I am a wizard. I crack eggs into a bowl. I pour milk on top of it, silken and creamy. I rain salt like a prehistoric god upon the mixture. Then I whip it into another state — golden, smooth, wondrous.
I am a performer of miracles. With the turn of a dial I bring fire to life. The flames flare and dim, licking the bottom of the pan. I feel the heat slowly transfer to the metal and I think of the first humans as they discovered fire’s ability to alter raw food. How awestruck they must have been by the phenomenon. It’s still a magical experience for me. I twiddle with temperature settings, I adjust the pan’s position, I watch the butter steam — and I feel powerful. I am linked to the trailblazers who learned to control fire and heat in order to transform elements.
I am an alchemist. I spoon my gloop onto the sizzling surface. While watching it metamorphose into a solid wafer, I contemplate all the ways in which heat provides flavor — by releasing volatile oils, by melting fat, fracturing membranes, and by causing sugars and amino acids to react.
The kitchen is a place of unending delight and frustration to me. It is a laboratory where experiments with solids, liquids, and gases produce memorable meals or inedible rubbish. Each test is a lesson in honing my senses, expanding my patience, paying attention. My palm hovers over the griddle, feeling its intensity awaken. My ears catch the spittle of batter bubbling against a metal nook. My nose sniffs out the early singe of a Maillard reaction.
In the kitchen I’m confronted with the fragility of life, the ephemerality of being. On the plate, the cutting board, the casserole — everything exists temporarily. Sugar as a solid melts into custard, water as a liquid evaporates in a boil, yeast as a living organism metabolizes peach skin. The shrimp, the chicken egg, the celery stalk: all once alive, now chopped and waiting to be consumed, to convert into energy, to become a part of me. Cooking reminds me of my connection to the elements, my kinship with nonhumans, my relationship with earth.
Tending to the ritual of preparing a meal can be tedious or comforting, according to circumstance. But, I return each day, however briefly, to the kitchen to ply my knowledge of fire, water, air, and dirt to rediscover the power of cooking.
Bespoke Traveler Note:
Samin Nosrat teaches the mastery of four other elements of cooking in her book, “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” available at your local bookstore or through the bookshop.org link below:
Thank you for listening. To read this and other travel tales, head to our website at www.bespoketraveler.com.
