We can say that, in a house, the kitchen is the privileged space of memory and of an education for the joy of living.

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The pots and pans release aromas and flavors that are familiar to us and that always give us the opportunity to tell stories once again, to remember important moments, people dear to us, places we have visited.  Food provokes sensations and marks our memory using our five senses.

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Chesterton said that “A man ought to eat because he has a good appetite to satisfy, and emphatically not because he has a body to sustain.”  Because food does not just satisfy our nutritional and caloric needs, it is what transmits affection between those who prepare it and those who share it at the table.

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Recipes are passed down from one generation to the next, written in notebooks or simply remembered and repeated throughout time, taken from each person who risks cooking using their own sense of taste, and ingredients drawn from their creativity and their inventiveness. These are the fundamental elements of good cooking, even at its simplest.

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The kitchen is a privileged place to educate in patience, in the art of waiting, and in the gusto and willingness to serve.  There is nothing better for a cook than to see people happy and satisfied with food that has been prepared with love.

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The kitchen is also the place where the fire dwells, helping to heat cold nights with comforting meals.  Behind each dish there is a true hope for happiness.  From the kitchen, warm soup is taken to someone that is sick, a birthday cake to recall all that is good about life, and, also, it is there that we learn that all food given to us by the earth is good and can bring joy to the heart of a family, when they learn to savor it and not just gulp it down to satisfy their needs.

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In every country, the land produces foods with very different flavors, without possible  homologation in the kitchen.  For Christians, food also has a sacred place in the home, bringing to the table the importance of communion and of sharing what one has, celebrating and toasting life.

 

The kitchen is the best school to learn to serve and, therefore, to be happy, because a man cannot be happy if he doesn’t know how to give his life to others.  In the same manner, to thank someone, or even to make your peace after a disagreement, food can be a gift and a present, a gift to understand that life, as any good present, is meant to end with a “thank you very much!”.