.
[...] there is something in the transfer, in the belief, in the folklore of what you do as a cook that makes your food that much different or that much better.
If I want to believe that the enzymes (in the Kalbi Marinade mother sauce) break down the tough sinew and protein in the meat, I transfer that energy to the marinade, and that belief and that spirit transfers to the food.
Somehow it's going to transfer to you and we're all going to be ok.
—Roy Choi
from his excellent Masterclass
. . .
A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot
where it’s being boiled.
‘Why are you doing this to me?’
The cook knocks him down with the ladle.
‘Don’t you try to jump out.
You think I’m torturing you.
I’m giving you flavour,
so you can mix with spices and rice
and be the lovely vitality of a human being.
Remember when you drank rain in the garden.
That was for this.’
Grace first. Sexual pleasure,
then a boiling new life begins,
and the Friend has something good to eat.
Eventually the chickpea
will say to the cook,
‘Boil me some more.
Hit me with the skimming spoon.
I can’t do this by myself.
I’m like an elephant that dreams of gardens
back in Hindustan and doesn’t pay attention
to his driver. You’re my cook, my driver,
my way to existence. I love your cooking.’
The cook says,
‘I was once like you,
fresh from the ground. Then I boiled in time,
and boiled in the body, two fierce boilings.
My animal soul grew powerful.
I controlled it with practices,
and boiled some more, and boiled
once beyond that,
and became your teacher.’
—Rumi
The Essential Rumi
Coleman Barks and John Moyne version
.