World Cuisine

Whoa... this is going to be an awesome class. I thought - it'll be fun! We'll go in the kitchen and make food with all these crazy techniques, using all these ethnic ingredients, and learning all of these cool things about other cultures food. Well... we'll probably do all that too but tonight was the first class and it was, more or less, a four and a half hour philosophical discussion about who we are as individuals, as a society in America, and as a world. Who we are, where we came from, what role food had/has in it all, why we do what we do, eat what we eat, look the way we look, and on and on and on.

There's no way for me to successfully or accurately regurgitate any part of tonight's class, at least not yet. My brain is tired and is moving all over the place (the similarities between slavery and prostitution, how India has such a deep understanding of spices but isn't as concerned about cooking techniques, why is our army still in Iraq, what is the definition of food and how Ferran Adria is alterring that definition, for example). What will my role be? Will I invent new cuisine? Will it be a fusion with regional cuisine I have yet to discover or learn about? How will my relationships be affected? I know God has led me to this, but how will He use me in the culinary world?

Tonight left me with many questions. Questions that I don't really want answers to yet. I want to let them marinate my brain. I want them to stew around inside of me and continue to create more questions and, more importantly, continue to inspire me. And to think, this was just the first night; this is just the beginning. If Paragon is good for nothing else, if the Chef's turn out to be hacks and the curriculum a joke, it has at the very least stirred something deep inside of me. My view of food is alterring big time. I feel as though I am ascending to a new plateau of knowledge, not technical, but philosophical and logical. Tonight I made some connections in the history of this country, our world, and my own life, and it all was tied together with food in one way or another.

I didn't want to leave class tonight...