Let me start this rumination on food and its enjoyment with a quote from William Butler Yeats.
The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
Now, Yeats was not thinking about food when he wrote this. Far from it. He was more concerned with the price one has to pay – what one must give up in exchange for the toil and concentration required to become a great poet.
I have lowlier concerns, and being a cook, when I think about Yeat’s Choice, I do think about food. And making good food seems to dance in the middle here between creating a good life and creating excellent work.
I know, for example, when I prepare a carrot juice and star anise reduction, that I am making the essence of delight. No one, and I’ve presented it to or forced it on many, can taste that without a keen sense that their life is now better than it used to be. Any chef can point to similar dishes. Chocolate-y things. Rubbing your finger around the bowl that used to contain a mousse, or licking the wire whip dripping with hollandaise. Each dish is the product, believe me, of much toil, focused attention to detail, worried tweaking of the seasoning, anxious concern for viscosity, for the right smell. For all that goes into setting high expectations for a dish and fulfilling them.
In fact, I don’t think you can achieve excellence in food – or something close to it – without at the same time giving proper attention to perfection of your life, certainly your enjoyment of your life. Yeats was absolute in his devotion to his work, but if he had been a great cook, instead of a great poet, I have a hard time thinking that the life and the work would have been so at odds.
Thought provoking note. Had me thinking long and hard about an equivalent individual profession that would give the same joy to the one that gives and the one that receives. Perhaps that of a musician?