THE NEED FOR COOKING

“Food is ‘everyday’‐it has to be, or we would not survive for long.  But food is never just something to eat.  It is something to find or hunt or cultivate first of all; for most of human history we have spent a much longer portion of our lives worrying about food, and plotting, working, and fighting to obtain it, than we have in any other pursuit. As soon as we can count on a food supply (and so take food for granted), and not a moment sooner, we start to civilise ourselves.  Civilisation entails shaping, regulating, constraining and dramatising ourselves; we echo the preferences and the principles of our culture in the way we treat our food.”

- Visser, 1986, p.12

The need for cooking is seen as an occupation of labour. The need for cooking is essential in ones’ everyday life. Food and the cooking of it, is needed in order to survive. Without cooking we would not have the energy in order to carry out other activities throughout the day. Without cooking we would not give our body the nutrients that it needs in order to function and stay alive.

Cooking is also seen as labour when some uses it as a need for survival in the sense of making a living. People who make money from their cooking use this in order to survive and to be able to stay financially stable. Now, these people are much better cooks than I, as I don’t think anyone would really pay to eat my cooking, therefore I do not use it to make a living; but do use it to survive!

There is also the need for cooking to get away from everything. To have time to myself and take my mind off everything. I find I need cooking as it is a time where I can get away from everyone and be in my own little world, able to think about whatever I want and not have to talk to anyone else if I don’t want to. It is a good time to clear my head and think things through if I need to.

But finally, the need to have something warm and delicious in your stomach is a definite need in life. To taste something amazing and to be able to enjoy someone else’s cooking is always needed for satisfaction and enjoyment.

Visser M. (1986). Much depends on dinner. New York: Grove Press