Introductions

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Robert Sanchez and I am 29 years old. I teach philosophy at The College of William and Mary and I am currently writing my dissertation (a really long essay on some obscure topic for a Ph.D.). This is my first blog and if you ask those who do know me, I am the last person under thirty you'd expect to start a blog. I don't think I've ever even read one before. But I decided to set aside my doubts about blogging for a couple of reasons. First, I've found it surprisingly difficult to find a group of people who are interested in continuing a discussion about food and cooking, and so I'm hoping that this will help. Second, I wanted a way to keep track of the process of learning how and why to cook, which I plan to do on this blog.

Originally, I wanted to name my blog something like "The Philosophy of Food." But the title and URL were already taken, which turned out to be a good thing because, as I thought about it, I realized that I'm not sure what counts as "food" and even less sure what counts as "philosophy." So, in the very least, it would have been misleading to invite people to talk about the philosophy of food. (Though I expect that the phrase itself will be the topic of discussion at some point.)

As I thought more about the title, I remembered a passage from Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mexico's most famous female philosopher/poet, who says, "Had Aristotle cooked, he would have written a great deal more." He would have noticed, for example, that "The yolk and white of the very same egg are of such a contrary nature that when eggs are used with sugar, each part separately may be used perfectly well, yet they cannot be mixed together." What Sor Juana is suggesting here is not that Aristotle had mistakenly forgotten about the nature of an egg in his general theory of nature; instead, she is reiterating the idea "that one can philosophize quite well while preparing supper." So, with this in mind, I wanted to create a space for a discussion about the philosophy that arises in the kitchen (or at the restaurant or flipping through a cookbook), not necessarily about philosophical topics related to food.

Of course, if we're talking about the philosopher in the kitchen, certain philosophical questions are bound to be raised. For example, we might all agree that going to the Olive Garden with the family for someone's birthday is better than eating undercooked wheat pasta drowned in Prego sauce by yourself, and probably not as good as a romantic dinner at Noma in Denmark. But what do we mean by "better"? (That is a very philosophical type of question and I hope someone is brave enough to offer an answer.)

Because it's philosophy, no aspect of cooking is off limits and no level of generality is too general. We might entertain the most basic philosophical question pertaining to food, which was raised by Friedrich Nietzsche 130 years ago: "Does anyone know the moral effects of food? Is there a philosophy of nourishment?" Or we might specify: Am I a worse person for not knowing about fleur de sel or for not keeping a stash in the pantry? At some point in the blog I will argue that the answer to this last question might be yes, despite (or because of) the fact that the answer seems to be obviously no. At another point, I will argue that you might be a worse person because you carry fleur de sel.

So, by way of introduction, I invite you to contribute those thoughts that have struck you while you're in the kitchen and which you thought might be the sort of thing a philosopher thinks about. If you've never thought about what a philosopher thinks about - sometimes I wish I hadn't - think about it this way: any what- or why- or should-question that doesn't have an obvious scientific answer and whose answer (or attempt to answer) informs us about who we are and why we care about the things we care about. What do people mean when they call food "authentic"? Why do we cook anymore? What makes a meal good? Why does the same food microwaved by grandma taste better than when I microwave it. Why do so many people - me included - prefer Kraft macaroni and cheese to the "real thing." Should I start cooking with less meat? Why are we talking so much about food?

Also, because I want to stick to the idea of the philosopher in the kitchen, as opposed to the philosophy of food, feel free to post comments or discussion topics that are more technical. My first post will be on the value of improving technique. Here are some other suggestions: you might post a particular recipe and discuss the purpose of recipes, or why and how you went about studying a particular cuisine, or why, if you're like me, you insist on learning how to make things from scratch or by hand before you start "cheating." Remember, nothing is off topic and my only hope for this blog is that people who are interested in philosophy and/or food might learn a little more about both.