People Create Extraordinary Bonds Around Home-cooked Meals
Stimulated by Human Warmth and Communion, Humans Need to Gather Around a Common Experience
The Kitchen, not the bedroom is the most intimate place of a home. It’s through home cooked meals that you hit the human heart where it gets soft and deep.
People you share home cooked meals with, that’s your tribe!
Today, as I was cooking a soup many thoughts came to my mind. At first they appeared random, then I realized it’s the inspiration that comes to you when your hands are occupied with something a bit like on autopilot. This happens to me when I cook without a cookbook, when I draw too, actually a bit less when I draw, because I usually have no thoughts when I focus on deeply observing.
Regardless, cooking soup is almost like a cultural automatism. One of the staple foods for Russians and Eastern Europeans. Soup in winter is a must. I converted my husband to appreciating soup, something he didn’t really grow up eating.
Recently I had a conversation with my mom about her chores when she was younger. She mentioned that every evening her mom, my grand-mother or her had to cook a fresh soup (borscht) because my grand-father liked a fresh one every day. I thought it was very peculiar because in my opinion and this is something my husband will agree with this, soup is always better the day after. It soaks all the spices and flavors. Fresh soup doesn’t sound appealing to me. Which led me to visualize my Ded (Dedushka) sitting at the kitchen table, eating soup and dark bread. I don’t know if it’s nostalgia or just the calling of my roots. I have been trying to identify it source and meaning.
Then, I thought of all the ways I shared meals and with whom. What these shared meals created and the type of relationship you must have to be sitting at a table, sharing a home cooked meal with someone. The person who prepares the meal gives heart and time, and all this energy is poured into the preparation of something that we will bring people together.
I realized that some of the people I met in my life who left a certain “imprint” on me are the people who shared their cooking with me and better even, who taught me some of their favorite things to make. I can’t explain why I am so sensitive to this dynamic. I realized that sharing nourishment, is a profound moment of peace and trust among human beings.
The French are notoriously taking meal time as a sacred communal moment. It’s considered “uneducated” to have anything intrude this important time of nourishment, on your own or with close friends and family. I am not talking about going to restaurants, that doesn’t really count. If the meal is prepared by the mother or father, and shared with children, family members or friends, it is an important time. It is often the perfect occasion to talk and laugh.
You don’t share your table with just anyone.
Somehow, this made me realize how these moments of shared meals are precious and rare. I can name the families and friends with whom I have shared meals since I live in the United States, because they’re not that many after all. I also feel very connected to people I don’t see in person anymore but with whom I shared time cooking together.
Now that we have moved to remote work, conference calls, or watching people live through Youtube or Reels, that special time shared face to face to have meals, talk, or like in Russian folk tradition “Sing in the kitchen” is a moment that gives a balm to our heart and is true nourishment to the human body and soul. Humans need to connect with each other, to grow.