2 Patricia O'Sullivan considers the place of food in the modern world. 1 In Isak Dinesen’s story “Babette’s Feast’, a tiny religious community leading a spartan existence in a remote corner of Norway in the 1880s is in crisis: its ageing, dwindling numbers harbour deep-seated grudges and spread slanders about each other. But during the course of a meal to celebrate the centenary of their founder's birth a transformation occurs. Although they are accustomed to a meagre, unchanging diet of bread and fish, their servant Babette cooks them a uniquely sumptuous meal, at the end of which dissension is quite forgotten and a new harmony is established. Such can be, at least in fiction, the redemptive power of food. 2 Food has always played a significant role in religions, whether through feasting, offering, or fasting, all of which feature either the inclusion or prohibition of certain foodstutfs. Such ingredients are often prepared in a time-honoured way, established when preservation techniques were rudimentary. In feasting, the participants celebrate an event or a life; on other occasions, a portion of the food is offered to the deity as a token of gratitude or appeasement; other faiths feature fasting as an act of atonement, self-denial or compassion, where one overcomes the physical world and concentrates on the spiritual, or actively shares in the suffering of others. For whatever purpose, al! such communities are united and strengthened through the food they eat and the eating patterns and behaviours which accompany it. Eating the same food establishes a sense of community, making it seem an extended family in which the traditional foodstuffs evoke memories of other times and places crucial to the participants’ creeds and cultures. On a more everyday level, the act of a family eating together echoes this, and can reinforce links and promate cohesion, where even the shape of the table and the eating arrangements can be visible signs of status and hierarchies, 3 In many of today's homes, however, the television and not the dining table is more often the hub of eating activity as the family meal comes under pressure from the pace af modern life and its attendant demands. In an ever-increasing number of families both parents go to work, undermining in two ways the former prevalence of preparing and eating meals at home. Firstly, more women, on whom the burden of domestic labour has traditionally fallen, are now entering the work force and no longer feel obligated by custom or culture to cook when they return home, and so spending on takeaways or pre-prepared meals has increased greatly. Secondly, there is now far more eating out at fast food outlets, a societal shift driven partly by the demands of children, who have been targeted by the manufacturers’ advertising campaigns with merchandise and offers associated with areas of young people's interest, such as sport, music and films. Parents, perhaps feeling guilty about working such Jong hours, often find it hard to resist the temptation to treat their children to a meal there. And when these same children themselves become teenagers, their social lives are also often busy and frenetically-paced, and fast food outlets provide ready sources of cheap refuelling, as well as being places for the like-minded to congregate. 4 The spread of these multi-national brands threatens local long-established businesses, and culinary diversity is diminished. Not only that, but health concerns have arisen about the quality of the food itself, along with the claim that itis inked with the rise in levels of obesity. This is not, as one might think, a purely Western phenomenon: diets once held up as models of healthy living, such as the Japanese and Chinese, are becoming less popular in the light of the perception that the Western diet is synonymous with affluence and status. We now see a much greater demand in these countries for global fast food brands, which are much more red-meat-centred, and a corresponding rise in their own obesity levels. However, surely other factors contribute to the problem of obesity: an increasingly sedentary lifestyle based around home entertainment systems; ever greater refiance on cars; a corresponding decrease in levels of exercise and engagement in sporting activities. All of these help to create a culture of spectating rather than participating. @UCLES & MOE 2010 8808/021NSERTION/10 10 15 25 303 5 One of the areas in which we are increasingly spectators and not participants is cooking. Babette, fortunately, was once a revered chef in Paris. For the rest of us, the loss of many of our traditional kitchen skills has led to the popularity of the cookery programmes which proliferate on our screens. The book accompanying the series will feature prominently in Bookshops, where it wil jostle for space, ironically, with the book trumpeting the latest diet. 95 This book will usually feature a female pop-culture celebrity confessing excess, describing the path to transformation and revealing the state of bliss now attained. The effects. of too much food, it is claimed, can be easily reversed by a swift diet, thereby producing the contemporary ideal of feminine beauty ~ thinness — despite other eras and cultures decrying it as evidence of low status or even neglect. 60 6 There are other ways in which Babette's calorie-heavy feast seems at odds with the modern world and its concerns. Babette was only able to stage this unique event because she had won a huge sum in a lottery, all of which she spent on the one meal as a thank you to the two old sisters who took her in when she was destitute. No expense was Spared: the ingredients, including a live turtle, were shipped hundreds of miles. t you were 65 to recreate this meal today — and you can find ‘her’ recipes online ~ consider its carbon footprint: transporting food great distances instead of using locally-sourced products adds markedly to global warming. And that turtle: itis an endangered species, as are many of ‘our foods from the seas, like shark's fin. As for the meat course, has it come from an animal cruelly raised? Is any of the food chemically modified in some way (in extreme cases even 70 ‘adulterated, leading to major health scares), to make it last longer or to enhance flavour? Have the people who produced the ingredients been paid a fair wage for their labours? And even the labelling and packaging ~ are they accurate, and then recyclable? 7 Unlike in Babette’s day, the simple act of buying food can now seem fraught with issues ~ but just how strictly do you want to set your moral boundaries when it comes to what you 75 eat? After all, you, not the experts, have the final say. As J. S. Mill, the Victorian philosopher, wrote: “Over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign” © UCLES & MOE 2010 BB06/OZINSERTIOIN/O RO2 Read the passage in the Insert and then answer all the questions. Note that up to fifteen marks will be given for the quality and accuracy of your use of English throughout this Paper. xara NOTE: When a question asks for an answer iN YOUR OWN WORDS AS FAR AS POSSIBLE and you select the appropriate material from the passage for your answer, you must still use your own words to express it. Little credit can be given to answers which only copy words and phrases trom the passage. 1 Inwhat different ways is the religious community ‘in crisis’ (line 2)? Use your own words as far as possible. 2 | 2 How does the first paragraph illustrate ‘the redemptive power of food’ (lines 7-8)? 2) 3 Explain what the author means by calling fast food outlets ‘ready sources of cheap refuelling’ (ines 37-38). Use your own words as far as possible. {2} 4 What does the author mean by ‘culinary diversity’ (line 40), and how is it threatened? (2) 5 Using your own words as far as possible, explain the irony which the author describes in lines 54-55. 2) © UCLES & MOE 2010 se0sin210/N103 6 — Whyis the word ‘her’ (line 66) in inverted commas? [1] 7 Explain the author's use of the word ‘even’ in the phrase ‘even the labelling and packaging’ (line 73). 2] 8 Which aspect of the author's argument in the last paragraph is reinforced by the quotation from J. S. Mil? 9 Give the meaning of the following words as they are used in the passage. Write your answers in one word or a short phrase. (a) remote (line 2), (b) token (ine 13) (c) trumpeting (line 55) (A) destitute (ine 64) (e) fraught (line 74).. 5) ©UCLES & MOE 2010 2061020010 [Turn over4 10. Using material from paragraphs 2 and 3 of the passage (lines 9-38), summarise what the author has to say about the importance of food in religions and in families, and how aspects of modern life are bringing about change, ‘Write your summary in no more than 120 words, not counting the opening words which are printed below. Use your own words as far as possible, Where religions and families are concerned, food is important: firstly, because. {8} ©UCLES & MOE 2010, se0s0210/10 fe11. In this article, Patricia O'Sullivan describes some current issues around the subject of food. How applicable do you find her observations to yourseif and your own society? csariers ©UCLES & MOE 2010 ‘s808/0201N/10 [Turn over