Pairings .04 🍷🧀

Arranged marriages, community & the individual, and a fun way to spice up your coffee

Peasant Wedding, Pieter Brueghel the Elder

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“Pairings” is a series in which I share things that go well together - not only the traditional wine and cheese, but things I’ve read or heard or seen.

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1. What’s Love Got to Do With It

Last month something unusual happened: my husband and I watched a rom-com together that we both actually enjoyed. 

In this 2022 film, Lily James plays an award-winning film-maker in London who convinces her childhood friend to let her make a documentary of his assisted (arranged) marriage. She’s a typical modern girl, frustrated with the emptiness of dating apps and a hook-up culture but unsure where else to turn for guidance. He’s a successful doctor raised in a tight-knit, traditional Pakistani home - right next door to where she grew up with her mother when her father left the family for a younger woman. 

Despite its happy ending (this shouldn’t be a spoiler for anyone who loves the genre), the film actually tries to explore two vastly different approaches to life, love, and family: the modern western, individualized, divorce and dating-app way, and the more ancient, traditional family-as-village way. I thought Hollywood would err towards glorifying one over the other, and I suppose that argument could be made, but what impressed me was the movie’s ability to portray the pros and cons of both. It didn’t shy away from honestly trying to understand what it might be like to live in each of these cultures. 

It’s not a perfect film,¹ but it was incredibly well-written (sadly not common with this genre in recent years) with regular laugh-out-loud lines, usually delivered by Emma Thompson. It was a refreshing change to have Hollywood show more curiosity than usual.

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2. “We Will All Become Boring” - Louise Perry, Maiden Mother Matriarch

In this essay,² feminist-turned-defender-of-more-traditional-ideals author Louise Perry considers some similar ideas - modern Britain's turn toward individualism, the decline of close-knit communities, and the rise of “optionality” in socialising.

We’re no longer bound to spend our lives with the people we grew up near, because we can (economically) afford not to. Especially in our young, single years, where we crave novelty, we tend to opt for distance and independence. Once the babies begin to arrive, though, (and I would add: anything in life that is difficult to do solo), this independence tends not to hold up.

What’s more, none of us will be young and single and seemingly interesting forever; someday we will be old and boring like the people we leave behind. Is it possible to build an entire life divorced from community?

But there is a trade off. At a societal level, we can be rich, or we can be communitarian. I don’t think we can be both – at least, not for long. The Baby Boomers came closest to enjoying both simultaneously, but only because they were born during an ideological changing of the guard. They enjoyed the high trust, family-centric culture cultivated by their parents and grandparents, and then got to enjoy the youthful rejection of all of that culture’s downsides.

But that’s a trick that can only be pulled once.

Snip

I have bad news on this front: those things are irreconcilable. You cannot promote a culture of optionality, and then also expect people to choose you when you become a dull and onerous option. You cannot buy solitude when it suits you, and then try and buy back company when it does not, because company of the sincere and intimate kind cannot be bought.

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3. Cardamom Coffee

Having lived in Rome before I was caffeine and dairy-free, I can say that nothing really beats a true Italian cappuccino. But I’m a decaf girl now, and coffees where I live cost much more than 1 euro. Plus, as nice as oat milk can taste, I don’t love the idea of drinking frothed oil³ on the regular. So I’ve had to get creative.

A few years ago in London a friend shared some (real) arabic coffee with me and I was taken with it’s cardamom-infused flavour - so much so, that I decided to try it for myself. 

This is now my daily coffee routine:

In a small french press, put 1 Tbs Lavazza⁴ decaf espresso and 4 cardamom pods. Slowly pour just-boiled (not boiling) water over, making sure to do it gently in a circular motion so that lots of little bubbles emerge from the grounds. Don’t stir! Let sit for 15-20 min before pressing and pour into (ideally) a pre-warmed mug. Stir in a spoonful of honey to sweeten it up a bit.

1. I’m generally a sensitive movie watcher, but I know everyone is affected by different things, so you may want to do your own research to see if any of the scenes or themes might bother you.

2. Thanks to Haley Baumeister of Life Considered for the inclusion of this essay in her excellent weekly roundups.

3. The oat milks that actually froth well do so because of the oil in them. Pure oat milk, aka the results of oats soaked in water and strained, don’t have a high enough fat content to froth properly or really at all.

4. Illy vs Lavazza: I do love both but in recent years, Lavazza has won out.