Myra’s Table

I’ve long held the belief that cooking involves a connection to the earth, especially for those of us who live in urban environments. Lately I’ve been thinking about how nourishing and therapeutic the act of cooking is for those participating. It’s not just about eating delicious food.

My recent class on 5-ingredient comfort food was the first focus of reflection. I observed that after making a host of cozy dishes like peanut butter and jelly-stuffed French toast, mac ‘n cheeses, quesadillas, and chocolate mousse, the class seemed ready to don pajamas and settle in for a nursery night. The atmosphere in the room was amazingly reassured.

The following day, a friend of mine came over to cook with me. His energy was low. The residue of a particularly bad day at work hung over him like a black cloud. We didn’t speak much; we just started peeling and chopping and sautéing. As the evening wore on, delightful scents wafted through the air; we had crisps and brown betties baking, bacalao and potato fritters frying, and ratatouille roasting. An apparent alchemy was taking place; by the end of the evening, my friend’s gloom had completely lifted.

Years ago, about a week after 9/11, a similar noticeable mood-lifting experience took place during a bread-baking class. The students filed in disheartened, all of them having had an all-consuming and depressing week. They kneaded and pummeled the dough, then shaped those loaves as if their lives depended on it. Apparently something else –hope perhaps?- was rising in the air alongside those loaves. The students all later remarked that this was the first time that they had been able to get their minds off the tragedy in an entire week.

Seamus Heany’s sonnet Clearances refers to the quiet intimacy of working side by side peeling potatoes with his mother.

When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts wet between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives-
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.