Daily Reflections

01/04/2022

Food for Thought

I was never much of a scientist. In much the same manner as I am still not much of a baker. Often these two things find themselves conflated by simile in kitchens: and rightly so. While there is most definitely artistry in baking, its first principles are far more immutable than those found in other culinary disciplines. After over 30 years as a cook, I have acquired a passable knowledge of baking and a deep appreciation for its exactitude.

So too, with Science. At times, its grand view and elegant precision (or more accurately, its continual seeking for refinement of scope and calculation) can truly be called artful. But, as in baking, certain requirements for a functioning product cannot be ignored lest the results require a complete restart. And, again, like baking, it usually comes down to the math.

Other (not lesser, but other) types of cooking allow room for more intuitive leaps in their execution. Not that there aren’t rules and parameters that, if not met, also require a complete reset. Nor is there less a need for standards in measurement or perspective. It is simply so that there is more wiggle room for the cook to either improvise or course correct. There is a running joke among lifetime kitchen folk, that Sauciers were invented to cover mistakes.

The point is, this provides for a more fluid discipline, making cooking more akin to our common definition of art. The greater allowance for creativity. And a similar observation can be made of the so-called softer sciences such as philosophy and psychology. Yet there is still more commonality than disparity here.

All these areas of inquiry into what the stuff of life is, how it works, what is best, what is true, are all effectively trying to accomplish the same thing as the cook or baker. To feed the being. To aid in the continuation of its existence. And all these areas of inquiry are necessary because of the unique perspective, or rather, the specialization of their aim. We need to know the physical facts of this level of existence every bit as much as the esoteric.

For example, as far as we know, matter cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. As such, the fires in the cosmos are continually burning up or churning out things. Things are constantly diverging into more primitive arrangements like particles or emerging into more complex ones like people. The infinite pot is constantly roiling, either reducing things like a glace or producing things like pasta. Either breaking the molecules apart or setting them in prescribed patterns.

In this way, the Cook or the baker is participating in what the Hindus call ‘Shiva’s Dance.’ As does science, with its constant examinations it breaks apart the existing facts or sharpens them. Philosophy too, with its often-incessant questioning can dice a single word into its near limitless subsets of context, use and mention. Or it can unify several intellectual ingredients into a complete academic meal with all the essential bits included for proper mental nutrition. I find it no coincidence that the acronym for the scientific holy grail is G.U.T. the gut, is exactly the organ needed to feed us and allow us to persist.

Whether attempting to provide sustenance for the body, mind, or soul every person actively seeking to do any or all of these things is effectively working in the grand cosmic kitchen. concocting their dishes. Serving them up to peers or costumers with varying degrees of demands and expectations and assumptions. To render their recipe and process, with all its nuances in tact for examination and hopefully appreciation or at least, acknowledgement.

…. Just food for thought