Each springtime, my Grandma Francie foraged grocery bags full of Morell Mushrooms from the musky loam of the Sangamon River Valley in Central Illinois. These days, that haul would fetch her around $195.00 a pound! To the untrained palate of a little boy, those breaded and fried wonders tasted like tender, juicy pieces of meat. My foraging/chef grandma came up in the ramshackle household of an immigrant Polish coal miner, his wife, and eight sons. Like her mom, Francie selected a coal mining husband, and raised her two boys in a tiny house with no plumbing. She didn’t hunt the Midwest’s equivalent of Italian truffles because some fancy Bon Appetite reference guide told her she should. Somehow Francie Wasilewski-Wagner discovered an inborn instinct to hunt the good stuff despite her lack of training in the culinary arts. I was born on her birthday. I curse the fact that I didn’t discover my inherited love for cooking until well after she was gone. To my everlasting sorrow, she took her knowledge of Francie’s feral fungus fields to the grave with her!
My wife came up in the meat and potatoes world of Medford, Wisconsin. Her friends and neighbors would occasionally invite her over for supper. According to Lisa, these eat-overs always left her with a hunger to ask the unspeakable question, “Why doesn’t this food taste like anything?” Lisa came up in the house of Elvie, who in turn, came up in the Philippines under Japanese occupation. In those days, the scarcity of food made it precious. Elvie always treated it that way. Before, during, and after the war, she was the beneficiary of a multi-generational oral tradition of island home chefs. Her peasant forbearers taught her how to deliciously
stretch a cut of meat or fish. Like other economically challenged cultures, she had a way of making “low on the hog” cuts of meat taste “high on the hog.” For example, she taught Lisa a delicious way of preparing the least expensive part of a cow: the “ox tail” (tail vertebrate). Nestled in a pot of peanut sauce, this low and slow method creates an incredibly tender, unctuous dish known as Kare Kare. Unfortunately, just like pork belly a few years ago, members of the Upper Crust have discovered it! Judging from recent price tags, oxtail appears to be gentrifying into a premium cut of meat!
As you can see, Francie and Elvie came to their artisan home-chef vocations in two very
different ways. Having spent a little time in Poland, I can boldly proclaim that Grandma’s art was not handed down to her. I never tasted a sip of borscht, a scrap of rye bread, or a single bite of pierogi in her kitchen. No. I presume that she picked up her craft like slow-rise bread picks up its yeast. She accumulated her wisdom from the Central Illinois environment of the early and mid-Twentieth Century. What she knew, she stitched together, Midwestern quilt- style. Elvie, on the other hand, came up in a food tradition. And like every Filipino home chef, she made those recipes distinctly her own. Anyone who knows anything about Filipino cooking knows that every family makes their chicken adobo their OWN way, which is the RIGHT way!
Small Deeds Done with Great Love
Despite their disparate geography, food traditions, and generations, these two women shared something fundamental known to elite home chefs worldwide. In addition to salt, fat, acid, and heat, they added a fifth element to each and every meal. What was the secret in their sauces? What was the algebraic “X” in every recipe? It was nothing other than love itself. That’s the thing that compelled these two women to apply their intelligence, intuition, and discipline to the sacred art of delight.
I used to think of Theresa of Lisieux and her “Little Way” as a powder puff of a woman, kind of like the Patron Saint of Saccharine. Viewing her through the lens of Elvie and Francie, I’ve changed my mind. Theresa perfected a practical form of contemplation in action. Her meat and potatoes spirituality had to do with putting love into everything you do.
In the kitchen, I have found that this can look like intentionally thinking about and choosing to love the specific people who will gather to enjoy my food. While processing the ingredients with knife or whisk, I try to visualize the people in my mind’s eye, almost like a prayerful mantra. During meal planning, The Little Way involves asking myself, “What food choice or table decoration would mean something to this person?” Importantly, I’ve also discovered this approach isn’t only for family and guests. It can involve slowing down and making meal preparation not only loving for them, but for me! This includes intentional humor and self-compassion with mistakes.
Over time, I’ve noticed a correlation between the amount of love that’s gone into a meal, and the depth of conversation and bond of community that comes out of it.
Contemplative Exercise
Set aside five to ten minutes.
Place your body into a meditative posture.
Close your eyes, or defocus them ten feet in front of you.
Step into the scene of your childhood dinner table slowly experiencing the room, the people in that room, and the food on the table with each of your senses.
Be especially attuned to your sense of smell and taste.
Take note of whatever feeling emerges within you.
Take time to either journal, or discuss what you noticed in that exercise.
Dialogue (As an alternative to the above exercise)
What was your favorite food? What was your least favorite? Has that changed over time?
Did your family have any food traditions, especially around holidays? What role did you play in them?
What are some of your favorite dinner table memories?
What were some dinner memories that you would gladly forget?
Have you ever consciously attempted to practice something like “The Little Way” at work, or at home? If so, what’s your technique? If not, can you imagine how and where you might employ a strategy like that?