Food: Can Be A Spiritual Experience At Times

[Found Goat]

Cooking can be a thankless job. For many it is a mundane experience, if not a chore. The cook or chef may spend an hour preparing dinner only to see it disappear in a matter of minutes and know of it going to human waste soon thereafter. One may wonder if there is a point to it all?

I can only speak for myself and I know that for me, since I’ve taken up cooking in the past few years, there’s been times when I’ve felt a cosmic connection while in the kitchen dicing vegetables or stirring a stew. (Ah, the homey aroma of chili powder and cumin in a pot of simmering chili! Aromatherapy, perhaps at its best!)

A little background info I feel is relevant here: I grew up in a household of women so there was always plenty of food around, much of it homemade. Life moved on and I soon discovered that if I wanted to eat I would have to fend for myself. Naturally, this led me to years of inhaling fast food and other takeout and in sometimes more than moderate portions.

A few years ago I took up cooking, and much to my surprise I discovered that not only can cuisine be a relaxing pastime but at times even a meditative experience. While I cook I have the Contemporary Instrumental playing softly and usually a glass of red wine by my side. In these moments I have at times not only felt a personally rewarding feeling come over me but an almost numinous ambiance encompassing my being. It got me to thinking the question I here pose in the title of this thread.

It’s been said that one way people show their love for one another is by the care and consideration that is given in their preparing of a meal, for their friends and family or for that lucky person they are in the midst of courting and impressing. Recipients of such hospitable gestures have often been known to tip these good deeds or to express words of earnest appreciation while others quickly ingest only to rush off as if thoughtless ingrates.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call cookery a holy or even heavenly experience, although I’ve witnessed some chefs become quite ecstatic over their culinary masterpieces and food critics have been known every now and then to wax lyrical in rave reviews.

Within some monastic environments, it is said that monks are taught to eat slowly and to savor each and every ort and morsel, in meditative fashion. Some meals can take hours to consume.

In today’s fast-paced and hectic culture, there are few among us who have the time to engage in or who know of the spiritual dimension attainable in one’s very own kitchen.

I once read in a book some years ago the case of a modern-day mystic who would cook for the sole pleasure it gave him to taste of his creations and nothing more. He would cook, taste, but never swallow and then destroy what he had just made. Similar to a wine tester who spits out the vino. The man unwisely ate only when it was absolutely necessary for him to do so, being he was an ascetic.

Yet it’s my feeling that the ascetic who starves himself may believe he is being noble for doing so, yet it is interesting that the practice of fasting, in its origins, had more to do with preparing oneself for visionary states than with mortification for its sake alone. “Divine I am inside and out!,” exclaimed one woman of cosmic consciousness. That mystical and transcendental experiences are not just limited to empty stomachs, this much is well known. I believe food – specifically, that of the well-prepared and flavorful variety and even the act of artfully preparing heartfelt and loving meals – can contain a spiritual component and bring one closer to the Infinite Being.

When people go on diets they often become depressed and feel deprived, having cut themselves off from a life filled with flavor – from a divine gift, perhaps: The gift of taste.

Yahweh, it is recorded, loved the aroma of sacrificial animal meat, especially the fatty pieces – the gristle and the drippings. Christ turned plain mouthwater into vintage. Some of his disciples were fishermen who likely dined on all forms of seafood, including caviar and calamari.

Even those on death row are often treated to a last meal, demonstrating the significance that ingesting food in our lives has on not just a practical but also a nonphysical, symbolic level. The meal is provided not to help the condemned convict put on weight or to extend his life but almost in the spirit of a good Samaritan. The man who conceived of the idea of there being a last meal for those about to be put to death via capital punishment was perhaps a loving parson.

The gist of this post is that I feel we have longingly been provided taste buds for a reason. One can only eat so many rice cakes and drink so much water before he or she longs for a delicious steak and a glass of Merlot, not just to appease the palate but perhaps even to show one’s appreciation for this profound and god-given sense. That it to say, what if fine dining is a way to reciprocate divine love and a means in which to show our genuine gratitude for the abundance and variety of food our planet provides us with? People say grace at the dinner table, yes, but out of appreciation for the food provided and hardly ever out of thanks for one’s sense of taste and smell. I think of the appreciative belch (proper table manners in some parts of the planet) at the dinner table after a hearty and tasty meal and how even this may be looked at, as not just a spiritually meaningless biological reaction but the equivalent of, say, the expressing of an “om.”

Why, some disincarnate bodies, it has been written, enter human bodies just in order to taste alcohol, etc. (Perhaps there is no sense of smell and taste in the afterlife? Such a thought is likely a horrifying one for gourmands.)

How many others here feel that eating healthily and “tastefully” is a necessary part of being a spiritual individual, in recognition of the value of our physical containers and senses, these being products of our divine natures?

Although not a foodie, I am a man who has embraced the responsibility, if not at times the art form, of cooking. Some women think it sexy that a man knows how to cook, but I have not taken up the apron to land bedmates. I not only cook for survival purposes but because at times it allows me to commune with my spiritual body, too.

[Found Goat]

One of my favorite movies is “My Dinner With Andre” (1981). Just two likable, soft-spoken and cultured gentlemen seated down to a fine meal in a quiet, ritzy establishment, engaged in a dinner conversation centered around spiritual topics. No plot, but lots of mental activity. A truly intellectually stimulating cinematic experience, unique unto itself, that enriches my soul. When viewed in solitude and without interruption, the movie has an almost meditational affect on me. I often think of Andre and Gregory when I think of how food – given the proper ambience, preparation, and conversational themes – can truly be a spiritual experience!

[Ariaecheflame]

I like this thread, it has some positive things to share.

I have many layers of healing around food, as I imagine many humans do. Unfortunately my experience with it growing up was one of lack in many forms, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
I've been cooking for others since I was twelve and almost every day for twenty years. I don't really enjoy cooking because it makes me feel sad.
I do try and be mindful with it though - though it is often painful to be mindful while cooking for me... But that same mindfulness will be my ticket to healing.

I'm glad that you posted the thread... It will be interesting to read other responses as well.
-----------------------------------

Edit: I can already feel the positive sentiments shared here are having a positive effect, woo-hoo!