05/21/2010 12:00 am
Adventure
Hedonism in the Kitchen: A Q&A With Mireille Guiliano (Recipe)
The author of the French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook reinvigorates a lost act of sensuality.
WOWOWOW: The first review of your new book, The French Women Don’t Get Fat Cookbook,
in Booklist, the digital counterpart of the American Library Association, raves about your recipes, the warm tone, the anecdotes and your final list of reasons to cook. You’ve done different lists at the end of each of your books; is it the summary of the message you hope to share?
MIREILLE GUILIANO: Yes and no, insomuch as lists are never complete. I can think of another dozen or more reasons to cook, but when I wrote the book these two dozen or so definitions came to mind. Although they are more my personal take on cooking, the list is not exhaustive and can be different for anyone. The fundamental message is that cooking is pleasure.
WOW: Can you elaborate on this hedonistic concept?
MIREILLE: It’s pleasure in the sense of using and awakening all your senses and also as an integral part of what is called l’équilibre alimentaire, a balanced approach to eating.
WOW: With all the overweight and obesity challenges in this country, how do you see us reaching balance?
MIREILLE: Well, if one understands that cooking is both healthy and slimming, that’s a start. One needs to look at the pleasures and balance both the physical (our shape and the way we look and feel when we eat well) and the psychological (how our mind feels is just as important). It’s what I referred to in my previous books, the notion of being bien dans sa peau, feeling comfortable within one’s skin. So, by cooking, you see what you put into your body – you can easily control salt, sugar, portions, freshness – and by doing so it will impact your morale and well-being, key to achieving this balance.
WOW: Yet, in our busy world with so many women working and finding little time or interest to cook, how can we change this?
MIREILLE: First, time is something we have control over. And cooking doesn’t need to take hours. I generally use recipes that take half an hour or less, something most of us can manage. The best thing is to try, and see what happens. I can’t tell you the number of women who have told me or written to say how cooking changed their life. Remember that feminism not only discouraged cooking but put it down, so a whole generation barely knows how to boil an egg or cook a scallop. If you look at cooking as an act of love with so many other ramifications, like connection, conversation, conviviality, generosity, sharing and much more – values and principles that play an important social role and that anyone can appreciate – then one looks at cooking no longer as a chore but a way of physical, emotional and spiritual nourishment.
WOW: And you dare incorporate the notion that cooking is sexy. What do you mean?
MIREILLE: Easy: Cooking is emotions, like someone giving you a kiss, a physical emotion that transcends and makes you feel good, no? Cooking unites human beings and is an experience that is highly sensual, engaging all of one’s senses. So, now please go into the kitchen and cook something and tell me how you feel. Merci.
Recipe on following page …
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That is a grand example that feeds into the far Right mania — and ‘heals’ loss as the populace sinks deeper into self-isolation - hence, EAT.
It amazes me that with the US obsity problem, every media outlet, all Networks, and websites are addressing it, but filled with the dizzying dichotomies of recipes, how to EAT well, what to cook, and insane focus on FOOD.
This social schizophrenia created Americans’ penchant for "food and nutrition;" hence, obestiy.