Cooking as craft
Why making food means something
In honour of her birthday yesterday, it seems fitting to begin with a quote from The Queen herself.
“A recipe is living; like language is living and food is living. (A recipe) will change according to the kitchen it's being cooked in.”
Nigella Lawson
With characteristic authority, Nigella is recognising that cooking is a deeply personal practice. Like any other creative endeavour, to cook is to take an existing idea and somehow make it your own, resulting in the production of a thing that is simultaneously inspired by the original and also entirely unique. Even the most sacred of recipes - in my case, the gorgeous handwritten instructions for making orangey salmon, inherited from my Grandma - aren’t safe from adaptation. My intentions pure, I will set out to replicate it precisely, craving the nostalgia of it, determined to make it just like she does. But inevitably, I’ll end up substituting the citrus rind for juice, or making the skin a bit too crispy. And suddenly, the orangey salmon has become my own, tasting only faintly of childhood.
We can’t help but impart a tiny piece of ourselves into our cooking. It’s part of the joy. Just like a painter might subconsciously slip their own preference for colour into their art. But what interests me is what occurs when crafting happens collectively. Creating something with others; creating together; facilitates a certain intimacy. Of course, this is partly down to the solidarity we feel as humans when we’re collaborating. But it’s also due to the very particular kind of conversation that is allowed to exist when we make something in a group dynamic.
While our hands are busy and our eyes are focused on our shared task, we are freed from the usual binds of civilised interaction. Any expectation of eye-contact or body language is abandoned, and what results is surprisingly easy, uncomplicated, authentic conversation. Each individual is able to speak into the vacuum of crafting, totally unscrutinised, comfortable in their own skin and knowing they are contributing to something bigger than themselves.
I experienced this properly for the first time back in August 2020. My brilliant friend, Bobby, decided they would host a pasta-making afternoon to celebrate the lifting of lockdown restrictions. A few of us were invited to come and work flour and water into little doughy nuggets, face masks and hand sanitiser in tow. Emerging from several months of social deprivation, this felt - without exaggeration - like the best thing that had ever happened in the history of the world.
When I arrived, I felt inexplicably anxious. Despite being surrounded by people I had known for years, I was reckoning with that very specific awkwardness induced by the pandemic, which for a while had rendered most of us slightly socially inept. But mercifully, there was crafting to do. More specifically, there was cooking to do.
We sat around Bobby’s little coffee table, a huge pile of the most basic pasta ingredients in the middle of it (I don’t even think we used eggs). We each grabbed and moulded the pasta pieces with a greedy kind of relief. Some of us squeezed it into shapes with our fingers; some of us used forks to carve patterns into it - random and unimportant designs that probably had an adverse effect on its texture, and would almost definitely be deemed offensive in Italy. But it didn’t matter. As we crafted, we spoke. We told anecdotes from our time apart, swapped coping mechanisms, and even dared to reveal our hopes for the future, which during such bleak times felt especially vulnerable. While our hands worked and our attention was absorbed by our small project, we were able to share and receive information without self-consciousness or shame. And when we were finished, we feasted on what we had made together. I wasn't even that hungry, but I was starving for my friends.
Craft has the power to unify us. I’ve seen this first hand at Quilt Club - a sewing circle that gathers weekly in Haringey. It’s a beautifully inclusive space where locals can collaborate on textile projects, regardless of their skill level. Members span decades in age and come from all walks of life, and in theory, they shouldn’t really have much to talk about. But if you ever decide to tag along to Quilt Club (and you should - I’ve included their details at the end), you will walk into a studio that is humming with chatter. Scissors and thread become conduits of conversation, and people enter into dialogue that is free from the confines of social cues.
“Dialogue is the most basic social covenant: an agreement to cooperate”
Valerie Fridland PhD, Psychology Today
I remember being rather shocked at my own transparency when I once merrily told a fellow quilter about a date I’d been on earlier that week. She was much older than me, and no doubt amused by my sheer over-sharing. But she listened to me graciously, spared from the pressure of validating me with nods of her head or reassuring smiles. We were both just happy to be there with each other, sewing away.
In November 2023, I assisted Quilt Club with their presence at Haringey Feast. Luckily for me - this is where the piece ties back in with food! Held at Alexandra Palace and funded by the Mayor of London, the event was a celebration of the borough’s creativity. Quilt Club’s offering to Haringey Feast came in the form of a 75-metre tablecloth, a wild mix of patchwork and appliqué. Its pattern featured stars, each one created by a different Quilt Club participant and made from fabric significant to their own family heritage. Some people used their school uniforms, others opted for material designed by local artists. And on the day, the whole neighbourhood gathered and sat at the banquet table, covered by the tablecloth, and ate soup off it. It was stunning. It felt important.
There’s a reason you’re so compelled to ask your friend “Can I do anything to help?” when you go over to theirs for dinner, secretly hoping they say “Yes” so you can join them in the social safety of chopping garlic. I’m certainly no expert in understanding human behaviour, but it does feel kind of heartwarming to notice our shared idiosyncrasies. The fact that as soon as we feel unobserved - that the onion we’re peeling takes the limelight off us just enough to prompt a vulnerability that wouldn’t otherwise exist - is nothing short of cute. How completely wonderful that mutually shelling sprouts can be a crutch for connection.
And it’s not just cooking that fosters this, it’s eating, too. So I suppose my call to action here is to host more dinner parties. Or go to more dinner parties. Or simply make and eat more food with people you love. I’ll leave you with a quote from Anthony Bourdain, which I reckon sums up everything I’m trying to say:
“You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together”.
Quilt Club is a weekly quilting circle based at Eade Studios in Haringey Warehouse District, meeting every Wednesday from 4pm-9pm. You can find them on Instagram at @quilt_club_7sisters.
So so beautifully written - and so true ! Feeling very inspired to both eat pasta and host some dinner parties xx