Food Philosophy 1.0: Courage
When you flip anything, you have to have the courage of your convictions.
-Julia Child on flipping potatoes
It takes courage to cook. Although the dominant narrative depicts courage as galavanting around outside, in the wilds, with a sword and a beast, I am here to tell you that courage lives inside, in the domestic, with a whisk and a meringue.
This is because we do not just cook. We cook because we have convictions about food. We don the apron to eat more nutritiously, to bring our family together, to uphold tradition, to honor those we love. We cook to celebrate our heritage, to sustain our bodies, to live more affordably, and to feel connected to the earth and our own place within it. We cook to feel joy. These beliefs about the meanings embedded in our food require courage to actualize.
And it takes courage to stand by those beliefs day in and day out. When we decide to act consistently on behalf of our convictions, we often meet with challenge. The first of these obstacles is our own energy. It takes courage to embark on a culinary quest when the heroine is exhausted to begin with. Slicing, sautéing, simmering, scoring, searing, serving, and scouring all demand energy and time in a world where energy and time are already overcommitted.
Cooking also challenges our skills. Whether we are very experienced in the kitchen or just beginning to experiment, new recipes, new techniques, and new circumstances result in a wild and unbridled gastronomic terrain, and it constantly demands courage to venture out to tame the unknown. Even in the most docile moments of cooking, it takes courage to wring out the tired old towel and make something new of a dwindling pantry and sparse motivation.
Most of all cooking requires courage because it is always a risk. As a performative art, when we cook we risk failure and the reflection thereupon of our skill as a chef. So we risk our own pride. We also risk loss: of time, ingredients, money, and energy. But ultimately in cooking we risk the very convictions that move us to cook in the first place. If we fail to perform, we fail to represent our traditions, to adequately celebrate our identity, to eat, to bring joy or love or comfort.
Even now, after nearly 15 years of baking with sourdough, I still get nervous every time I go to flip the dough from the proofing baskets. My palms tingle, and I have to calm my heart with a deep breath before I make the flip. And in the moment when the bread hangs suspended over the scorching pan, doubt looms over me. What if the loaf sticks to the baskets? What if the dough deflates too much when it hits the pan? What if I miss the pan altogether? All that time, and energy, and flour would be wasted. And what would the kids eat for breakfast? But then the moment is done; the bread sizzles; I score it; it’s in the oven, and 50 minutes later I’m listening to its crackling song as the loaf cools.
These might seem like small risks. And it’s true that the courage to cook is a very ordinary type of courage. However, the convictions driving our cooking are, I would argue, the most vital. Just think of all that would be lost if we were to all stop cooking: traditions, culture, family, life itself. And so, I say that this seemingly small and exceedingly ordinary courage is perhaps the most important kind of daring a human can encounter.
When you embark on your culinary adventures, nobody will applaud you for your courage. At best, they might offer gratitude or compliment your art. But in case you have forgotten, let me remind you that, whatever your convictions about food are, you are courageous.
So take heart; breathe; now flip.
