Food For Thought

We CS students have been experiencing Chicago this semester through the theme of Hunger. Many of our practicum groups are preparing various aspects of a Hunger Banquet we’ll participate in later this month, and last weekend everyone went to the Lifeline Theatre Production of “Hunger.” The production was set during the Siege of Leningrad during World War II, a piece of history that most of us probably know very little about. The play was about a group of food scientists who work at a research institute in Leningrad and vow to protect their very large collection of seeds. The seeds have the potential to alleviate the starvation in Leningrad, but the scientists struggle themselves to survive and maintain sanity during the 872-day siege.

The play portrayed pieces of complexity and desperation by each of the scientists—and some of the emotional and physical effects of not having enough to eat. The play displayed a paradox—for those that survived the siege, amoral behavior was justified because they lived. Some of this amoral behavior might have been uncomfortable for us to witness or imagine doing ourselves—but then, none of us have ever been in a situation of absolute desperation. What kind of actions would we take—lying, stealing, prostitution – in order to survive? How tightly would you grip onto your life? We hope that none of us are ever really confronted with this issue.

This brings me back to Chicago. Most of us have never really been confronted by hunger, but for perhaps the first time, we are confronted every day on our way to work, or on the L or wherever we go. We see homeless people and we hear their cries of hunger but we don’t understand it. Maybe we have given a few dollars to a beggar on the street, or maybe we have volunteered at a soup kitchen a few times. But we have never thought about the deep implications about what it means to be starving. Maybe what seems amoral to us, is a means of survival for some. WE do not have to sacrifice our minds, or our bodies to survive. Most of us don’t even think about “survival.”

Let’s open our eyes to hunger this semester. Let us think about food differently. Let’s think about food as a means to survive and not just as enjoyment. Let us be thankful we’re not forced to make decisions between survival and our morality—but let us not forget those who are confronted with this every single day.


-Erica Beversluis