Here’s a light-hearted Sunday consideration for you. Have we, as humans, over-evolved as a species? This thought occurred to me while I sat in an underground taverna in central Athens with my parents, eating chickpeas with a spoon. Let me explain.
During a recent doom-scroll, a woman asked me through my phone screen ‘what’s the name of the mental condition where you physically cannot bring yourself to reply to your WhatsApp messages?’. She was of course referring to the feeling of paralysis that we all feel from time to time, where the notion of perpetual digital communication is so overwhelming that we’re often driven to abandon correspondence with people we truly care about. Her question was met with an eloquent and comforting response from another creator.
He explained that for the first time in human history, we are constantly accessible to one another in a way we’ve never known before. Barely 30 years ago you could walk out of your house, leaving your landline telephone behind, and find yourself totally and gorgeously unreachable. You could consent to social interaction when it was convenient, desirable, and intentional.
These days, somehow, we’ve collectively opted in to the illusion that we must remain available to everyone at all times. We’re merrily going through life appeasing the ceaseless scramble for our attention as though we owe it. But our brains have nowhere near evolved to sufficiently cope with this increase in demand; our humanity just can’t keep pace.
And so, the creator explains, there’s no complex psychological affliction at play here. It makes sense that we’re regularly reckoning with a sense of crushing fatigue as we attempt to live in a way for which we just haven’t been designed. Perhaps it’s not that we’ve over-evolved as a species, then; but rather that we’re impatiently trying to catch up biologically with where we’ve advanced to technologically.
Back to chickpeas. The ones I ate at Diporto, smothered in olive oil so extra virgin it was neon green, humming with black pepper and oregano, were not selected from a menu. They were plonked on our table within two minutes of sitting down, along with a copper jug of house white wine - no questions asked, no preferences factored in.
Before long, this was followed by a Greek salad with chunks of tomato, raw red onion, bitter banana pepper, black olives; buttery orzo with rooster; white beans in a spicy broth; potato stew with celery, carrot, mushrooms; a loaf of perfect bread. The only verbal exchange we had with our server was to thank him for the feast and his hospitality, and to ask to pay at the end.
Diporto has been serving lunch to the people of Athens since 1887. The owner (also the chef) extends his no-frills, home-style cooking at an affordable cost to those who are willing to relinquish the ability to choose. Whatever he fancies dishing up that day is what you eat. It’s as close as you can get to being invited into a family home for a meal.
There’s no sign outside Diporto alerting passersby to its existence - just two inconspicuous entrances in a graffiti-covered building. It was windy the day we ate there, and the cavernous, subterranean restaurant became a vacuum of sorts. The green shutters swung wildly in the through-draft; it was noisy and brilliant and no one cared.
As I chomped the chickpeas, it dawned on me that I hadn’t made a single decision other than to descend the concrete steps and take a seat. This is an incredibly rare experience in 2024; to have all the variables of something removed so that you can appreciate its simplicity at face value.
Sometimes, having the agency to curate a situation in line with our whims is a remarkable privilege, and one for which I’m often grateful. As a diner, perusing lists of dishes and drinks and considering combinations of flavour and texture can be a really satisfying experience. But being presented with endless options can also be intense and confusing.
At Diporto, you’re spared from the familiar barrage of information most contemporary restaurants inflict upon their diners. You’re relieved of the responsibility of splitting your brain in different directions, and - for once - allowed to devote your focus to a single source of joy, with no competing alternatives, no incoming attempts to distract you, and your landline telephone left firmly at home.
Digital Supper Club is a newsletter written by me, Anna. What’s on the menu? Aside from tacky culinary puns, you can expect essays on the cultural significance of food; the social currency of it, its history, and its joys. I’ll be sharing recipes, restaurant reviews, my musings on food-based art and literature, and maybe even some poetry peppered here and there (I warned you about the puns).
This hits the nail on the head on so many levels!! A lovely and thought provoking read x
great mug as well!! go diporto