As most long-timers here know, I'm a big believer in "listening to the body," which includes (among other things) trying to determine why one at a random sporadic moment craves to dine upon a certain something.
"Chocolaholics," for example, I suspect have a bodily need for something that's found in chocolate--some minute trace element of something--and so while they think they crave chocolate (which for most is, after all, a delightful substance), actually their body's desperate for something else, some chemical or nutrient, in chocolate.
Ergo, those who satisfy the body's need for that same thing, but in something other than chocolate, never turn into "chocolaholics".
I don't have cravings very often--at least not often enough to compel me to drive eight miles to town to get--but once in a while there's a real doozy, such as that time I inexplicably dined upon an entire pound of sour cream, and nothing else, even though there was plenty of other stuff on which to sup.
Food's never been, really, that important to me; I view it as a fuel, and nothing more than that. Of course, there's self-preservation involved here; when a child and then an adolescent I saw first-hand the ravages of "fine dining" on my own family, and thereafter resolved to stick with only simple basic elementary foods, a resolution which I've kept faithfully (and hence managing to outlive my family, and spared the afflictons that afflicted them).
I take in about as many calories as I expend--and if one needs reminded, life out here in the Sandhills of Nebraska is more physically arduous than life in a big blue city. I imagine I take in about 2500 calories a day, and expend about 2500 calories a day.
But once in a while, a food quirk pops up.
Today while in town, I noticed the grocery store had gotten its weekly delivery from an obscure hole-in-the-wall Czech bakery located some counties south and east of here, and among other things, it included loaves of rye bread.
At first, I picked up just three loaves, but then after the dairy section, I went back to the bread section and picked up three more loaves. And then just before the cashier, I suddenly decided, no, that would not do, and went back and picked up the other six loaves.
(It's not a big seller, Czech rye bread being as common as beans around here, and so there was no guilt about taking it all.)
I've had this particular bread before, and always found it awesome, even if just eaten plain, with nothing else (a lingering holdover from my experiences wandering around the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants some years ago).
I have no idea what exactly is in this bread; it is, obviously, rye bread, but a rye bread of a quality not found in other rye breads, even those produced by other Czech (or "Czech") bakeries.
The bread comes in plain transparent plastic wrappers, no ingredients listed. In fact, there's no printing or picture on the wrappers, period, not even the name of the bakery. Since everyone knows where it comes from, the bakery doesn't have to advertise itself.
"Taste" not being a big issue with me--cold porridge satisfies just as well as chicken Kiev--I'm wondering what might be in this particular rye bread that causes the body (the body, not the mind), upon seeing it, to scream, "I NEED THIS, I NEED THIS, I NEED THIS." Not because of its taste, but simply because apparently there's some trace element or nutrient in it that the body needs.
I dunno.
