Freud said that a persons mental health can be judged by their capacity to work. I think a better estimate can be made if you can assess their ability to cook.
Today I watched my wife make bread. I looked at her as she kneeded the dough, cut it into decent sized portions, and formed and patted it into the shape of a roll. Flour was on the table, and on her fingertips, and a smudge on her brow.
The rolls were laid out on a grease proof paper to rise and then placed in the oven to bake. The smell in the kitchen was good.
In the afternoon I made shepherds pie. Peeled the potatoes and boiled them, and when they were ready mashed them and added butter and milk. The mince meat I fried with onions and spiced with salt and pepper. I greased a earthen ware dish with butter and mixed the mashed potatoes and mince together, and topped it off with some breadcrumbs and cheese.
We ate it together with homemade beetroot. It was a fine satisfying meal.
What can you say about people who do not cook? Those that have the money to eat out... those that can't make dough or peel a potato or slice an onion. Those that have never cut an onion in half and looked at its layers... those that have never cut those layers in criss-crosses to obtain diced onion.
The ones who never lay the table for a meal, who throw something in the microwave, and eat it off their bellies while slouched in front of the TV. Those that eat alone, where eating is a chore rather than a pleasure. Something you do to survive. Something to fill in time.
It is strange to say that there is immense satisfaction to be had from preparing veretables for a soup. Working with a good japanese knife to cut and to slice... and what do you think about as you cut... you think of shapes and sizes, you think of colour. There are so many ways to slice a carrot. The Chinese even have time to carve roses out of carrots.
My father as he got older, first of all he stoped working, and as Alzheimers set in he stoped cooking, and when he stoped cooking he stoped eating, and he wasted away. That was when we had to get meals-one-wheels for him because he lost track of time, and did not know when it was time to eat. If it was dark and six o'clock it could either be morning or night to him. He did not remember anymore. When we visited him he told the most elaborate lies about the wondeful meal he had cooked yesterday. He would describe making soup in great detail, but the plain fact of the matter he had not cooked for himself in years. We would sit an politely listen. It would be pointless to challenge him on the matter. Only the things that he remembered were real to him, and if he remembered making soup yesterday then he must have made soup yesterday, and he would not be convinced otherwise.
I remarked to Maija that I found it pleasurable to cook a meal every day, and she asked me when would I find it pleasurable to do the washing up.
I think that washing up is just a short step away.
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