Cooking

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“The all-absorbing interest which nearly all human beings, even the most intellectual, have in food, its preparation and its consumption, should be replaced by an almost chemical knowledge of the needs of the body and a very scientific austerity in satisfying them.”[1]


“And if you approach things with this idea — of studying, of wanting to develop exactitude of perception and the relation between things — then, instead of living in sensations for sensations’ sake (that is, “Oh, this is pleasant” or “this is unpleasant”, “I like this, I don’t like that” and all this kind of foolishness), you know the quality of things, their use and their interrelations through this study of the senses. This puts you in contact with the world in a completely conscious way. For everything, the least detail...
         For example, you are obliged to cook and want to prepare a good dish. Well, if you have not trained your senses you will have to try out a little of this and a little of that and then taste it and again correct, arrange. If you have trained your taste you know very well — the taste and smell at the same time, these two are very close and must complement each other — you know what kind of food you are cooking, you get the smell of the thing you are cooking and then, because of the smell and the nature of the thing you will know exactly what more you can put in to complete the taste, what you must add of this thing or that, all kinds of ingredients, you see, to combine things; combine the different vegetables, for instance, or the different tastes of things, in such a way that they make a homogeneous whole. And then you will have a dish without needing to taste it every three minutes to find out if you have put enough salt or pepper, enough butter or... You will know exactly what should be done and will do it without a mistake.”[2]




  1. On Education, p.52, “The Four Austerities and the Four Liberations”
  2. Questions and Answers 1954, p.84


See also