{"id":547,"date":"2011-09-06T05:00:37","date_gmt":"2011-09-06T09:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eatwithjoy.org\/?p=547"},"modified":"2011-09-06T05:00:37","modified_gmt":"2011-09-06T09:00:37","slug":"547","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2011\/09\/06\/547\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hour That Matters Most"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Perhaps I\u2019ve been immersed in the world of foodies for too long, but I would\u2019ve expected Les & Leslie Parrott to give a few props to the food movement\u2013beyond pointing out that a movement called Slow Food exists (!)\u2013in their new book, The Hour That Matters Most<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>They could have said more about the qualitative difference of a meal cooked at home as opposed to something brought in from the takeout place. Or talked about WHY eating together\u2013as opposed to just sitting around a table together sans food\u2013is transformative and important. But most of this book is merely a repackaging Parrott\u2019s relationship and communication advice<\/strong> (in other words, how to communicate around the table, which\u2013surprise!\u2013turns out to be quite similar to how we communicate away from the table!) combined with statistics on the importance of family meals that have been presented much more artfully, appealingly, and compellingly elsewhere, namely, Miriam Weinstein\u2019s Surprising Power of Family Meal<\/em>s and Laurie David\u2019s The Family Dinner<\/em>. Yes, family dinners are very important, and there are lots and lots of well documented reasons what that\u2019s so and lots and lots of statistics from university studies that show you why you really really should have dinners with your family. But you don\u2019t need this book to tell you that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In a book about family dinners, I would have liked to have heard at least a few insightful remarks about FOOD. Frankly, I feel it\u2019s kind of unconscionable to bring a book out like this with seemingly no awareness of what is happening in the world of food, from La Cosecha\/The Harvest<\/a> to, oh yes, slaughterhouse workers<\/a> or the immense and egregious environmental destruction and animal suffering wrought by the food system.<\/strong> It seems like everyone else has at least an inkling that there\u2019s an ethical aspect to eating and food choices, so why not the Parrotts? There\u2019s also no mention of childhood obesity, or of the fact that diet related disease continues to climb in our country. The Parrotts repeat frequently that they don\u2019t want to make you feel guilty, and that they don\u2019t want this to be hard for you to do. So there\u2019s nothing in there that\u2019s going to make anyone uncomfortable or unhappy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Except perverse people like me who think maybe a little discomfort is GOOD FOR US and actually leads to greater joy. But in seriousness, another major problem with the book is that it\u2019s pretty exclusively focused on parents with children at home.<\/strong> It says virtually nothing\u2013nothing that I remember, anyway\u2013about people without children eating together, let alone single people. I happen to be a parent with children at home, but I\u2019m seriously uncomfortable on behalf of readers who don\u2019t. Ugh.)<\/p>\n

And although the book is released by Tyndale House, it is, frankly, embarrasingly lite on Christianity.<\/strong> Beyond pointing out the psychological benefits of believing in God\u2013or even just a higher power or cause\u2013(and how that belief can be transmitted round the dinner table), there\u2019s nothing in this book that\u2019s going to offend ANYone, except, of course, people who care about the ethics of eating and, you know, the Bible. At the risk of sounding like a total Bible-thumper (or at least, like a person who\u2019s been trying for the last 6 years to figure out what the Bible says and doesn\u2019t say about food and eating), I\u2019m astounded that the Parrotts could release a book on the family dinner and say almost nothing about all that food and fellowship mean in the life of God\u2019s people, from the manna in the wilderness to the wedding at Cana to the last supper to Acts\u2019 love feasts.<\/strong> And since when does \u201cChristian book\u201d (which, being published by Tyndale House, this is supposed to be) mean vaguely religious feel-good writing in which the topic at hand is in no way approached from a perspective resembling anything that Christianity either is or ever has been?<\/em><\/p>\n

(but it IS good fodder for Jon Acuff, see Stuff Christians Like #1.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
{William Tyndale is SO not amused.}<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But maybe worst of all, the parts of the book that actually do address food directly function as little more than a thinly-veiled advertisement for DreamDinners.com<\/a>. Written in collaboration with the two founders of this meal-prep company\u2013a nationwide \u201cmeal-assembly\u201d franchise with over 130 locations nationwide\u2013the book advertises itself as including \u201cnever before published recipes\u201d and \u201cexpert cooking tips,\u201d but ventures no further than bottled barbecue sauce slow cooker recipes and casseroles using \u201cnonfat pasteurized egg products.\u201d Though the book claims to want to reverse the cultural trend towards \u201cfast and easy\u201d and \u201cmicrowaved,\u201d its recipes fall firmly within the genre of recipe that exploded in the post WW2 years, namely, the industrial kitchen recipe. And again, because the book is more a repackaging of communication advice than a book about food, they jab at folks who microwave various things for various members of the family but don\u2019t provide a compelling reason WHY you shouldn\u2019t do that or WHY you should make a casserole (or something) instead.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Bottom line? This book is not worth anyone\u2019s time, and certainly not anyone\u2019s money; it feels to me like a book written pretty nearly exclusively for the purpose of transferring cash from the wallets of readers to those belonging to the authors and publishers.<\/strong> Read The Family Dinner<\/em> if you want facts plus great pictures and recipes (my review of that is here) and The Surprising Power of Family Meals<\/em> if you want a more thoughtful commentary on all the compelling data surrounding the importance of family meals (sans pictures and recipes).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Tomorrow, we\u2019ll look more closely at some of those statistics on the power of eating together. Meanwhile? Send me a message or leave a comment with YOUR questions and ideas on {food, faith, family; joyful justice & bread of life.} I\u2019ll do my best to address them in upcoming posts. With recipes! And pictures! And joy.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps I\u2019ve been immersed in the world of foodies for too long, but I would\u2019ve expected Les & Leslie Parrott to give a few props to the food movement\u2013beyond pointing out that a movement called Slow Food exists (!)\u2013in their new book, The Hour That Matters Most. They could have said more about the qualitative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2070,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,26,39,40,44,57,59,86],"tags":[735,1416,2211,2221,2245],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-books","category-connecting","category-faith","category-family","category-food","category-joy","category-justice","category-table-talk","tag-dreamdinners-com","tag-les-leslie-parrott","tag-the-family-dinner","tag-the-hour-that-matters-most","tag-the-surprising-power-of-family-meals"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Hour That Matters Most<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Perhaps I've been immersed in the world of foodies for too long, but I would've expected Les & Leslie Parrott to give a few props to the food\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2011\/09\/06\/547\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Hour That Matters Most\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Perhaps I've been immersed in the world of foodies for too long, but I would've expected Les & Leslie Parrott to give a few props to the food\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2011\/09\/06\/547\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rachel Marie Stone\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-09-06T09:00:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/files\/2011\/09\/book_170x250.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rachel Marie Stone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rachel Marie Stone\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2011\/09\/06\/547\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2011\/09\/06\/547\/\",\"name\":\"The Hour That Matters Most\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-09-06T09:00:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-09-06T09:00:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/#\/schema\/person\/c46cec1db7f3461f4f3d5289c79a2a8c\"},\"description\":\"Perhaps I've been immersed in the world of foodies for too long, but I would've expected Les & Leslie Parrott to give a few props to the food\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2011\/09\/06\/547\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2011\/09\/06\/547\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/2011\/09\/06\/547\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Hour That Matters Most\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rachelmariestone\/\",\"name\":\"Rachel Marie Stone\",\"description\":\"Faith, Family, Food; 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