In the 1997 film Life is Beautiful, a father, played by Roberto Benigni, hides the scary and stark realities of life from his son as they are both being held captive in a World War II concentration camp. He does so by creating a game. The father’s intention is not to dupe his son. He simply wants to help his son conserve his freedom anyway possible. In this case, it is gifting his son with a free mind.
As art imitates life, the idea of an imprisoned body but a free mind is a popular theme in culture. Remember when Braveheart screamed, “they may take my life but they may never take my freedom”? Or in Game of Thrones when Mance Rayder replied to Jon Snow – “The freedom to make my own mistakes was all I ever wanted”?
While we are lucky in that most of us are still in good health, and that the end of the confinement period appears near, the realities of the economy and the possibility of loved ones falling sick, do make for depressing thoughts. But as we have shown time after time, human beings are a resilient bunch. We are able to convince ourselves of numerous illusions in order to cope with just about any situation.
The quarantine period has revealed that some people turn to certain foods to keep their freedom of mind. Today we explore some of those examples as we ask ourselves what can we learn from food-related decisions during the Covid-19 quarantine.