Cooking as a Form of Worship

Judith Jones is the publisher who championed Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. She was a tour de force of cooking literature and an advocate for home cooking.

Cooking is a very grounding process, an opportunity to connect to the source of your nourishment. There is a certain sanctity in being able to trace the origin of your food through the cooking process and onto your plate. It is a very different experience from popping open a package of factory-prepared and -processed food made from 20 ingredients and to which you have no emotional connection. Cooking is also the one act of food that is beyond nature, the process of transforming a food into something else.

I recently took my family on a camping trip to Sequoia National Park. My two young boys learned how to catch, clean and cook a fish. It was a powerful learning moment for them and a reminder to pause and reflect on what the earth had given us.

As an observant Jew who eats only kosher food, I have been taught that raw ingredients and the ability to consume are both provided by God. Having food, and being able to eat it, are not a given. Therefore, we say blessings both before consuming specific foods as well as after the meal, to acknowledge from where our food comes. It is our way of giving thanks.

The one area of food preparation in which we do exert control is the cooking process. By cooking our food, we act as partners with the Creator in molding something new – like bread, soup, quiche or crackers. There is ample reason to give thanks.

With these thoughts in mind, we should savor our food rather than devour it. We should commit to eating purposefully rather than instinctually. And we should approach cooking with intention, to elevate our food from the earthly to the sublime.