Food

Barmecidal” means “illusory.” The adjective comes from Barmecide.  In “The Arabian Nights,” or “The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night,” a collection of stories in Arabic, more particularly in “The Barber’s Tale of His Sixth Brother,” a Barmecide was a member of a wealthy Persian family.

The barber in the tale narrates that one day  his sixth brother, Shakashik, once rich and now impoverished, went out to beg.  He caught sight of an imposing mansion, and learned from the people there that it belonged to a Barmicide, a scion of the house of Barmaki. The beggar was let in so he could get alms from the master, who was in the sitting room, a handsome man with a well-trimmed beard. When the man learned that Shakashik was dying of hunger,  he called for a jug of water and basin and told Shakashik that they should wash their hands.  But this was just make-believe. There was neither jug of water nor basin and the Barmicide merely pretended to be washing his hands.

Next the host asked for a table to be prepared. Again there was no table. The host then told Shakashik, “Honor me by eating of this meat and be not ashamed.” And with appropriate gestures he made as if to eat, expressing surprise why Shakashik was not eating at all considering that he was famished. So Shakashik  played the part and acted as though he himself was eating too. The Barmecide remarked on the whiteness and excellence of the bread, but of course there was no bread.  Next the host had the following imagined dishes brought in one after the other—meat pudding, marinated stew with the fatted sand-grouse in it, chickens stuffed with pistachio nuts—all of which Shakashik pretended to eat with gusto, but they and the sweets that followed, almond conserve and honey fritters, and the dessert, almonds and walnuts and raisins and other dried fruits, only deepened his hunger.

Unable to bear it any further, Shakashik  complained that he was  already full and could not eat any more. This prompted the Barmecide  to call out, “Bring me the wine.” Shakashik thought of a way to get back at his host. He received the imaginary cup that the Barmecide fished out of the air, and quaffed the invisible wine, and in no time pretended to be drunk.  He then dealt the Barmecide a mighty cuff in the neck, and was about to give his host another smack but the latter vehemently protested and cursed Shakashik. Nonetheless, when Shakashik explained that the wine had made him drunk and unruly, the Barmecide broke into laughter, amused that the beggar had patiently and with wit joined him in his game, and ordered his servants to bring out the real food, the same that he had mentioned in sport, for the both of them to feast on. Thenceforth, the beggar became like a brother to the Barmecide, and his eating and drinking partner for life.

The beggar came to the Barmecide a truly hungry man. But instead of feeding him, the Barmecide made fun of his hunger.  In the Gospel of Matthew, upwards of five thousand people came to Jesus, who not only healed all of their sick but also, when they were famished at day’s end, fed them by blessing and multiplying the little that was available—five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish, fare not a whit as fancy as that named by the Barmecide, but real filling food, of which there was more than enough to go around.

Of course, in the end, after he received a whack in the neck, the Barmecide offered the beggar serious food, as solid and satisfying as that which Jesus gave to the crowd. But the hunger that this food satisfied would come back.  Indeed, we learn from the tale of the barber that when the Barmecide died, Shakashik became a beggar once more, just as in the past.

Jesus was sensitive to physical needs, which he sought to relieve, whether it was hunger or illness or grief.  But for him there was food more real than the food on the table and this was the food that he wanted his disciples to eat, food that would last. At one time he told them, “Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that which endures unto eternal life.” And when asked what this meat was, he said, faith—that they should  believe in him whom God has sent.

Commenting on this, St. Augustine said, “This is then to eat the meat, not that which perishes, but that which endures unto eternal life. To what purpose do you make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and you have eaten already.”