[ When we eat, the social context matters perhaps even more than
the food.]
[[link removed]]

WHAT HOME COOKING DOES THAT RESTAURANTS CAN’T  
[[link removed]]


 

Reem Kassis
May 1, 2023
The Atlantic
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ When we eat, the social context matters perhaps even more than the
food. _

, Illustration by Celina Pereira

 

As a professional food writer, I have always found joy and
enlightenment in trying new foods. For both work and pleasure, I have
had the privilege of eating at hundreds of the best restaurants in the
world: Michelin-starred spots in Florence, Italy; _bouchons_ in
Lyon, France; shawarma stands in Amman, Jordan. Yet the most memorable
meals of my life have unquestionably been in other people’s homes.

These people were typically friends, not professional chefs. Their
dishes were, for example, the _fesenjoon_ and
potato _tahdig _(chicken in a pomegranate walnut sauce, rice with a
crispy potato bottom) prepared by my Persian Jewish friend Tali for my
birthday, and the _pu pad pong karee_ (crab meat stir-fried with
eggs, celery, and spices) that my former professor’s wife, Nok, made
when my family and I returned to Philadelphia after years away. All of
these tasted better than anything I have enjoyed in a restaurant.

This opinion is not just mine. I asked several friends—some chefs,
others food writers, and many that are neither—and found that, given
the choice between a meal at a top-notch restaurant and one in the
home of a regular person who is a good cook, they would almost all
choose the latter. I then polled my 21,000 or so Instagram followers.
Most of the hundreds who responded had the same response: Their
all-time favorite meals had been eaten in someone’s house.

This might sound counterintuitive. Restaurants have access to premium
ingredients and specialized equipment, and employ impeccably trained
professionals. And my polling methods were hardly scientific. But I
think the love for home food that I and many others have emphasizes a
deeper truth: Our emotions about what goes in our mouth are
intertwined with our feelings about the person preparing the food, the
conversation at the table, the cultural rituals around a dish’s
consumption. When dining, the social context matters perhaps even more
than the quality of the food.

It makes sense that the home is the site of our most cherished eating
rituals—it is, after all, the original restaurant. Although records
of public eating establishments date back millennia, most of these
places, such as medieval inns and ancient Rome’s _thermopolia_
[[link removed]],
were intended for travelers or poorer people who didn’t have their
own kitchens. Hosting at home, a ritual since prehistoric times
[[link removed]], was
how people maintained connections with friends and large extended
families. Restaurants as we know them today—convivial places to both
eat and socialize—are thought to date back only to 18th-century
France (_restaurer_ in French means “to restore”). These
restaurants were intended for the wealthier classes; not until after
the Industrial Revolution, when people began traveling more and moving
to urban centers for work, did dining establishments become more
accessible. By the 19th century, restaurants in the United States had
begun to gain even more popularity, and, as the country’s middle
class grew in the 20th century, dining out became a status symbol and
a form of entertainment.

In America today, restaurants are everywhere, takeout apps are
convenient, and the art of hosting at home is typically reserved for
Thanksgiving dinners or holiday barbecues. Granted, preparing a group
meal might require hours of labor, and not every weekday lunch must be
a meaningful social event. But the benefits of communal meal times to
physical and emotional well-being—such as lower rates of depression
and higher academic performance—are widely documented
[[link removed]].
Still, the average American eats just three dinners a week
[[link removed]] with
loved ones and spends more than half
[[link removed]] of
their money that goes to food outside the home. Plenty of people see
hosting a large group as a stressor
[[link removed]].

Many of us are missing out on an experience that restaurants cannot
provide. Dining out is transactional by nature: Bills are split,
access depends on income, the time at your table is typically capped,
and interaction with the people preparing the food tends to be
nonexistent. In the home, the exchange happens in an entirely
different way. You are not paying to consume a certain cuisine; you
have invested in a relationship with someone and, as a result, are
invited for a meal. You are not a customer; you are a guest—and that
makes all the difference.

Case in point: Around Christmas one year, our Romanian friends, the
Popescus, invited my family and me for dinner. One bite of the
grandmother’s _sarmale _(brined cabbage leaves stuffed with a
rice-and-meat mixture, then cooked with smoky bacon and tomatoes), and
I felt privy to a world I had never before encountered. The flavors
and textures were unexpected to my palate. For the first time in my
life, cabbage was delicious. But most of all, my husband, my
daughters, and I got to become part of the Popescus’ home life,
sitting around a table eating a dish that, for as far back as the
grandmother could remember, Romanians had been preparing for the
holiday. We did not feel like mere cultural tourists. Rather, we were
shown a level of generosity available only within the intimacy of
friendship. We were the recipients of a gift, with no expectations of
something in return.

The joy of cultural education, however, does not have to come from
eating with someone from a different ethnic background. Foodways are
so personal that even families in the same town can have their own
imprint on dishes. I’d always hated okra: slimy, seedy, and, even
when cooked in a traditional Arab tomato sauce, bland. But during my
sophomore year in high school, I tried the okra stew of a friend’s
mother. What a revelation to taste it spiked, with a fiery
fermented-chili sauce and made with chicken instead of lamb. Two
decades later, I continue to make okra stew the way I had it that day.

In Arabic, we have a term for the intangible element possessed by
certain cooks that can turn a meal from great to exceptional: _nafas_
[[link removed]].
To have _nafas_ is to have love for one’s guests and a desire to
satisfy them with your best cooking—which is why the term is often
used for home cooks, not chefs serving a restaurant of anonymous
customers. We also have a saying in Arabic that translates to “Greet
me, and you don’t need to feed me.” Because it’s almost unheard
of to _not_ feed your guests in our culture, what the adage really
implies is that how you treat your visitors will affect how much they
enjoy the food.

The host also gains something in all this. When I feed guests, I’m
not only connecting them to my Palestinian culture; I’m reconnecting
myself. For people like me who are living away from their home
country, hosting can rekindle childhood memories and forge the kind of
community that can be hard to find otherwise. Giving people around my
table a place where they feel they belong leads me to find my own
refuge. Not even the finest restaurant could compare to that.

_Reem Kassis [[link removed]] is a
Palestinian writer based in Pennsylvania and the author of The
Palestinian Table
[[link removed]] and The
Arabesque Table
[[link removed]]._

* home cooking
[[link removed]]
* Restaurants
[[link removed]]
* cuisines
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]