My Mindful Cooking Journey: Lessons from Daddy & Granny
by Michelle Beadle Holder, PhD
Practicing the art of mindful cooking brought up strong thoughts, memories, and feelings that actually surprised me. While I absolutely love to cook, underlying feelings of duty and resentment began to surface and demanded that I pay attention. It was as if my soul was crying out for me to attend to my invisible cooking pains.
My Cooking Pains
Many of my cooking pains were acquired as a child, particularly as a firstborn girl. Let's face it: cooking can be labor-intensive. Though men have always cooked, much of the labor of cooking has historically been placed in the hands of women and girls.
Me and my dad in Jamaica. Picture taken by my maternal grandfather.
Dad's Cooking Lessons
I learned to cook as a young girl growing up in Jamaica. My father was my first official teacher.
In many ways, my dad was a good teacher. He started with a very simple dish—macaroni and tinned corn beef. All I needed to do was learn to boil water, chop onions, add a bit of spice, and open a tin can. This was perfect for a beginner.
He was also very patient. My dad gave me step by step instructions. He was open to answering questions and ready to give constructive feedback. I can now see why my grandmother wanted him to go to teacher’s college. But there was a big problem.
My Mini Cooking Rebellion
My dad had no idea how to inspire me to cook. In fact, his words of motivation completely turned me off from cooking and sent me into a mini rebellion.
This rebellion included intentionally messing up every dish he taught me to cook. Why rebel??
My mini rebellion was waged against a core belief—”a girl’s duty is to cook for her family.” This belief was shared by my dad and many others throughout the world. My dad believed that it was his duty to teach me how to cook because, to paraphrase him, I needed to learn to cook to take care of the family, particularly my younger siblings.
Let's not forget my future husband and unborn children. My dad was very concerned about them. But in my little 10-year-old mind, he seemed to have little concern for me when it came to cooking. So, for many years I resented the fact that I learned to cook for others.
Grandma's Wisdom
My whole mindset shifted after my father's mother taught me that cooking could be something that I could do for myself.
This cooking lesson came while sitting and talking to grandma around the dining room table. Like my dad, grandma believed that cooking was an important life skill to pass on to the next generation. However, my grandmother’s intentions seemed to be quite different from my dad.
Grandma taught daddy to cook because, to paraphrase her, she wanted to give her son the skills to take care of himself. During my dad’s childhood, Jamaican restaurants were rarely opened outside of lunch. As a result, most people ate home-cooked meals. Moreover, most men relied on their wives, girlfriends, or mother figures for breakfast and dinner. Under such social conditions, grandma had the foresight to empower her children.
Granda refused to have her son go hungry because he couldn’t cook. Most of all, she refused to have anyone punish or control her son with food. So she took action. She taught her son to be self-sufficient. She taught my dad the culinary skills he needed to nourish and care for himself.
Thankfully, I was able to benefit from the lessons that my grandmother taught my dad. But for some reason, the self-care lesson did not come through. Maybe it was the patriarchy. My dad was raised in a world where people were socially conditioned to think a certain way about the roles of men and women. Even if these roles were not always enforced or practiced, little girls were raised to care for the family through domestic duties. Plus, I’m not sure if my grandmother taught her daughters to cook for themselves.
Either way, I can still remember thinking as my grandmother told me the story, “why couldn’t daddy teach me to cook for myself? Grandma did that for him.”
My early cooking mindset would have been so different had daddy encouraged me to cook for self-care. I would have taken his cooking lessons so much better. I wouldn’t have tried so hard to mess up every dish he taught me to cook as a child.
Having lots of fun cooking in my kitchen.
My Cooking Joy
My culinary journey started as an activity that I initially resented and saw merely as a duty to be done in the service of others. However, overtime cooking became my own special happy place.
In Jamaica, the Rasta word for happiness is irie. In fact, irie means all that is sweet, pleasing, good, and nice. Today cooking is my “irie t’ing” that if so desired, I open myself up to share with others. But more than anything, cooking has become an outlet for creative freedom.
Cooking has allowed me to learn about plants, nature, my culture, taste, my body, my health, and my well-being.
Moreover, I’ve come to see cooking as a great source of power and pleasure. With this skill, I have more control over what foods I eat and how I live.
How about you?
Do you have a cooking pain?
What’s the most important lesson that you’ve learned on your cooking journey?
Below are several of our other articles on mindful cooking and eating.