Why Cooking Isn’t Alchemy
by Gordon • • Life, Rants • 10 Comments
Typical. I picked TODAY to pack my lunch.
Tonight’s meal needs to be important.
It’s been an insane couple of weeks. There have been earthquakes and missing relatives, visiting siblings, last minute business schleps and a death in the family. All during the most important couple of weeks of my career to date.
It may not shock you to learn that all of this happening at once tends to impact your emotional health.
Tonight’s meal needs to be important because my brother and his fiancee are returning from the continental part of their Eurotrip.
Fun fact:
They visited Scrib’s adopted home town. If I’d known I would have made my brother buy him a birthday beer. (Awesome birthday post here. Supports my theory that birthday posts can be unintended revelations in personal psychology. Put in as much effort as Scribs did and you’ll be rewarded for it.) No matter, I’ll have to buy the beer. Swap it for a guitar performance, maybe? If you take requests I’d like an unplugged cover of Price Tag. (Because that would be hilarious and possibly the best thing that has ever happened, not because it’s on trend.)
Tonight’s meal needs to be important because it will be the first one shared with an actual relative since my grandmother died. We’ll hopefully toast her name, watch a video of my-mother-the-psychonaut delivering the eulogy and my littlest brother delivering the poem I wrote, cry a little bit and then tomorrow head over to where she used to live here in London to say our goodbyes.
But it also needs to be celebratory because my brother’s fiancee had her birthday last weekend. And yes, It’ll be a sausage-based main followed by forced rhubarb crumble for reasons that will become evident if you read their post. The whole thing is actually going to be “proper English food” to cheekily wash the taste of the Continent right out of their minds. (Inspired mostly by this guy who probably isn’t very good at French.)
So I get my best west London on and return home to start the prep.
As I’m chopping the rhubarb I’m thinking: People in our corner of the internetz too often use the ‘a’ word when talking about home cooking.
But cooking isn’t alchemy because it can always be broken down into its constituent parts and reactions. There will never be more protein in your steak than when you first bought it. And applying heat won’t turn your steak into ice cream… It will still be steak.
Cooking is only alchemy if you can put a chicken in the oven and then, an hour later, pull out the sound that was playing on the radio when you first had your heart broken.
And I say this with abiding love for both disciplines and a little bit of skill in one of them: They’re different. They’re almost opposite.
Cooking is more like computer theory: garbage in, garbage out. That’s why the French and overexposed Essex brats bleat on about quality ingredients.
Continuing the computing metaphor… Alchemy is garbage in, immortality out. The eagle-eyed among you can probably spot the difference.
So, if not alchemy, what is cooking then?
Cooking, my darlings, is magic. Cooking is enhancement. It is about looking at what you have to use, picturing what you want to achieve and getting there.
Like magic, cooking, if you do it right, can bring out the best in something that is already there… but it can’t bring out something that isn’t there. Conversely, cooking, like doing magic right, can sometimes change the world.
Cooking is how you literally put love in your family, cooking is how you heal people, cooking is how you know you are learning, cooking is how you prove to yourself that you can take the shitty hand life has dealt and make it good.
Why do I care when I’m not even an alchemist even the teensiest bit? And when cooking is so very important to every aspect of my life? (Sidebar: You all know the amazing Lyn launched a recipe blog a while back, yeah? Subscribe!)
Well, because I respect the metaphor. We ALL respect the metaphor. Whatever game you are playing, it is ultimately about transmutation… About transcendence. These are Important Things. They are probably not best summed up by the image of you adding a can of mushrooms to some soup mix.
Alchemy -enlightenment- is binary. Either you have the philosopher’s stone or you don’t. Cooking is a continuum. Example: I met one of Gordon Ramsay’s latest chefs on the weekend (Scribs: amazing who you meet when you own an iPad)… Sweet kid. But definitely not an alchemist.
And unless you are an alchemist, then neither are you.
Oh dude!
Why Cooking IS Alchemy
You start with meat, vegetables, and starches. Each complete in its own thing.
