Last night I was cooking vegetable soup. In relation to
affordances mentioned earlier soup was my choice to make as it was intended to
save time in the future going on the idea of cooking once and eating six meals.
As I am limited by my budge it is an environmental press that leads me to make
meals at a low cost. I decided to experiment with a standard soup mix of
lentils and barley. As per usual I refused the idea of using a recipe instead
having a quick look at the pack and based my plan of what to do base on past
experiences. As I began to cook I added onions olive oil garlic and rosemary.
For me this is a wonderfully aesthetic in its smell. It is a very pleasing
smell that evokes many memories of cooking or being around others cooking. I
was reminded of a particular play in a small theatre that utilized this very power
of scent to activate a sense of reminiscence in the audience by frying on stage
garlic and rosemary. This particular smell certainly gives me a sense of
homeliness and comfort. In cooking there is a change in aesthetics as the
product develops, ingredients are added, through the cooking process shape,
smell, texture, taste and appearance can change dramatically hopefully
with an end product that is overall aesthetically pleasing. So with
my soup I added ingredients such as curry powder and turmeric in indeterminable
quantities dramatically changing the smell and appearance, making it a little less
aesthetically pleasing in appearance and smell. In went all the ingredients,
didn’t look too good but soup usually doesn’t. As I am cooking for myself there
is less pressures socially to present something that looks beautiful and I feel
able to experiment and try new things. The end product didn’t turn out as
I had hoped. All the lentils and curry powder turned it into more of a thick dhal.
Aesthetically is reminded me of how my mother makes dhal. We all accidentally
turn into our parents sooner or later and by the time we realize it’s too late!
So how was my spirituality represented in this meal?
This is a vegetarian meal which reflects my beliefs about eating
meat. For me being a vegetarian is not due to religion such as that of
Hinduism but is due to my beliefs about the negative impact of farming on the
environment. This gives the meal a sense of meaning for me and a sense of being
a part of something wider and bigger than myself with a connection to the earth
and trying to avoid having a negative impact as much as possible. This
connection with the earth and trying to avoid doing harm is part of my
spirituality and forms part of my core beliefs.
My health is also affected by this
meal. Food and cooking has the ability to either negatively or positively
influence health. My first choice of making a meal at home rather than
getting takeaways like fish and chips is a healthy alternative. Being a
vegetarian I also considered what I needed nutritionally to make a healthy
meal. Healthy eating can be used as an alternative to taking medication.
In my case I could be very conscious of eating a nutritionally balanced diet so
that I no longer required taking iron supplements. Eating well always makes me
feel a sense of overall wellbeing knowing that I’m putting something good into
my body.
It is an
active choice not buying pre-prepared highly processed food. The poem ‘food glorious food’ by Boothroyd identifies a dissatisfaction
with the influence of technology on food.
He asks the reader “Which ones have you chosen? Soups powdered in
plastic bags”. With this line it is highlighted that our food choices reflect
who we are and the idea that ‘you are what you eat’. Boothroyd is critical and highly processed,
packaged and sterilized way food is in today’s modern society.
I feel this in the way in that I feel a loss of
connection to what I eat when I have brought something prepackaged. The food
becomes increasingly less wholesome
the further it is on the production line and this effects the spiritual
affordance of the cooking experience. It loses its value as ‘soul-food’.
J.B. Boothroyd, J. (2002). Food glorious food. In F. Fernández-Armesto
(Ed.), Near a thousand
tables: A history of food (p.
187). New York: Free Press
No comments:
Post a Comment