November 30, 2006
Zoe’s Splendid Table.
Mention comfort food and my mind turns to Chinese cuisine. And if my mind turns to bean curd with black mushrooms or garlic chicken at the same time that I’m driving down Beacon Street in Somerville, you can bet a pit-stop at Zoe’s is inevitable.
Now you may be thinking to yourself, “Zoe’s? Chinese food?” And, “Is Zoe a Chinese name?” Well, maybe you’re not, but I think this every time I stop at Zoe’s.
So last night, after carting my food home, I decided to do a little Zoe research. As it turns out “surprise!” the linguistic birthplace of the word “Zoe”is not China. Baby name books tell us that Zoe is a Greek name and that it means “life.” Hmmn. I wonder if Zoe means life the way that Jennifer means “white dove,” “fair spirit,” and my all time favorite,”white wave?” WoooOOsh!
A few seconds of Internet research later (ok, it was longer), I discovered that Zoe doesn’t exactly mean life in the way that many of us think of life. It seems the ancient Greeks did not have a single word for life. When you think about the meaning of Zoe as life, you have to think of Zoe in relation to her fraternal twin, Bios.
So, what does Zoe mean? Well, Plato associated Zoe with spiritual life. With Goodness and eternal Truth and Beauty (remember, this is pre-Christian divinity). And although Plato’s student, Aristotle, saw Zoe as natural life and Bios as shared public & political life, Christian theologians expanded on Plato’s thought and have been writing about Zoe ever since. Professor Donald DeMarco, drawing on C.S. Lewis, writes, “Zoe.. is an enriching spiritual life that is in God from all eternity. Man needs Zoe in order to become truly himself. Man is not simply man; he is a compromise of Bios and Zoe…The transition, then, from Bios to Zoe (individual life to personal, spiritualized life; selfishness to love of neighbor) is also the transition from a culture of death to a culture of life.”
Wow. I wonder if the Grinch got in touch with his inner Zoe when he experienced that whole transformation by the “spirit of Christmas” thing. Now that’s a name! Thank you Greece! And thank you Zoe’s!
Garden variety North American Nomad. Born in the Midwest; lived and worked on the West Coast and abroad; studied in the South. Recently spotted putting down roots in New England.
Jennifer I used to live like a block away from Zoe’s!! Can’t say I ever ate there though… I was usually too busy making some concoction with goods from the “Ghetto Star”.
! : ) I lOve “Ghetto Star!” Better than Porter “everythings-out-of-stock-I-can’t-breath-there-are -so-many-people-in-here Star ; )
When I lived in Washington D.C. the Safeway just outside of Dupont Circle was called the “Soviet Safeway” in honor of its barren shelves and scraggly produce as opposed to the “Social Safeway” on Wisconsin Avenue, which was something of a yuppie pick up joint, as much as a grocery store can be, I suppose.