Is cooking a craft that if perfected, has spiritual implications?  Does a good meal summon up our deep calling to rejoice in God's creation? Tentatively, I think so.  When you cook, you start with some givens, as with creation.  Some potatoes taste better baked than boiled, so bake them.  Others do better boiled.  Washing rice does make for better risotto.  If you have to overcook or undercook the vegetables, lean toward undercooking---carrots excepted.  Olive oil, like grace, improves most things. Use fresh ingredients whenever possible.  Still, a good cook can take a few "ordinary" things and make them taste extraordinary-like a great artist can make us see things we know, but have not "seen" in that way before.

 

            I am beginning a word study on "food" in Scripture for the fun of it, and because I never have.   I find, like air, that it is everywhere in the Scriptures.   God begins in Paradise by giving humans dominion and food, all fruits and seeds. It is only after the fall that humans become flesh-eaters.  A feast---a lot of food carefully prepared is a symbol of happiness in both Testaments, and each Sunday, we say that the Eucharist is a foretaste of what God is preparing for us when the Kingdom fully arrives.   All of our major holidays are filled with food, and memory. We celebrate Christ's birth and Resurrection.  We celebrate the gift of freedom and the provision of food.  Our food is redolent with memory and anticipation.  Yet we are warned about eating without being mindful of other's needs and of focusing so on our food that we dull to the things of God.   What is the food that always means home to you? How do you guard against being too focused on food?  How did you learn to cook, if you did?   If you answer, I will try to post some of your answers.  (Part one of several)

Victoria Heard