I enjoy a great meal as much as a wonderful sunrise or sunset and that is saying a lot.
Is great food importnat to you?
I am pretty much an omnivore, with wildly fluctuating cravings, so there’s nothing as good as exactly what I want exactly when I want it. But that can happen anytime.
Having a vision of what I want to create and having THAT come out, not just how I want it, but actually enjoyable to OTHER people…that, that is bliss.
That doesn’t happen very often. 
I absolutely appreciate wonderful meals - I’ve had some very memorable dining occasions… caprese salad at Le Sirenuse in Positano, Italy; fresh baked flounder in Myrtle Beach when I was 14; and filet mignon at the Chop House three years ago. Oh, and Daniel’s gourmet chocolates in Rockford. I remember a good meal.
That said, I’ve learned to be pretty Zen about food experiences. I’ve learned to appreciate every bite in the moment and not worry too much about when the next one’s coming. My definition of a ‘‘good meal’’ has changed - ‘‘good’’ doesn’t just mean tasty, it means nutritious. So no, I wouldn’t say wonderful food is fundamental to my happiness. It sure doesn’t hurt though.
Very very important. Eating a wonderful meal is an entirely visceral experience in a way similar to great sex or a good massage. A good meal involves all your senses and really puts you in the moment. I’ve never thought of it that way, but you’re right, olivesmarch4th, it can feel very Zen.
The food doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive. One of the most memorable meals in my life only involved some fresh summer fruits, a loaf of bread, some cheese, and ratatouille made with farmer’s market produce accompanied with some Belgian ale.
I have the least sophisticated palate of anyone I know; food is just fuel for me. Occasionally I come across foods that are nice, but mostly it’s just food. That said, the occasion and company can be everything. Contribution to my overall happiness? Negligible. Fortunately I’m pretty happy anyway.
I love cooking ( even though my current kitchen is too small to really enjoy the experience)
two things that screw it up for me…
I detest with an almost phobic intensity the sensation of salt, flour sugar or other powders on my hands. ( have to wear surgical gloves to even put my hands in a bowl of flour)
Also when I have finished cooking my appetite will generally have vanished completely.
I love the reaction of my guests but … I really don’t feel like eating the stuff I’ve prepared myself.
I can’t be bothered cooking anything special if its only me at home.
Unfortunately being “between contracts” I have been at home too much for the last two months and my eating habits have been very poor… well that’s not true maybe “erratic” (sp?) would be more accurate. But my mood definitely affects my appreciation of food
Its sunday night now so I will boil 5 eggs or my breakfast for the week. I will make a huge pot of lentil, leak and potato soup. ( that will freeze and last most of the week)
If I meet some friends then I may snack with them this week.
I recently won a two weekend meal voucher ( one of these drop your business card in a jar things) for two in a Japanese restaurant which specialises in Kobe beef ( just looking at it it makes my arteries clog up!!) so am gonna give that away if I can.
In short I like cooking … but not so much eating the stuff
I’d say food basically lessens my overall happiness. Hunger distracts me and the need to cook and eat interferes my interesting projects all the time. Instead of doing research for 12 hours straight, I need to get something to eat every couple hours. It’s a pain, and good food is also shockingly expensive. I’d be perfectly content with tasteless food pills that delivered all the nutrients that I need, almost all of the time. Much more time and resources left for the fun stuff.
Mmmm. A good meal. Very important to my overall happiness. A lot of it is tied up in other factors besides food. If I’m out to dinner with my hubby, or if I’ve spent significant time and energy cooking dinner for the family, and the other people I’m with are enjoying the food as much as I am, I take as much pleasure from their enjoyment, as my own. But sometimes dining is a solitary experience, and I really try to find things I enjoy eating for that, too.
As others have said, it doesn’t need to be fancy to qualify as “a really good meal”; one of my favorite meals of the year is my Christmas Eve dinner; my grown children are here, we’re decorating the tree, we have Christmas music playing, and I’m serving a very simple meal of cold sausages, sliced cheeses, assorted crackers and fresh fruit.
Not every dinner I serve has to be wonderful, but having really good meals sometimes is very important to my overall happiness.
Yes it is… but I find that 95% of great food is food we prepare ourselves. There aren’t many restaurants that seem worth the hassle, anymore. Notable exceptions are gourmet fine dining restaurants… the kind we mostly get to when on vacation.
I’m dying for a weekend in New Orleans.
That’s an interesting question.
