Cooking Is Cross-Sectional

Cooking is a home remedy that cures hunger, depression, and misunderstandings. There is nothing like a home cooked meal. When food tastes bad, times are not good. It’s often the determining factor in whether relationships move forward to the next level or if they end abruptly. It’s one of the most comparable domestic attributes that a person can have.

When people get together over a good meal, they discuss the things they love, their experiences, politics, and culture. All of the things that may not be discussed while dining out in a local restaurant. Who wants everyone overhearing your life’s story?

Cooking is a sense of accomplishment when done correctly. People spend sometimes hours making the perfect dish that reflects their ancestry and heritage. I am part Vietnamese, so I love pho. For people who have not made this dish, it can be complicated. You have to boil the bone marrow and spices just perfectly to make a delicious broth. I am also part Korean, but dare not touch the art of kimchi. I am a Louisiana French Creole, so I love cooking gumbo. My West Indian side tells me to always find time for oxtails and beef patties. There are other ancestral dishes I love to make as well.

When you cook, you are recreating a part of your identity. The ancestors will be pleased as this honors them in so many ways.

Eating someone else’s cooking helps you learn more about them and their journal. Is it good? Is it bad? There are so many questions that we can ask when it comes to eating dishes from our colleagues, neighbors, and friends. Company potlucks are often touch and go, but when someone brings an ancestral dish, most people want to try it because they have never had it before, or they have never had that type of dish from their colleague and they want to know how it measures up.

Romance starts in the kitchen where so many people fall in love with the delicious smells and taste of herbs and spices. I remember asking a close friend what I should cook for someone who I was dating, they said “Something quick and safe.” I remember making rosemary steak with mushrooms, onions, and potatoes with a blended salad. It was the safest romantic meal that I could think of. Men often make spaghetti when they cook for women. They consider spaghetti to be the safest dish that can be made, but I like mine with a little sugar or agave syrup and minced onions.

Don’t just cook, savor the moment. A lot of people in the United States cook to live, but go to restaurants to enjoy food instead of making food that is enjoyable. A lot of people in the United States hate their own cooking and don’t take the time to become better cooks. For a nation that loves to eat, more of us need to love to cook and savor our own dishes. Don’t eat food that sucks.

Teach your children how to entertain with food. My mom would occasionally make a big pot of gumbo with cornbread for my high school classmates. My brother once brought homemade ceviche to school.

Invite people over from time to time, so they can enjoy a well cooked meal. I remember growing up with people coming over for dinner and southern soul food being prepared. If you don’t know what southern soul food is, it consists of macaroni and cheese, cornbread, collard greens, chitlins, black eye-peas, and a few other southern favorites. Everyone who was invited took a plate home.

Cooking is cross-sectional and one of the most ancestral things you can do to build relationships.