#extreme
extremities
extreme opposites
extreme climates and geographies
foods in extreme conditions
-est foods
Montreal issued a frostbite warning. Mind you, it’s mid-March and temperatures tonight will be -30*C with windchill. Hell, I’m used to Marches that are studded with crocuses and daffodils waving in the cool-but-tolerable breeze. No. Not, frostbite.
I used to scoff at frostbite, and partition that off in my mind as an extreme medical condition that only happens north of the 50th parallel. That said, a ten minute walk the other day—sans gloves, to and from the post office—rendered my fingertips quite useless while I was trying to open my front door.
In extreme circumstances, dexterity? Not so much.
I am reminded that we lose the most heat from our extremities, in part, because they are the furthermost. In a literal sense, our head, hands, and feet lose the most heat. This reminds me of how we associate comfort food and warmth with our hands (like the cliché close-up photo of hands holding a bowl of warm soup or mug of steaming hot chocolate). I'm also thinking of that lawsuit surrounding warning labels: “Careful, the beverage you are about to enjoy is extremely hot.”
While we must care for our extremities, extremes are also something to be avoided altogether. Extreme ideologies or extremists-at-large point to a distant danger that is just too ‘out there.’ Extreme points of view can be off-putting. Extreme tastes can be equally so.
Extremes are polarizing by definition, yet we’re strangely attracted to them. The strange sensationalism surrounding ‘extreme foods’ is really an exercise in marketing and shock value, where superlatives rank foods along arbitrary parameters like most foul-smelling (durian), most poisonous (fugu), and most expensive (white truffle).
Why do we pay attention to these extremes and how do they define us? How does food survive in extreme conditions, and how can that give us clues about how to live in extreme circumstances? How do we tend to our outermost extremities to care for our innermost? And, how do we counter extremes without evoking another extreme?
Taking the keyword “extreme” in both maxima/minima directions, this prompt takes a wide-lens approach to be inclusive of all things utmost, all things least, and everything in between. Some potential interpretations to get the juices flowing:
Cold extremities are indicators for deficiency: Cold hands point to poor circulation and, idiomatically, ‘cold feet’ are synonymous with unmet potential or a failure to launch.
What foods characterize extreme environments (e.g. outer space, Iceland)?
What would extreme dining circumstances look like? (because, apparently, this exists…)
What foods do you crave when you’re the furthest from feeling centered?
How else do food and extremes intersect?