Made with Love
As JBK would know, I have never been much of a cook. Having such a busy schedule with extracurriculars growing up, my mom always had dinner cooked and ready for me when I came home. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't bothered by it by the time I went off to college on my own. I felt deprived of never learning how to cook properly or how to make a three course meal on my own. There is one thing that I have always known how to make, however, that I never really thought was all that special until now: seafood linguine.
Every Christmas, my family and I head down to Connecticut to spend the week with my grandparents (the Italian side of my family). It has been our tradition to make our own seafood linguine from scratch each year the day after Christmas. With our very own pasta cutter, we all sat at the kitchen table making linguine together and as young kids, my sister and I always made a mess. Being Italian, Linguine was our favorite but spending our summers on Cape Cod made us miss seafood by the time December came around so we started adding it to our pasta. Perez's book Religion in the Kitchen discusses the main point of the religious experience that is produced when cooking and eating food. Studies of religion focus on the sensory material that is not well represented or discussed often (at least not as much as we have talked about it in this class!). Although making linguine wasn't a religious experience, it was a cultural one for my family and eating it was even better.
When we asked ourselves the question of 'Whose taste counts more? The Gods or the worshippers?', I immediately related it to 'Whose taste counts more? The cook or those who eat the meal?'. The experience shared with family when cooking makes the food itself even more special. It all mattered; all of our tastes counted because of our bond to our yearly tradition.
There is something about a meal that makes it taste different when you make it on your own. As a kid, I was always so proud of the linguine and I swear it tasted ten times better than it actually was because I had helped make it. Over the years since we have made it so often, we're a little more comfortable with being critical over the taste. Making the mess in the kitchen, sharing stories while cutting the pasta, critiquing our traditional meal, and making it with love made it all the more special. "The one in 2018 still tasted the best", my Mimi would say.
Every Christmas, my family and I head down to Connecticut to spend the week with my grandparents (the Italian side of my family). It has been our tradition to make our own seafood linguine from scratch each year the day after Christmas. With our very own pasta cutter, we all sat at the kitchen table making linguine together and as young kids, my sister and I always made a mess. Being Italian, Linguine was our favorite but spending our summers on Cape Cod made us miss seafood by the time December came around so we started adding it to our pasta. Perez's book Religion in the Kitchen discusses the main point of the religious experience that is produced when cooking and eating food. Studies of religion focus on the sensory material that is not well represented or discussed often (at least not as much as we have talked about it in this class!). Although making linguine wasn't a religious experience, it was a cultural one for my family and eating it was even better.When we asked ourselves the question of 'Whose taste counts more? The Gods or the worshippers?', I immediately related it to 'Whose taste counts more? The cook or those who eat the meal?'. The experience shared with family when cooking makes the food itself even more special. It all mattered; all of our tastes counted because of our bond to our yearly tradition.
There is something about a meal that makes it taste different when you make it on your own. As a kid, I was always so proud of the linguine and I swear it tasted ten times better than it actually was because I had helped make it. Over the years since we have made it so often, we're a little more comfortable with being critical over the taste. Making the mess in the kitchen, sharing stories while cutting the pasta, critiquing our traditional meal, and making it with love made it all the more special. "The one in 2018 still tasted the best", my Mimi would say.
There's not much that's as good as something you've made yourself, and there's few more affirming things than a room full of people loving what you've created.
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