I love to cook, and I eat at home 90% of the time, so I generally prepare something tasty because it’s easy enough to do that.
But I’m not hung up on eating, nor do I particularly remember any meals I’ve had in the past. I enjoy my food but I don’t live to eat, if that makes sense.
Some days I’m like Toxylon - it’s an annoyance to have to stop what I’m doing and feed the animal. I feel like that about a lot of body maintenance things, for that matter. Care and feeding of the human body is a chore in many ways. 
Except for very special occasions, I think of food exclusively as fuel, and am only concerned with its nutritional contents.
My entire life up until my 40s I had a fairly bad diet. Throughout High School, the academy, and my career in the Army I stayed active enough through participation in sports, daily runs and et cetera that I never got in bad shape. Once I retired and move away from my group I had been doing runs with for 15 years I really stopped doing a lot of exercise. A few years later I looked in the mirror and realized I was more than 50 pounds overweight. I struggled with that for probably 4 years trying to get my weight under control, and I’d say the defining thing that allowed me to eventually shed the 50 pounds was I stopped thinking of food as one of life’s pleasures. I had always loved good food, eating at fine restaurants, and am even a pretty good cook myself, but I realized at a certain point that I can’t be all tied up in having a delicious meal every time I eat–because for me it lead to over eating.
I genuinely believe some humans just aren’t born with a good regulator for their food consumption, and those people will tend to become fat, I think that without that sort of internal regulator you need some sort of system to follow to avoid overeating, and to make my “system” work I had to stop worrying about the pleasure or lack of pleasure derived from any given meal.
Food is hugely important to me. I can remember high school, looking forward to the insanely wonderful salad bar; $2 for probably 1.25-1.5 pounds of salad made of lettuce, chickpeas, cucumbers, carrots, bell peppers, banana peppers, ranch dressing, freshly ground pepper and sesame seeds.
I think of the crispy pan- fried dorade I had last week, how I closed my eyes and savored every bite. The creme fraiche mixed with red potatoes.
I think of the $2 taco stand, fresh chargrilled chicken doubled wrapped in a corn tortilla which I smother with an avocado and cream puree, fresh salsa and a wedge of lime squeezed of the whole thing.
My own homemade blackbean, mango and quinoa salad.
Jumbo shrimp cocktail, with a spicy fresh cocktail sauce.
The pumpkin-walnut pancakes I had Saturday morning for my birthday.
Good food certainly doesn’t have to be expensive, but it does have to be fresh.
It’s of very little importance to me. I have a sweet tooth and there are some other foods I really like too (beef, chicken, various breads and fruits) but in the grand scheme of things, food isn’t something I really take a lot of satisfaction in, and I’m more or less content to eat things that aren’t unpleasant. I actually find it frustrating that people who want to get together are always jazzed up about going out to eat. There are so many things people could do together, but they’d rather overpay for a meal than anything else.
Moving to Cafe Society, from IMHO.
I love food, no question about it. But I wouldn’t say that good food is important to my overall life as much as I would say that it’s important that food be good if I’m going to bother eating it.
That is, if I’m hungry and the choice is between something unappealing/bad for me and nothing (say, at a conference or something), I will generally choose nothing.
Little to no importance. Food is food, a meal is enjoyable based upon who I am with when eating it.
Yes, absolutely. I’ve been working on a pot of cream of chicken soup for four hours now, but when it’s done it is pure comfort in a bowl.
Sure. Boston Market recently introduced dishes and tableware! And, as a fast casual restaurant, they have moderately prices meals. Delicious!! And with the weather, I yearn to go back to enjoy the rotisserie chicken with vegetable and mashed potato. That’s a good dinner. Lunch - I can always grab a banana, apple, grapes, or have a sandwich. Breakfast - my favorite cereal box selection, or Denny’s, McDonald’s, or some diner. Some days it’s breakfast, some days it’s lunch, and some days it’s dinner.
Oh man, I could respond to this in so many different ways I’m not even sure where to begin.
Sometimes I think it’s more the feeling after a good meal. Having a good, warm, homemade meal can feel great after a week spent throwing together simple sandwiches or heating up soup in a can.
There are also certain times when certain foods hit the spot, like oatmeal when it’s snowing or pumpkin flavored stuff in the fall.
But on the other hand, I have body image issues and will often feel guilty after a good meal, asking myself if I really needed to eat that much or wondering whether I had made healthy choices about what to eat. This guilt undoubtedly detracts from my happiness.