The Kitchen of Rituals

 

The enumeration of the different rituals and the intentionality that goes into making each of the food items that accompany it was fascinating for me personally, as I was able to draw tangents to my own experiences, seeing preparation of food be such a foundational aspect of the rituals. The importance of cooking and talking in Afro Caribbean religions reflects the depth of the roots these religions have in the daily movements of the people that practice it. I somehow found comfort in knowing that feeding the gods is viewed as a method to make them a real entity, as this was also something I grew up witnessing. The specificity of the different kinds of food items presented to the Orishas, and the orders in which they are offered beginning with more raw ingredients suggesting a deeper connection to nature, progressively moving towards more cultured ingredients was also something I found interesting, in some way it felt to me like its a way of establishing the connection between the deities and the land/people. 

To me taste is a grounding sense. It has the ability to pull me from my world of imaginary and center me into the now. I felt a similar way when I was reading this book. Feeding the gods and them consuming the food is deepening religions connection through the sense of taste. The idea that the gods are tasting the same food as their deities, and having only certain foods be eaten by the deities and no one else also seems  to me like a way of paying respect through the sense of taste. 

The author also claims that despite the heavy integration of cooking and the complexity of it, it is still overlooked as a form of art, which is something I was able to not only see through the anecdotes presented in the book but also in the world right now, where culinary proficiency isn't celebrated as an art from. Reading the book was a treat for me, as the kitchen has always been a place of sentimentality for me and reading about others experiencing it in an intimate manner similar to mine was like reliving my life through someone else.