Anyone who has cooked a meal has had to come to terms with the fact that while it may have taken hours (days even) to create this meal, it will likely vanish down the throats of their loved ones in a fraction of that time. In fact, if it didn't vanish quickly and with a certain amount of relish, we would worry that it wasn't good and that our efforts had been wasted. The very reason why we create our lovely meal (hunger and deliciousness) is exactly what will destroy it.
Artists create paintings that will last for centuries, poets make poems that will live on long after they have died, but the cook creates something which must be consumed immediately and often quickly, and if we're honest, will soon be forgotten. And then a few hours later, we have to do it all over again. Day in and day out. So why do we bother and further, why do we enjoy it so much? There are probably as many answers to that question as there are cooks but for me, it's three things: the doing, the sharing, and the appreciating.
I love the physicality of cooking. I love the way I use my body in the kitchen, from the fine motor skills of chopping to lifting a heavy pot of soup or bending to pick up a dropped carrot. I also love the physicality of my ingredients, the colors and textures and sounds and smells of them and they way they interact with my kitchen tools. The red peppers in the green bowl, the sound of celery being sliced, the way garlic smells when it first hits the hot oil and the way it smells a few moments later when it starts to cook and mellow. So even if I didn't get to share the fruits of my labor, I think I would be happy just with the cooking.
But I do get to share my food and that's also amazing. The impermanence of a good meal means that the moments shared and enjoyed are felt even more keenly. This gathering of friends on this particular night, with this particular meal, will never be duplicated. This tea for two, this morning breakfast before the rush of the day sets in, all this living that happens around the table. Sharing food is a conversation, a connection. Here, take this and be nourished, be happy, be content. Here, I made this for you because it's your favorite, because I thought you would like it, because I thought you might be hungry. Did you like the plums in the stew?
But ultimately, it's all about appreciation. Of the food, of the moment, of the connections. Cooking helps me to notice this, it helps me to find the connection and the love even when I think I've lost it. So cooking is not about making something that will endure (quite the opposite) but it is about something that speaks very deeply to our aliveness. Even though that delicious dinner, which took me all afternoon to make, will be crumbs and compost before the clock strikes midnight, it still satisfies on so many levels.
So yes, it all disappears quickly but it leaves behind a moment more fully lived and relationships more deeply realized. Besides, what's more important, what's more potent, what's more real: some idea of the future or this very present moment?
Related: Weekend Meditation: Lingering
(Image: Dana Velden)
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So cooking is not about making something that will endure (quite the opposite) but it is about something that speaks very deeply to our aliveness.
This is one of the points made so well in the movie Babette's Feast... one of my favourite movies of all time. If you haven't already seen it, you should.
Your cooking may not endure, Dana, but your eloquent words will.
Very well said! It's about enjoying the food (however long it lasts) with good company and good conversation! That's how the Italians do it...everything revolves around the dinner table ;-)
Excellent essay.
Sometimes cooking does endure - in faint, tantalizing memories; especially when the cook who made it is gone. A now-passed famous old lady named Mabel made the best hot pickles anywhere (at least, so I'm told, I've never had one) and my extended family always begged jars off of her. I remember "Grandma" Sue's brown bread with fondness. We try to recreate hauntingly good restaurant meals. The food might be gone, but the memory lives on! But unlike books or poems or paintings, the food can only be tasted once, and once the food is gone, only the people who've eaten it can remember the goodness and try, unsuccessfully, with words to describe it to others.
It's an elusive and addictive art. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Cooking satisfies a physical need, and also a creative one. Best of all, it is the one truly democratic art form that everyone can excel at.
I think cooking/eating is the perfect metaphor for the transitory, yet enduring flow of experience. I can't cook or eat chicken soup with cauliflower as well as carrots and celery without remembering Omi. Cake on Sunday afternoon, compote for dessert, the circle of family at the table; all those connect the past to the present in a way more personal than the cycle of liturgy and more daily than the round of holidays. The meal has an eternal element that so little of life has anymore.
This happened to me only yesterday. I spent two hours prepping my 5-star beef stew and waited two more hours for it to "stew" in the oven. Our meal was over in 20 minutes. Two of our family loved it, as usual, but my mother and sister, who are not used to such fancy fare, saved half of theirs "for later." It had been about five years since I last made it, and it will probably be another five years before I make it again.
We pour our love into the food we offer our family and friends, they consume that love whole heartedly, and we ourselves are fed with the feeling of nourishing others with love.