Smash it then!

I had apprehensions about reading love god and the art of french cooking, wondering if it would get preachy. So far, the author is organizing his messy past relationships. Vegetables speak to his mentor-chef Roger. Roger feels apssionat about all giving food. He uses food processes as metaphors to explain thins in life. He explains that garlic heals by trapping tis juices in itself when cut. He believes that the way to get essence out of it is to smash it.


When I chose to read this book, I was apprehensive about the love, god part of it but couldnt let go of the French cooking part. I didnt get much of that too.


The two chefs Roger and Alain from whom the author learns about food make us see things like how food cooked with love elevates it from being nourishment to just the body. Roger has many metaphors in cooking processes - cut garlic healing itself, eggs binding rosti potatoes - that he uses to clarify life. The master chef lets the produce talk to him and believes in the life force of food. 'You are the result of what you think and eat' was the insight that Roger shared in his book. "French people treat food in a sacred manner, especially when they eat togeher - that is, they cherish the time and dont rush or try to hurry things up" is the closest that I got to understanding the art of French cooking.
The author brushes on concepts of abundance, service. While spirituality and sacredness are linked so much to food in the book, I wish the passion of the chefs passed into their expression of it on pages. Everything seems very disjoint - the authors's confusion and search in his life, the lessons he learns from the chefs. The mix is not organic.