| The Extremists - an allegory: Part 2 |
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| Written by Mrs Ellen Downes | |
Return, with Mrs Ellen Downes, to the land of Yim, where the allegory of children, food and trained professionals continues. You need to click here for the context of part one.  Official certification suited the ‘Chefs’ and those employing them because they felt more certain of the abilities such a one could exhibit. So it was not long before all the Community Meal Halls (CMH's) were run by Chefs. If the parents ever felt that perhaps the menus were chosen more to exhibit the new found talents than a carefully balanced diet, they were quickly silenced. THEY had not the training, so how could they criticise their superiors? Some would go home and silently read their old copy of the Master’s Instruction Sheet. Surely something was not quite right - and yet - they felt that they did not have the skills or knowledge to oppose the system. All they knew was the CMH system and perhaps a few dim memories of stories told and retold of ‘family meals’. These parents would sigh, and try harder to make sure that the light evening supper as a family would be as nutritious and tasty as could be.A new generation came, the old one passed and the Chefs continued their work. The Chef Training Institutions began to provide post graduate courses, teaching further difficult and fiddly delicacies and offering scholarships for research into new and exciting possibilities. This was welcomed by the people of Yim. Perhaps these further studies could bring again the glowing vigour and health that it was rumoured children once had. And so the research began in earnest. Each Chef enrolled wanted to prove him or herself in a way that those before them had not done. They no longer consulted the Instruction Sheet, but studied the recipes and ideas of those Chefs who had distinguished themselves with honours and were known as Chefs P.T.H. (Post-training Honours). It comes as no surprise then to learn that new ingredients began to be tested and included in their new recipes. If any worried that perhaps these new meals held little nutritional value, they were lulled into complacency as the new menus were introduced into the CMH and the children gave glowing accounts of the different textures and flavours. It could not be denied that the children were often sickly and tired, often quiet and sullen, but of course this was because the suppers the parents were providing at home were outdated and mundane. Parents, in an effort to help their weary youngsters, rushed to include these new ingredients with the old, hoping to maintain a high level of nutrition with a new and better flavour. Did anyone notice when the first ingredients that the Master’s Instruction Sheet had forbidden as food were included in the new recipes? A warning bell surely rang out loud and clear over the “But our children are sickly and weak”, the parents anguished. “Surely they should be strong and robust like the children of old.” “Not at all,”replied the Chefs. “The children of old were probably sick just as often but it was not reported because they ate at home with their parents. Now we have CMH’s and can keep health records for each child, we just KNOW about all the sicknesses that occur.” Some Chefs even went so far as to suggest that the Instruction Sheet was written by one of the ancient Yims and not by any Master at all. The style of writing and naive knowledge of the foods attested to this, they declared. Others could not abandon the Instruction Sheet, but even here there were differences. Perhaps not ALL of the Instructions were reliable. Maybe the constant copying had caused errors to be included, or perhaps a man did write them down to begin with based only on his own understanding of the Master’s ideas. Now that research was so advanced, it was easy to decide what was truly from the Master and what was not. “NO, NO!” cried others. “The Master surely wrote the Sheet. All that is in it must be true.” Then they would go back and read again that Sheet that was so precious in their sight. And even here another difference emerged. Some parents wanted immediately to take their children away from the dangerous foods. They organized their own CMH’s and employed Chefs who were in agreement with them about the Master’s Instruction Sheet and the dangers of the poisons. Others remembered the old legends of the family meals and once again dug over the neglected vegetable patches and pruned back the unyielding fruit trees. By Mrs Ellen Downes, wife of Dr. Geoff Downes | 29 April 2009
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