You end with a gastronomical experience that can bring out the best of all the ingredients. You transform the ingredients into a comprehensive end experience, the sum of which is ultimately more than its parts.
You start with meat and water, some spices, you end up with meat and savory broth. You add vegetables and noodles and you have a stew. You add noodles and sour cream and you have stroganoff.
You take the finished product and you project it into the material world, feed your family, and bring them health, long life, and happiness.
Eh? Eeeeeh?
RO´s last [type] ..My Morning Pleasure
Yeah I get it but I still think that’s magic. For clarification I mean “why cooking a meal does not represent the summation of the path of the wise”.
Ok, I guess I’m an esoteric Alchemist. To me, the experience of a good meal prepared with love to bring happiness and “make the world a better place” is the Gold produced by the Stone of the Wise. That memory goes with us, I believe, into eternity when the body dies, transforming the “garbage” into “immortality.”
RO´s last [type] ..My Morning Pleasure
Well, Gordon, I’m going to disagre with you, took, at least to some extent. No, not all cooking is alchemy. And if you want to talk classic “restaurant” French, I agree, magic, not alchemy. (not that there is anything wrong with that!) You want alchemy in the kitchen? You will have to leave behind the haute cuisine and the in techniques, and the hot social gathering places for foodies behind. You want alchemy? Make soup. Make it with the vegetable leavings, the ugly bits cut off your roast or fowl, the stuff at the back of the refrigerator or food bin. If you know what you are doing, you will end up with liquid gold.
Oh, and it is very possible to get creative and improvise with classic french cuisine, but like many other old, well documented and rule bound subjects (grimoires, anyone?), you have to have really learned, absorbed, even, the rules, first.
whew, and I apologize for the massive number of typos, and out of place words in the above comment. My wireless router is having a bit of spring fever.
Gee, Gordon, you have a fair number of readers who like to torture a metaphor
Sometimes cooking is a LOT like some early phase of practical alchemy where the operator has picked up some skills but is frequently surprised at any interesting results.
Having gotten past that phase (of cooking, that is) for the most part, I’m going to come down on the side of magic being a better analogy, even while I think magic can perfectly well have the same objective as alchemy.
Freeman Presson´s last [type] ..Review of The Book of Secrets
Well said, excellent post. At first I thought… but the two seemingly have a lot in common and then I read your comment about the philosopher’s stone.
Another thing that came to mind is how prominently eating and/or drinking features in certain magical rituals. Water for example is not the medium that supports life, but also one that can be used to transmit Wisdom.
Damn you, man. If I mix in the drugs, invoke the daemons over the ingredients, and then unleash the resulting monstrosity on those I know and love: it’s alchemy if I say it is! /end personal amusement.
I’m not entirely sure alchemy is about bringing out what isn’t there, my friend. I do not profess to have a profound or vast knowledge of the subject, but I believe that the stages leading to bringing about the Philosopher’s Stone are as important as the act itself. This involves tapping the “primal essences” of the animal, mineral, or vegetable matter you are dealing with and coming into contact with that root of consciousness. Which changes you or something. That’s about where I get lost. I’m still reading on the subject. But. What I’m saying is, alchemy – like magic – is a process. The eventual act – acquisition of the Philosopher’s Stone – may never be accomplished. This is analogous to the fact that you might never be an Adept as a magician. Shit happens, oh well – next time, right? And yet, even if you don’t meet the end of the process, you are still an alchemist or a magician, or a whatever.
So, cooking might be an integral part of your work. It might analogously translate into other types of knowledge later, through correlation, if you took up alchemy work. And then, my friend, and then – where would you be, ‘eh? Standing on the corner, wondering how this goddamn metaphor got away from you. *cackle*
Okay. You can beat me now.
I personally think all cooking is magic and sometimes a little alchemy – I swear I’ve put stuff in the oven and it’s turned to charcoal
Great post Gordon and thanks for the link. Made me smile as I read your post way too early on a Monday morning.
Lyn´s last [type] ..Dead Brain & Cake
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