According to Wendell Berry’s essay The Pleasure of Eating, “pleasure” that related to eating comes from several aspects, not only from the taste of the food or the feeling and experience while eating the food, but also from the process of growing and making the food as well as some other considerations of the food, such as the nutritions and qualities of the food. In order not to be “a mere gourmet” or “a passive, uncritical and dependent consumer” but enjoy the pleasure of eating, people should know something about the farms—where the food comes from, know what ingredients are contained in the food—whether they are healthy and nutritious for our body  as well as holding some ethical concerns—whether the animal is living happily before it dies and feeling gratitude to producers.

Contrary to Wendell Berry’s comprehensive and complex definition of eating pleasure, mine is much simpler and straightforward. The pleasure of eating for me contains three steps. First, I enjoy searching the high-rating(or popular)  restaurants online, for example, on Yelp. Reading people’s comments about the food and service there, examining the pictures they uploaded online  and thinking about what kind of ingredients are inside the dish as well as  whether it looks attractive and delicious at the same time. Second is reading the latest menu of the restaurants to see whether there’s any particular dish that interests me. Then, I will make the decision whether to go or not. The third step is the most important one—-actual dining in the restaurant, enjoying the taste of the food by eating and chewing it slowly, and also experiencing the atmosphere and services ( but there are some places that we can only order to go).  In addition to three steps, the extensive pleasure that I got from the food is that I know what particular ingredients (or seasoning) are (is) fit for what kinds of food, for instance,  rosemary for lamb chop, so that I could apply in my own cooking.