How Cooking Connects Us to Our Creator.
I think all of us went through some kind of cooking obsession at the beginning of the pandemic. Whether you yourself were cooking, or you were just watching cooking shows on Youtube and dreaming of when you could have dinner with your friends again, cooking seemed to be one of the things we all decided to focus on in those early days. Maybe it’s because we were all a lot closer to our kitchens than we were used to, or because our favorite Thai restaurants were closed and we needed our Pad Thai fix– but I would argue that the reason is a lot more fundamental: we were made to enjoy cooking and eating food.
Cooking has always been a love of mine, but I didn’t put much thought into how godly it was apart from occasionally thinking “God made us to eat cooked food, so cooking must be good if it’s part of the plan.” But this concept wasn’t really put into perspective until I began to rely on cooking for my own health.
“WE WERE MADE TO ENJOY COOKING AND EATING FOOD.”
In 2016 I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes inflammation of the digestive system. Suddenly, finding foods I could eat without pain became more difficult. But through trial and error I thought I had it mostly figured out until four years later, in the height of the pandemic, I experienced the worst Crohn’s flare I’d ever had. I became so ill that I could barely eat, and I couldn’t get out of bed for six weeks.
As the flare got worse it was clear that I needed treatment, but at the time all of the hospitals and doctors offices near me were overrun from Covid and were only prioritizing life-threatening conditions (I live in England, where the healthcare is free, but the wait lists are long). After a couple months of waiting, I was finally able to start an amazing new medication. Within a week I started to get back on my feet (literally), but there were few foods I could eat without experiencing pain. So, as I began to heal, I learned how to cook foods that were gentle on my body. And over time, cooking these foods became a delight.
Cooking became a meditative practice for me, and as I cooked and my body healed I started thinking about the act of cooking itself, and why we do it. I’d thought about this question before– pretty obsessively, actually– since reading the book Cooked by Michael Pollan, which looks at the history of cooking and the ways in which it makes us human. But it was around this time that I started wondering why God made us this way. What is it about cooking that is so essentially human?
The author’s personal images of meals she cooked during her Crohn’s flare.
There are cases of communal eating among animals, but humans are the only animals who cook. Unlike many other mammals, humans don’t have to spend as much time foraging for food– or even chewing or digesting– because cooking makes nutrients more readily available to us. And unlike plants which rely on photosynthesis– a process that, compared to cooking, seems rather mechanical– we humans rely on cooking. And through cooking we get culture.
By sitting down around a table, we socialize, share stories, and take part in the ritual of praying, giving thanks, and breaking bread. This is a time not just to fuel ourselves, but to enjoy the experience of eating in community and giving thanks to our God. So perhaps the purpose of this experience is to give us the opportunity to form emotional bonds with each other, develop cultural practices surrounding food, and foster a sense of gratitude toward the God who provides for us.
I’ve found that cooking has other spiritual benefits, too: When we cook a meal made from whole ingredients, we remind ourselves that food is a natural thing. It may seem silly and obvious to say this, but so many of us have grown accustomed to thinking of food as something we simply grab off the shelves of the grocery store, not something that comes from the earth. As Michael Pollan puts it in Cooked, “the idea that food has any connection to nature or human work or imagination is hard to credit when it arrives in a neat package, fully formed.” As Christians, we believe that nature is the very fingerprint of our Creator. So it stands to reason that cooking and eating food from the natural world can help to connect us with the one who created nature itself.
“IF WE LOOK AT THE ACT OF PREPARING AND ENJOYING FOOD AS A WAY TO ENGAGE WITH GOD INSTEAD OF A WAY TO CONTROL OUR BODIES, HOW MUCH MORE JOY WOULD WE EXPERIENCE WHEN WE EAT.”
There is a reason so much of Jesus' ministry was spent around a dinner table. If cooking is a human trait, then it makes sense that Jesus as both fully God and fully human would use cooking and eating as a tool in his ministry. Cooking brings people together, and the use of food as a metaphor in his parables is something that every living person can relate to. Not only that, but when Jesus fed the hungry, the people he fed saw that he was able to fulfill their physical needs, meaning they were much more willing to trust him when he told them he could fulfill their spiritual needs.
Of course, we live in a sinful world, and there is so much guilt and shame surrounding eating. But if we look at the act of preparing and enjoying food as a way to engage with God instead of a way to control our bodies, how much more joy would we experience when we ate? As the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “Eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart. For God has already approved of what you do” (9:7). When we are living in God’s Word and focusing on Him, we have permission to eat and drink with joy. In fact, you were made to do these things.
Food alone will not sustain us. The only bread that will save your soul is Jesus (see John 6: 25-40). But we can use eating as a reminder of his goodness– something that can point us toward his love and his joy. I think the most powerful example of this comes from John 20 when Jesus cooks breakfast for his friends on the beach. Jesus appeared to his disciples a few times after his resurrection, and I find it interesting that during one of those times he chose to cook. The seemingly simple act of cooking fish over hot coals demonstrated his humanity, but the mind-blowing fact that he did this after his resurrection showed his divinity as well. To me, it just goes to show that if Jesus himself saw cooking as a priority, then there is something not just human about it, but Holy, too.
