Our “overflow refrigerator, housed in the garage, is on the blink. For years, it has tried to tell us that it doesn’t like the temperature extremes of that less than temperate space, freezing liquids in the winter and panting its way through the harsh summer heat in a pseudo-defrost.
The plight of the less-than-optimal functioning of that extra refrigerator is neither here nor there as to the focus of this piece. Yet, when I pondered the existence of an extra appliance for storage, it got me to thinking about the contrast between wealth and want.
I wondered if this particular abundance, which I rather feel is not a rarity in this country, is usual to many Americans. Then I mused that since the old children’s rhyme, held in my memory, Jack Sprat, originating in my ancestral home in Europe, is not peculiar to America, but to a dream of plenty, everywhere.
In the biblical book of Genesis, Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream of seven fat cows and seven skinny cows, as the cyclical phenomenon of plenty versus famine. It was a prophecy, predicting seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine, which counseled a sort of savings plan, involving storage during the good times, to waylay the potential for lack during the lean times.
We’ve all heard about the concept of “feast or famine,” if not lived it. So, extra storage just seems a prudent thing to do, right?
Then comes along Luke, chapter twelve in the Bible, which warns against the tempting hoarding habit associated with the storage patterns of some people, otherwise known as “rich fools.” The gist of this parable is that the accumulation of material things, indicated by building ever-bigger barns in which to store your stuff, is a foolish distortion of your values. Instead, we should consider sharing our abundance and considering our mortality.
“Jack Sprat could eat no fat. His wife could eat no lean. And so betwixt them both, you see. They licked the platter clean.” This made me wonder about the connotations and evolution of the word’s fat, and lean.
I think that fat, in medieval times, was equated with wealth. Flashing through my memory banks are images of king-like, jolly, Santa Claus impersonators, dressed in furry purple robes imbibing on an overflow of drink and gouging themselves with handfuls of big, fat drumsticks, while boisterously pontificating on some topic or another.
Then there are Raphael’s (Raffaello Santi’s) five-hundred-year-old images of fat little cherubs painted on repeat on many a castle ceiling. Those chubby, extraordinarily white, nearly opaque, angels often direct our gaze to the dreamy heavens and indicate prosperity and plenty.
Skinny, in those times, meant poverty or lack. There were no extra refrigerators for the people scraping by in the cold, dirty and dark streets of many a lightless city. Think Tiny Tim in Scrooge.
Today’s understanding of fat and lean couldn’t be more contrary to those images of old. Unless you’re plumping up your derriere with a goal toward the ultimate physique for twerking, plump is not the modern go-to concept for the display of wealth. That’s reserved for the lean mean body-conscious and tan-skinned among us.
Fat in more contemporary times has been rendered by an excess of relatively cheap carb-loaded foods ingested by multitudes of working-class folks. Meanwhile the rich and famous frequent restaurants featuring humongous white plates with two overly pampered shrimps in the lonely middle, atop a small pond of thick, colored paste, and decorated with a pseudo edible sprig of some herb or flower. That’s dinner.
Many of us probably have known both fat and lean times. It’s probably akin to the grandparently line that “I walked five miles in the snow to school,” that our early days, were lean times. We struggled to make ends meet. We lived on pasta from a box, and we got fat.
Today, fat is sadly and frequently equated with unattractiveness and laziness. Unless you spell it “phat.”
Phat is a throwback term coined in the African American vernacular, used particularly in music and fashion. It takes us right back to the chubby cherubs and fat kings of abundance, excellence, privilege and admiration.
So, whether you’re Jack Sprat or his wife, it’s fat and lean together, that enable you to rise to your best life. Can you really appreciate the fat in life if you haven’t lived through a little bit of lean?