Estremera: Lost in the eating

Saturday, July 9, 2011

I'M WRITING this while picking up squared pieces of lettuce leaves dropped from the Big Mac I am trying to fit into my mouth.

Everything is there for a reason, that’s what I learned as I trudged those muddy slopes to gather the information I needed for a report I volunteered for to help a long-ago dorm roommate. It wasn’t the first time I found myself near crawling on mud for one reason or another.

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“You never learn, don’t you?” my friend asked upon knowing that I was off to some unknown mountains again. He’s been chiding me over my very slow learning curve when it comes to mountains and mountain dwellers, where I’d always fall into the trap of their assurances that it will be easy reaching their place. It never is, and I guess for as long as our government remains as it is – corrupt-ridden, as it will always be. And my friend is right, I never learn, but not because I refuse to, rather, because of the knowledge that the road might pose the worst condition imaginable, but beyond those roads and trails are even worse conditions that very few get to behold. My stumpy legs may not be best for mountain trekking, my nicotine-laden lungs may not be best for physical exertions, but they come with my pen, notebooks, netbook, cameras, mp3 recorder, and a pre-paid USB modem, and my responsibility as a journalist, a writer.
Everything is there for a reason, including one pudgy editor barely able to catch her breath upon reaching yet another mountain village; except that in so many instances we get caught up in the concerns of our own life and world, we miss out on many things and neglect so much more.

Now back to this double-patty hamburger with lettuce leaves cut into one-centimeter squares. I say, this is the most stupid innovation ever made. This is a clear case of a rational existence gone crazy as people become so wrapped up in the flurry of fastfood, they forget why lettuce leaves landed inside burger sandwiches in the first place.

A well-thought of burger would look like this: The bottom part of the bun slathered with a little mayo and then layered with lettuce leaves topped with burger patty, topped with cheese, slathered with tomato ketchup, then topped with a slice of tomato, before being covered with the top part of the bun. A piece of pickle skewered on a toothpick is then stuck on top. While this burger looks pretty, more than prettiness is the concern here.

The lower bun is slathered with a teeny-weeny glob of mayonnaise to hold the lettuce leaves in place. The burger patty is placed on the lettuce leaves so that the oil on the patty will not make the bread soggy. The lettuce leaves are there to catch the oil from hamburgers fresh out of the grill; in the same way that the cheese and the tomatoes that are “cemented” together with ketchup are up there in between the burger patty and the bread. The pickle is skewered on a toothpick and stuck on top, to hold the burger together and let it stand without teetering. The whole package becomes a quick meal with better nutrient profile than just eating plain burger. I know, cholesterol is not healthy, but this was never a problem UNTIL someone thought that the bigger the burger, the better. But we’re digressing…

Anyway, what I’m driving at is that there is no sense at all to snip the lettuce leaves into tiny pieces and scatter them anywhere inside the sandwich fillings. Apparently, the snipped lettuce know that too, and thus jump off the burger any moment they can, maybe even smarting from their uselessness in the whole equation of the present-day fastfood burger. The fastfood era has removed the significance of lettuce leaves inside burger sandwiches, how said. But how many more has been brushed off as insignificant in the world we have created today.

Delicadeza is one. And yes, as we have witnessed just very recently, the inability to see beyond one’s self-righteousness and understand that sometimes we have to be livid with rage against injustices and corruption. We have been so jaded by corruption, we can only see the propriety and impropriety of actions according to what the book of etiquette says.

And so former Vice President Noli de Castro, still bent on riding his high horse of self-righteousness, asks the Davao reporter who was showing how big the turnout was for the rally of support for Mayor Sara Z. Duterte: ''Bakit ganun kadami yung sumuporta sa alkalde ninyo matapos yung nangyaring pananapak (Why is there still that much support for your mayor after she punched the sheriff)?”

Sad to say, former vice president that he is, it is beyond him to see what is really righteous and that the ordinary masses do know the leadership they need for as long as they have not been made numb by the guns and goons and gold of many a leader. Many will be like him, many are like him. In the rush of things and the state of governance we have allowed our government to be in, we only see what is in clear view – that burgers have lettuce leaves, and can no longer appreciate the reason why. And so, like many a fastfood restaurant, we snip the lettuces into tiny bite-sizes seeing these as nothing but a necessary accoutrement, a bling-bling.

We now know better, we’ve always known better, and so it’s best to just go on our way and prepare our own burgers, while being aware of the role of each ingredient – the bun, the lettuce leaves, the burger patty, the the cheese, the tomato, the pickle, the ketchup, and the mayonnaise, and yes, the toothpick.

saestremera@yahoo.com