Art or craft is a question that has long followed me when cooking. I've almost always held the belief that cooking must be considered a craft - that there are specific rules and techniques one must learn to employ in all different situations. It occurs to me now, in my new outlook on cooking, that my cooking has indeed become art. I'll try to explain with the further explanation that, as always, my descriptions are meant as investigations of life. Whereas dance has been my most used metaphor, cooking is just as important.
I'm trying to decide how to make my views clear. I will describe the cooking process in terms of a craft (how I have up till very recently cooked). If one is cooking an item, you must always refer back to the past. How was this done in the past? What worked, what didn't? I know that I must cut the beef in a braise to regular sizes, so that they will all be done at the same time. I know that brownies take 40 minutes to cook. I know that meat tastes best with such and such amount of salt and herbs. To treat cooking as a craft is to cook using only this knowledge. It is to read a cookbook and follow the recipe. I find there is always a certain fear involved in this process. This fear is rooted in the fact that the present moment is necessarily distinct from the past - things are different, meaning something could go wrong. What if my oven is too hot? What if this meat isn't as tender as the recipe? What if my butter has more moisture content than what I used before? As proficient as I might become at learning the rules of the kitchen, invariably this fear underlied all my actions.
To treat cooking as an art is a different experience entirely. I think the whole thing can be reduced to one factor, but I will start by describing the effects. When cooking as an art, my prep area is often much cleaner, my mind is clear, there is a certain vibrancy in my actions. I am actually filled with joy to prepare my own sustenance. I feel connected to the lives that contributed to my meal. Rules and recipes are taken into account, but they lose the oppressive nature of a law. Though I rarely ever stick to a recipe, when I am cooking as craft, varying from a recipe implies either pride or fear on my part - "I'm so talented that I don't need a recipe" OR "oh crap, what if this doesn't work out?" Neither of these thoughts are the right attitude. Thus when cooking as art, none of these issues enter my mind. I am simply too focused on the ingredients and the elements of the kitchen to bother with such lines of thought. Most interestingly, when cooking as art, questions of quantities - be it time, salt, or the size of a cut - are not determined in the same way. I do not frantically consult my memory of the past to determine my actions. There is a quiet awareness of the whole process. Thus instead of poking my brownies and messing up the top, I may take one look, realize it needs more time, and in the next five minutes quietly consult with myself whether they are finished. When my mind is clear and I am focused, the answers to these questions manifest. A sudden knowledge emerges that such and such is so. This needs more salt. That wine should go into the pot. The brownies are finished NOW.
I've written about this before, but it's becoming ever clearer in my mind: to elevate something to an art, to use our true capacities as humans demands awareness. Full and complete awareness. This is not to say that the past does not come into play. I have to learn how to cook - how long something takes, etc. But this knowledge turns into something uplifting - it stands behind our own fully unique decisions. To treat something as a craft is to remain oppressed by the facts of history, or by our own speculative fears. It is this oppression that causes the fear, or maybe the fear that causes the oppression. Whatever the case may be, my intention is to follow the path of joy and freedom, never the path of oppression. And this is what my cooking has taught me.
