Sometimes people may wonder why so much of our time is spent in making food. Don’t we know that we can just go to the store and buy the same stuff, cheaper and faster? No mess, no prep, just pop it in the oven. Or the microwave. Then you don’t even have to wash dishes.
Now, don’t get me wrong. We are not whole food purists by any means. We have eaten our share of frozen pizza (we call it “penitential pizza”) and boxed Mac and Cheese, or ordered food because it was late and we just didn’t have time to make anything.
But, when was the last time anyone posted a blog with pictures of their kraft macaroni? When was the last time anyone wanted to read about kraft macaroni?
But look at this loaf of bread. Three hours, sometimes four or 6, depending on how long we let it rise, from getting out ingredients to taking it out of the oven.
After all the time that goes into making a loaf of bread like this, it disappears in one meal. Two at the most. The kids will usually eat an entire sandwich loaf between them for lunch.
On the opposite side of the coin, people will present all kinds of arguments for why we should make our own food. “It tastes so much better!” (true, usually.)
“You know where it all came from.”
“It’s so much better for you.”
“You will feel so healthy and energized.”
While these may all be true, they also strike me as missing the point.
The truth is that making food for people and sharing it with them is an inherently joyous thing. It can be a frustrating thing, if the food is exceptionally fine home cooked food served to a bunch of philistines (a.k.a. toddlers) who would rather eat kraft Mac and Cheese rather than Mama Mac.
Time goes into it. Sometimes hours, sometimes weeks, sometimes months, or even years.
This is not because the food itself is worth all that effort in itself. It is not the food that is inherently joyous. Food can be a dead and sterile idol if pursued for its own sake. It can be a real hospitality killer if the need to impress people with the fare outweighs the desire to spend time with them and make them happy.
But as a component, just one part, of the real thing, it is unreplaceable. Why is it that people enjoy looking at pictures of beautiful and wholesome food? For most, I would submit, it is not simply because it looks like it would taste good. That’s why most food blogs are pages and pages of explaining where this recipe came from and why it is so important and what it means to our family. That is what the food is all about, and why we love sharing it.
That’s also why we hit the “skip to the recipe.” We don’t have time for the real thing.
Yes, all of those bottles have the same amount in them, one cup exactly of elderberry cordial, all measured with the same measuring cup. The bottles themselves are not super consistent. Made in China.
Still, pretty. And because it is 12.5% ABV (mathed, not tested) it can stay in the freezer indefinitely until we are ready to use it.
Next year we need to experiment with making elderberry wine.
It is not only making food for. It is making food with.
This loaf of cheesy bread was such fun to make with Ellie Belle, even if it took us well past bed time. It was not perfect. We learned for next time that making it in two smaller loaves would be better.
It was so thick that it took forever to cook all the way through, and still ended up overdoing the crust.
But still, look how proud she is!
And what a fun breakfast or lunch?
There is joy in mastery of a recipe or a technique. We do not often think about it in our modern economy, but mastery is one of the things that human beings were made for, and it was once the common lot of most people in Christendom.
By mastery I mean the deep understanding of a complex skill in all its parts enabled by unconscious mastery of the basics that enables confident creativity. It is one of the ways by which we image our creator as sub-creators.
Perhaps cooking food is our attempt to reclaim that birthright a little.
Little Farm in the Big City 