Hunger...What does that mean?

Hadley and Ernest Hemingway
 at their wedding.

       “There are so many sorts of hunger,” said Hadley Hemingway in A Moveable Feast.  Is she right?  Are there many different types of hunger?  Well, there is the obvious meaning of needing physical food to suppress the hunger that all people feel but what about the more symbolic meanings behind Hadley’s statement?

I, for some odd reason, thought of the song “Unchained Melody” and the scene in “Ghost” when I first started to think about it.  Seems crazy to go from Hemingway to Pat Swayze, but hey, that’s just the way my silly brain seems to work.  But that scene between him and Demi Moore really does seem to explain a part of what Hadley was trying to explain to her husband.  

The love between two people, such as Demi and Pat, can be so satisfying that it is as fulfilling as an extravagant feast.  Simply look at the words that are associated with the word love: satisfying, comforting, commitment, chocolate, devotion, passion, etc. Couldn’t these words also be used when describing food, especially food that we love?  

We hunger for food, not only because it is what we all need to survive, but because it fills a part in all of us that we need, a part that we want it to fill.  But it is in this same way that people-as the Righteous Brothers have said-hunger for the touch, love, the companionship of another person.  

It is human nature to need to fill this yearning-whether it be with food or love-and it is through this need that people bond with one another.  Food brings us together, it is a commonality that everyone-and I mean EVERYONE-shares.  No matter where you are or what country you are in, food is a major part of the culture.  But it also makes us different and unique.  We long to know what other cultures are like and through food-and love-we begin to figure that out and fill that yearning that most of us feel.

A Moveable Feast By Ernest Hemingway--To purchase the book

Ernest Hemingway--For information about Hemingway and his other works

**Photos were taken from Google Images.**