What is Cooking?

Cooking is the pursuit of beauty within necessity. It is how we derive delight from the elements of sustenance—and in this it is a component of the art of being happy. When we cook, we celebrate our lives, we identify with tradition, we embrace new friends.

We can also define cooking in a very academic, cut-and-dry manner, as does the Larousse Gastronomique: “[Cooking is] the process of heating food so as to render it safe and palatable.”[1]

We might just as well say that breathing is just the drawing of air into one’s lungs. That definition, while succinctly accurate, does nothing to indicate the myriad pleasures breathing enables.

Certainly, cooking has technical components: it consists of specific processes which break down tissues so that they are digestible, remove or weaken enzyme inhibitors so that nutrients can be mined, and destroy or significantly compromise pathogens so that illness is minimized.

But it is easy to grasp that cooking is also an artistic endeavor: flavors are considered and combined, much as paints from a palette; textures are developed; chemical reactions are evaluated and carefully chosen; colors are arranged and structures architected. Some highly skilled cooks are rightly regarded as artists. Others of us are simply happy to be artisans.

However, one’s grandmother or great-aunt, perhaps a grandfather or parent can tell us more than a scholar or gifted artist. A family member can hold within his or her sensory memory the essence of our culinary heritage. Whether through a bowl of chili with cornbread, a plate of enchiladas, a tray of lasagna, or a decadent slice of pecan pie, our ancestors speak to us through our own native foods. And as demonstrated in the preceding sentence, our cooking exposes our culture. It’s an accent we carry for life.

But it’s more than just a regional tongue. It’s the entire family tradition, and dietary changes present the looming possibility of heritage lost—or worse yet, heritage betrayed. But this need not be the case.

My family’s food traditions extend back for generations. Our subsistence farming and sharecropping roots are deep, including the raising of animals for food. While I was growing up, we frequently shared supper composed of the fruits of the family labors: beef from my grandfather’s pasture or rabbit from our backyard; vegetables from our East Texas garden or the fields worked by my father’s uncle Pete. This was year-round, too, as my mother was an expert food preserver. It was our way of life, even in a sterile-built Dallas suburb. Cooking the family meal began long before the pan was placed on the burner.

Like regional accents, cooking serves as a binder, and I am forever linked to the cast-iron skillet that seemed permanently affixed to our stove. The foods prepared by my mother and father drew from their own deep library of culinary memories. Though they used a book at times, they largely cooked from legacy—and within limitations.

Family recipes develop within constraints. These conditions are often levied upon the family, not chosen by them: finances, availability of resources, seasonality, and free time are all powerful factors in setting a family diet. Knowledge of food—including awareness of the modification of foods in the current industrial agricultural model—is also a critical determinant. Had my ancestors greater means, more time, and fewer restrictions, they certainly would have done things differently. And they would marvel if I did not exercise my greater freedom to feed myself properly.

My family tradition is not meat-centric so much as focused on feeding the family in the best way that one knows how. My great-grandmother, to my knowledge, did not intentionally serve anything that she did not consider healthy. There were certainly indulgences, like celebratory cakes or pies on holidays. But she did the best she could to take care of everyone. The same goes for my grandmother and my parents. This is the tradition that I continue: providing healthy sustenance on every plate.

Cooking is a life story. It reflects our broadening view of the world, and serves as a map of our historical lives. Every tradition brings with it an array of reactionary divergences. As one lives or travels among other socioeconomic or cultural groups, new flavors and methods make inroads. Northern California’s healthy focus, the indigenous heat and spirit of the American Southwest, and New York’s chic culinary crucible began to reshape my inherited southern soul-food palate. Travels into India, Paris, London, the Caribbean, and Oaxaca added yet more depth and complexity. My growing awareness of the devastating impact of industrial plant and animal production provided urgent motivation. New cookbooks filled out my bookshelf, and new dishes appeared on my dinner table.

As our personal history map expands, we learn that the world is much smaller than we originally believed. Neither are its resources infinite. Just as economic straits influence a family legacy, so must global stresses influence the heritage that we pass on. It is no overstatement to say that we must make drastic adaptations in order to continue to thrive.

Cooking is a uniquely human activity. As with all things human, it has global impact. It is appropriate, I believe, to expand our definition of cooking, for it is also a form of activism. The changes taking place in the world indicate that everything we put on our plates is important—to the waterways and soils, the adults working in agriculture, the children working in agriculture, the birds, the bees, wildlife, foreign relations, warfare, and economics. There is hardly a corner of the world untouched by our food choices.

Our view of the world is evident in our diets. If we look upon the planet as being solely at our disposal, that will be reflected on our plates. If we believe third-world laborers should be thankful that we buy their produce, it will be reflected on our plates. If we believe that immigrant farmworkers are aliens invading our borders, it will be reflected on our plates. If we view animals as nothing more than protein factories, it will be reflected on our plates. And sooner or later, all of this will be reflected in our own health, in the diminishing resources around us, and through increasing warfare.

For the cause of taste, not sustenance, we will go to war: against neighboring or distant countries; against species on land; against species at sea; against seasons; against seeds; against the very forces of nature.

But cooking, the most intimate way in which we interact with the world, is a powerful anti-weapon with which to wage peace on all fronts.

Even if all we are doing is making dinner, we are making a world of difference.