There's something exquisite about a little meal like this—un petit repas, en français.
It is simple, just three ingredients: bread, cheese, fruit.
It is easy to prepare, and easy to eat. You eat it with your hands. This is a primal act, a visceral act that connects the food to your body more intimately than when mediated by fork, by spoon. It is sensual. It is immediate and sincere.
It is refreshing on a hot day. The fruit is cool in your mouth, and the cheese is soft and cool, too, and together they conspire to draw your heat as they melt across your tongue. The bread is the temperature of air, of which its halfway made.
It is simple. It is uncomplicated by the filigree of condiment.
It is simple, yes, but it is also complex. Its true appeal lies somewhere in the nebulous realm between simplicity and complexity.
Because what does a fig taste like, really? What does Camembert taste like? What about bread? And what happens when these three perfectly ripe, perfectly aged, perfectly fresh elements commingle within your sensorium? It is juicy, unctuous, slippery, snappy, chewy, salty, sweet. It is different from one bite to the next.
It is not an easy thing to describe. But it is a very easy thing to enjoy.
Quite possibly one of my favorite things, too. Given, I don’t eat cheese anymore, but still … fond memories of only being able to afford bread, fruit, and cheese while traveling around Europe, and not caring one bit. Simple pleasures—and their own levels of complexity—are too often overlooked in life.
Ryan, thanks for the note. One could readily use nuts, or nut butter, in lieu of cheese, to the same net effect: simplicity + complexity = mystery.