The Art of Cooking for Others
Picture this: I arrive home from work on a Thursday night at around 8:30pm. I’m flying to Jakarta, Indonesia the following morning at around 8:00am, so I ought to be at the airport at around 5. A normal (ish) person would have a bite of supper, pack a few last minute essentials, shower, and hit the sack. Not me; no.
I finished packing days before; my passport and travel documents are already in the tote bag I would bring for the trip. There are pesos, dollars, and rupiah in my purse. What I don’t have is something to give a friend of mine whom I would be meeting up with while I’m in the Indonesian capital.
And that is how I found myself baking a batch of cookies at nearly midnight, despite knowing that I had to wake up before dawn to be at the airport. But baking seemed to take the edge off the rough day that I had at work, and I felt a sense of calm and a sense of anticipation as I wondered how the person I was baking for would react to the little gift that I prepared deep in the night.
There are, as far as I know, only five love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, receiving gifts, and physical touch. I believe, however, there should be a sixth: food — the preparation, serving, and consumption thereof.
There are those who say that food ought to fall into acts of service (preparation and cooking), or quality time (eating with others), or even receiving gifts. I think it ought to be in a category all its own: it is a language that anyone — unless they happen to be remarkably dense and unfeeling — can understand.
I’m Filipino, and food has been part and parcel of my culture since time immemorial. In my own family, food has been used to punctuate practically all of our milestones. Platters of savoury noodles are served to celebrate birthdays, alongside the mandatory cake. Tables groan under the weight of good things during the Christmas Season, and a whole roast pig is considered de rigueur for town fiestas or family reunions. Weddings are marked by banquets; graduations and promotions call for a trip to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Even one’s fortnightly payday is hailed as an occasion for dining out or ordering in something deliciously out of the ordinary: a treat born of one’s honest labour.
Even death is seen as a reason for cooking and eating, a way of celebrating the life of the deceased, for bonding together, and for recalling memories of happier times. (Which is why I wasn’t surprised when Nigella Lawson included a chapter on Funeral Feasts in her book Feast.) Preparing and bringing food to a wake is seen as a way of condoling with the bereaved family and helping out in one of the best possible ways. (I think any Filipino who has lost a loved one can sympathise with this. How, indeed, do you feed the constant stream of mourners that flit in and out of the funeral parlour or mortuary chapel without straining yourselves?)
I’m not as intense as some of my cousins who have been known to cook massive cauldrons of lugaw (savoury congee) or oversized wicker baskets filled with rice cakes, but I have fired up my oven to provide cakes and cookies with which to tempt the near-absent appetites of grieving relatives (or to shut up the spoilt-rotten progeny of some of our kinfolk who tend to whine if what is being served isn’t to their liking. But that’s another story.)
There is something primal, I would daresay integral, in the act of cooking for others. One feels a sense of being needed, of being able to provide others with some of the most basic human needs: feeding and nurturing. People feel loved and cared for when they are fed; more so if the food is good, has been prepared well, and is supplied in generous amounts.
Of course, there are times when one’s cooking doesn’t turn out too well and people clean their plates simply out of politeness. There are also times when one is confronted by those wellness fanatics who declare — with as much sensitivity as a clumsy executioner with a blunt axe — that meat is murder, that they can’t eat anything with gluten, that they don’t do carbs, or that what you’ve cooked oh-so-lovingly is not made with sustainable ingredients. (People with food allergies are another peeve, because one isn’t sure if the other person really is allergic to an ingredient or simply loathes it and claims an allergy as an excuse not to eat. It tempts me to ask people for health certificates before I start cooking!)
It can be a deeply trying experience, even disheartening. But it does happen — and, when it does, the seasoned cook simply bucks up, takes a deep breath, and does the dishes.
Nevertheless, I feel a deep sense of satisfaction whenever I cook for others. There is an almost sensual pleasure in pushing my knuckles into a batch of dough for bread, or in blending spices for a dry-rub or a curry. There is a great deal of satisfaction to be had in hearing people say that they liked what you made them; even more so when you’re asked to make a particularly popular dish over and over again. It means that, in your own way, you’ve touched something within others. It means you’ve done something right. It means that you care — and that’s something that matters, especially if you’re the type who dreads expressing your feelings openly for fear of rejection and ridicule.
I have yet to bake again for that person for whom I stayed up late, for whom I painstakingly hand-carried those peanut butter cup and chocolate chip cookies from Manila to Jakarta. And, unfortunately, circumstances are strained between us. But those cookies said something I could not — ironically for someone who makes her living as a writer — put into words: that I cared, and that I cared enough to put in a little extra effort for something edible.