Whether you find yourself in a restaurant that is as crowded as a can of sardines, giving a box of chocolates to the girl that floods your stomach with butterflies every time she walks into your French class, or on a date with your Netflix account while consuming approximately 5 million gallons of ice cream, food is a key component of your Valentine’s Day.
I am hopeless romantic, yet I catch myself rolling my eyes at chubby babies shooting arrows, carrying red roses around school, and receiving jewelry on Valentine’s Day. I want love, not consumerism.
Food definitely counts as love.
We live in a community where most people have the privilege of being able to afford proper nourishment, which means that food is trivialized far too frequently. In my opinion, food is the most caring gift that one could share. It is a strong symbol of compassion that comes in a modest form.
Imagine what a loaf of bread would have meant to a prisoner in a concentration camp. When we dig back into history, we find that food scarcity accompanied many of our ancestors in their darkest times. Food should have a large presence in celebrations of love because its absence has been associated with hatred and misery in the past. A day dedicated to celebrating love would seem empty without food.
Valentine’s Day needs a makeover, and I believe that strengthening the tradition of sharing food with others would bring it back down to Earth and closer to our hearts. Valentine’s Day’s reputation is clouded by materialism and societal expectations rather than true expressions of emotions.
According to an article on washingtonpost.com, Kevin Huffman said: “[Valentine’s Day is]… about nails-on-chalkboard commercials, the sentiments of others excerpted in corny cards, the pressure to come up with something to give, and the fear of having nothing to receive.”
The materialism that surrounds Valentine’s Day isn’t Cupid’s fault. We have the power to chose whether we subscribe to materialistic traditions or if we want to set new trends.
I believe that the essential ingredient in a successful Valentine’s Day is showing at least one person that you genuinely care about them. Sharing food with someone is a loving gesture, whether it is towards your significant other, best friend, parent, or yourself.
