When I see the title of chapter two, "Kitchen, Food, and Family", in
Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions by Elizabeth Pérez I immediately think of Thanksgiving. While the traditions of my family Thanksgiving are far from what is described in this book, it is the closest connection I can relate to her described experiences.
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| My kitchen- decorated for Thanksgiving. |
In
A Natural History of The Senses by Diane Ackerman she describes the sense of taste as "the social sense" because "humans rarely choose to dine in solitude, and food has a powerful social component" (Ackerman, 127). I think this social element that can be seen in
Religion in the Kitchen is what I am most strongly connecting to my personal experience during Thanksgiving. Pérez states that "practitioners talk while they cook... around kitchen tables...over charcoal grills, wood fires, and gas stoves" and describes this as "communication that accompanies food preparation" and while this food preparation is for religious rituals, one could also say that this communication over food preparation is ritualistic in itself (Pérez, 2).
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| A pumpkin pie- Thanksgiving (2018) |
While my Thanksgiving is far from the practices in Lucumí tradition, I still have specific traditions that my family practices during this holiday. These traditions are typically centered around the social nature of meal preparation and food. My mom and I cook pies together and we of course chat while doing so. We have family come to our house and they'll bring food and we will cook some of that together. This socializing over food continues into eating. As a family we will talk about what we are thankful for and this turns into a further discussions about school, life, and much more.
The social behavior accompanied by food that Ackerman describes is probably something that most people can relate to. While it may not be to the same scale of the Lucumí traditions that Pérez describes, we can still connect to this food based social connection.
Nice observations of the parallels between Lucumi and your Thanksgiving food preparations. I suspect the combination of the attentiveness required for the food preparation and accentuated by the accompanying conversations in both are the affective and cognitive affects of these practices Pérez describes as "ritualistic." In other words, these are the religion-like mechanisms that make the tastes and smells of preparing food together in a family or family-like social groups such emotionally powerful and memorable experiences. It's what makes them special.
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