Food. Every morning we wake up and go through our day ingesting various amounts and types of it. Most of us never stop to think about what it means to our lives, our bodies, our emotions what, or perhaps more importantly, how, we eat. But if you took some time to really contemplate it, you would notice a substantial difference between grabbing a happy meal at McDonald’s and scarfing it in your car, or creating a meal from fresh foods in your kitchen and sitting down with friends or family to share in the minor miracle a well-prepared meal can be. Food is more than just a chore we must perform everyday to keep us alive. Food is a medium that facilitates any number of important experiences in our lives. And when done well, with passion, it surpasses a mere meal and becomes something much greater.
After I made the decision to go to culinary school and pursue some sort of job in this crazy world we call the food service industry a few things changed for me. Food became central to every day of my life. My husband has always had a fire inside of him to pursue any number of worldly academic subjects, philosophy, politics, economics, but I had never really felt the kind of passion I saw in him for anything I had ever done or considered doing before. All of that changed however once I began cooking alongside all these other misfits in the culinary world, I realized I was feeling something I had never felt before, like I belonged there. I have never felt so passionately about any act in my life. Cooking soothes me; it speaks to me and makes me want to reach beyond myself into worlds I never even dreamt of before. My two best friends in the world have always been artistic, and both are making successful careers out of their art. I was always a bit envious, (maybe a little more than a bit), of them for this, but when I found my cooking I realized that this was my art, this I could do for the rest of my life and never feel like it was work. I could contribute something beautiful to the lives of those around me.
Of course, once my family, friends, and coworkers learned of my newfound calling in life the questions began pouring in. “When are you coming to cook for us?”, “So, thanksgiving at your place this year, eh?”, “what do I do with chicken?”. Seriously. I love being asked questions, and that people come to me with cooking inquiries, but it did make me realize that I needed to build up my self-confidence and fortify my constitution against the inevitable statements of “Oh, you did that? That’s interesting…” which roughly translates to, “it was already dead, why did you feel you must kill it again?” And then there are the other kinds of questions, questions like, “how much of this do I add?”, or “how long do I cook it for?”, which become perplexing for a cook such as myself because it is very much like asking a musician rockin’ a solo on their guitar which notes sound good together and how long do I hold them? The whole point of a great solo is that when you’re playing it you are totally in that moment, the notes you played, the bends and slides, you played it that way because that is how the music wanted to be played. It doesn’t necessarily mean that was the only way to play it, that that was the only way to make it great. Take our National Anthem for instance, a great and moving song about our country that is meant to remind us of where we come from and the importance of staying together, the original version tells us that in its lyrics. But, when you listen to Jimi Hendrix’s instrumental version of our National Anthem, you are taken to a place where you can feel the words, you can see the bombs bursting, hear the fear and love and terror and hope that make our nation what it is. He has taken something and given it color and life and heart, where before there was a solemnity and roteness that doesn’t make it any less for what it is saying, but certainly lessens its ability to affect your emotions.
The same can be said of food and cooking. Say you are home sick. Immediately a lot of us think of soothing ourselves on a sick day with chicken noodle soup. You stay home, go to the cupboard and pull out a can of soup, dump the contents into a bowl, microwave and serve. Yes you are sating your sick self with the go-to remedy, yes you will make it through the day, but imagine how differently you would feel if the soup you ate that day was made from scratch by someone who cares for you. When another person takes the time and care to create and serve a dish that is specifically for you, to make you feel something, then the experience of eating it becomes about more than mere nutrition. You are also experiencing the thoughts and feelings that another human being has for you and that will make you feel better than any can of soup any day.
Food is the great provider. It brings people together and provides time and atmosphere for some of the most important moments of our lives, weddings, divorces, funerals, births, graduations, promotions, anniversaries, we use food as an excuse to share pieces of our lives with those we hold dear to us, those we want to impress, those we must say good-bye to. Preparing a meal like that takes passion, thoughtfulness, and creativity. You have to know your audience and you have to feel the ingredients, they will sing to you and if you let yourself you will hear them guide you in creating something from them that is more than they were, more than you were, and becomes a masterpiece.
Mary Endicott
