In its youth, the Ministry of Sustenance was simple, certain, and unexamined. Chocolate or vanilla. Peanut butter or jelly. Boxed mac and cheese so orange it practically glowed. Early bylaws left little room for dissent.
The bureaucracy was blunt. Lunchboxes were declarations of allegiance. A thermos of tomato soup earned a different stamp than a sleeve of Oreos. Clerks in hairnets issued swift rulings: no dessert before dinner, seconds only if you asked politely. Membership in the Clean Plate Club was mandatory; refusal earned you a mark in the Defiance Log. The Division of Plate Geography enforced strict zoning laws — no foods allowed to touch. The Bureau of Culinary Bravery kept permanent files on any child who gagged at peas.
Memo, Circular 19-A: All peas must be swallowed whole. Gagging constitutes dereliction of duty. Liver complaints must be submitted in triplicate.
Health was not yet in the docket. Food allergies, intolerances, eating disorders — none of these had case files. The youthful charter assumed all appetites were the same, and all rules universal. The motto above the cafeteria doors read: Food Is Fuel. Eat What You’re Given.
Amendments Arrive with Age
Meals began carrying not just taste but memory, tradition, and the rules of bodies that filed new demands.
Some departments stayed fixed. The Chocolate Bureau still rations comfort, issuing glossy bars that melt into fingers and nostalgia. The Division of Casseroles convenes endlessly, ladling cream-of-something into dishes labeled potluck. The Office of Nostalgia maintains archives of discontinued cereals and neon candy powders, their artificial sweetness now more intoxicating for being gone.
What was lost: the innocence of believing sugar could fix anything.
What was gained: a tether to childhood you can still taste.
Other wings evolved. Boxed mac and cheese graduated to four-cheese with béchamel, stamped Adulthood: Version 1.0. Brussels sprouts, once sulfurous punishments, reappeared roasted and charred, reclassified under Legitimate Vegetables. Foods once whispered about as exotic — sushi, hummus, pho — were naturalized by the Bureau of Acquired Tastes. Even bitterness earned a license: coffee, kale, IPAs filed under Complex Pleasures.
What was lost: the ease of eating only what was familiar.
What was gained: curiosity, range, and the revelation that your tongue can learn.
New Bureaus for Older Appetites
Department of Dietary Restrictions: issues gluten-free waivers, vegan visas, low-sodium directives.
Bureau of Trend-Based Eating: stamps paleo passports, keto clearances, intermittent fasting permits — filed under Obsolete Before Next Quarter.
Division of App-Based Deliveries: archives 2,431 login attempts for meals never completed, receipts stapled to regret forms.
Emergency Craving Response Unit: on call 24/7, authorized to deploy nachos or pie within 30 minutes of distress.
Intuitive Eating Relations Office: dissolves the adversarial relationship between body and mind, reminding all citizens that hunger is information, not enemy intelligence.
Office of Comfort Protocols: insists comfort food be consumed without paperwork, emotional interrogation, or mandatory justification forms.
Meanwhile, the Office of Food and Feeling swelled. Comfort, grief, shame, celebration — every appetite logged. In the archives: stacks of abandoned diet books, their promises now yellowed with age, filed under Historical Curiosities. Sometimes one collection says enough.
What was lost: the illusion that food is neutral.
What was gained: the knowledge that every bite carries history, power, and the possibility for healing.
Charter Revision
Aging has changed the Ministry’s charter. It no longer measures allegiance by childhood cravings but by how many meanings each meal can hold: family, culture, health, memory, baggage, joy.
The motto on the lintel now reads: One Table, Many Appetites.
Because the older the Ministry gets, the clearer its lesson becomes: food was never just about taste — it was about what you carried with you, and what you finally learned to set down gently.
Final Stamp, Circular 88-F: Appetite Approved. Portion: Whatever Feels Right Today.
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