What’s the saying? “Too many cooks spoil the broth?” Families cook best together for one simple reason: they generally all had the same teachers. But all you have to do is go to your first love’s parent’s place for dinner and suddenly you’re encountering things that your brain reads as wrong. By the time you’re married this can result in big fights in the kitchen that are largely over illusions.
I’m born and raised on the prairies, so I’ll stick to the foods I know. Maybe your Mom made gravy thick and they make it thin. Maybe they like raisins in the stuffing and you don’t. Maybe you like dryer meat and they like it super juicy. Maybe they think their list of spices is the right one and yours is the wrong one. It doesn’t really matter what the argument is over, if it’s not about creating poisons to eat then it’s largely a discussion about nothing.
There is no right way to cook food. There’s how you cook it and how much the people eating it like it. That’s it. Yes, some might be more popular, but that’s not the same as better. It’s just different. And it’s amazing what our minds can do to our bodies when our mind doesn’t like something. Literally, we can end up temporarily not liking a food out of habit, despite the fact that we’d get over it and like it just as quickly as we got addicted to what we’d previously eaten, which was in almost no time.
The point isn’t really the food though–it’s the argument. Arguing over cooking is a great example of two people presuming there is a common reality. We are all one, but the closest thing we have to truth in the ego world of thought is science, which is why the poisoning is important. But other than that everything is subject to opinion and even the science will often change and evolve over time. So there’s no hallowed ground for anyone to stand on and point fingers.
We simply have to accept that it makes sense that other people would have differences in their physical makeup and their thought processes and that those things would result in foods tasting differently. It’s literally one of the definitions of being an individual: you perceive through your own senses.
Frankly, no one can even prove we’re not inside a simulation, so for all you know your excellent steak is the same as the one in the film The Matrix.
Our senses are interpreted by us, for us. We have no idea how accurate they are. We know there are famous synesthetic composers who literally see music, so that shows how flexible our senses are. Even drug use proves that our mind can create amazing experiences which feel thoroughly real. So the question is, if you can’t tell reality from what you believe reality is, then why would you argue with your beloved about the reality of how a food should be cooked?
If you want to get along with others better in the kitchen, understand that your ideas about cooking are the same as theirs. Even if your training is superior, that doesn’t guarantee you’re right, it just means the other person might be wise to listen more. So don’t make being right about the food your aim in a good relationship or you’ll end up ending it.
Rather than argue about the peas, make peace. Make that your focus next time you’re having an argument in the kitchen and you just might find that someone surprises you with something–and someone–you end up loving.
peace. s
Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.
Following a serious childhood brain injury Scott McPherson unwittingly spent his entire life meditating on the concepts of thought, consciousness, reality and the self. This made him as strange to others as they were to him. Seeing the self-harm people created with their own overthinking, Scott dedicated part of his life to helping others live with greater awareness. He is currently a writer, speaker and mindfulness instructor based in Edmonton, AB, where he finds it strange to write about himself in the third person.