Food, passion and coronaviruses

You, dear regular reader, know that I am a person for whom food is extremely important - and not just as a means of survival or existence; I love good food and the culture that goes with it. But good food depends on passion, as every form of it, from wonderful fruits and vegetables to exquisite restaurant dishes, require hard work and sacrifices with relatively limited monetary return.

Passion for great food is rare, wonderful and always worth supporting. Through this we preserve food traditions that may be centuries-old or create new ones, make better foodstuffs of every description, help celebrate life by sharing little glories, help share joy and the life-giving qualities that food, decent food made with love, brings. To me there is no greater pleasure than breaking bread and drinking wine, all made with care and love, with people you care about.

I was recently looking at something on YouTube, where a young man was summarising why he has gone back to his small, unsexy, family food-smoking business to be the 6th generation involved: 'I did a lot of fancy things with a lot of fancy people' he said of his previous career in big business in a big city 'but there was no heart. So I came back' (I apologise if I have somehow paraphrased him). To many of us, you see, money is not everything, passion is, and those of us involved in food and wine use this passion to lead us to great products, great moments, great pleasure.

As a professional voyeur on the periphery I am constantly amazed and pleasantly surprised by the number of people who share this outlook, this feeling. Few, if any, are world-renowned and famous, other than within their field, and - do you know - they don't care one bit. The reason they work hard, lose sleep and sacrifice creature comforts is because they are passionate about their craft, their products, their chosen field; the appreciative nod of the knowledgable buyer is all they need. I am in awe of these people, in awe of their passion, grateful for their very existence.

Life is about passion, creativity, dreams, at least as much as it can be about comfort, luxury and material things. Life is about the little things that make it special, the ones that someone else's passion has brought about and allowed you to get to know and appreciate. Life, whether through our passion or someone else's, can be extraordinary, even if due to external circumstances (hello coronavirus!) we now have to put it on hold and wallow in boredom.

At least that's what I think, dear reader. Feel free to disagree...