The Mortar of Culture

Christopher Dargavel is an Australian writer, reader and musician currently living in Melbourne. This particular poem describes how the food we share can take us traveling without physically leaving our kitchen. Read more of his work at www.thesoyofishcompany.wordpress.com.

The mortar of culture.

Marvellous, mischievous and exhilarating.

So accessible to the Western man,

But do we truly understand it

The combination of earths goods.

Mixed, experienced, shared.

Dancing on my plate and in my body.

It stirs something inside you,

Can you feel it?

Men travel and so does taste,

The most rudimentary passport one can own.

A tour of billions of lives and a home.

A map with no words or markings. Untopographical.

The people do not know me. But I know them.

I have travelled with them,

Departing from the seat at my table.

We eat the personality of a country,

A gastronomic fare.

Tonight, to India.

An exhilarating destination.