, and other social media, claiming that “gluten sensitive” people are lying to you in attempts to fit in with the “hipsters”. If you want my two cents, and I’m assuming you do since you’re reading my column – I think that is internet-fight is totally silly.

I won’t rehash everything that Jacqui went through in her column about Gluten (you can read it here www.elevenses.ca/what-is-gluten-and-why-you-should-care-about-it/), but the fact that there continues to be no conclusive evidence to support either argument about Gluten really intrigued me. Why, if this is the scientific mis-en-scene, are there so many fights breaking out about this little protein?

The Observation:

I thought about it a lot over the last month or so and eventually came to the conclusion that this is one of the times where the sad but timeless human-sensitivity-for-perceptions-of-scarcity (h.s.f.p.o.s’s as we call them) start rearing it’s ugly head – almost as if there isn’t enough “right” going around, and someone HAS to be wrong.

Let’s look at some examples where freedoms and resources are currently seen as scarce, then I’ll bring it back to eating gluten free!

“They have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lórien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make”
– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring 

While having time and the resources to focus on food and health is great, realistically it can be a persistent challenge. A multitude of ingredients, techniques, and a whole bunch of time is needed to successfully pull it off. For me, the most difficult thing to acquire – time.

I just spent the first six hours of my day learning different placements of the tongue for various vowels, Dadaism in a socio-historical-theatrical context, and rehearsing fight choreography. I’m officially on break and no longer thinking about school – the only thing on my mind: lunch.

I have ten minutes to walk back to my locker, five minutes to get settled, five minutes to heat everything up, twenty minutes to eat at my leisure, and of course – ten minutes to clean up and arrive at my movement class.

Who I am in the family

I’m the twenty-year-old youngest child of my family, studying in the University of Alberta’s Bachelor of Fine Arts Acting Program and performing weekly as an improviser at Rapid Fire Theatre  – I am also the chief soup-balancer, meat roaster, and resident coffee snob.

Why elevenses

Because I love food, family and rest – and I’m loving the health I’ve found, supporting me as a theatre student and a young actor. While taking care of the food I eat, how I gather it, how I prepare it and who I share it with, I’m finding out what “health” means in a broader context.

I also have a need to figure out my family history on both sides through the only way I feel I can connect with them – through food. I want to know what they eat, how they used to cook, and how it relates to their culture so I can ground myself now as a twenty something Canadian university student.