Kitchen of Wonders, Pantry of Curiosities

You stand on the threshold of a small wooden door with your hand upon the knob. You give a push.  You leave behind the museums of cold glass reflections and stanchioned ropes.  There are no more monuments.  The usual world of definitions is behind you.  Your mind is open to new answers, and you leave one world behind for another.  The door opens.

Odors fill and rouse the nose.  A swarm of Mediterranean herbs hover over the browning of a meat.  The heavy smell of baking coats the back of the throat.  The flavorful aromas cause your taste buds to salivate and remember evenings in a restaurant with a glass of wine.  Then the sense of hearing reacts.  There is a sizzle like the strumming of a guitar over the rapid drumbeat of roiling water as the thumping punctuations of a knife on a cutting board dance with a whirring blender.  Next, the sense of touch awakens as the cheeks feel warmth from the oven and moisture from the stovetop.  Finally sight catches up to the others.

The door opens onto a kitchen.  It is the place most of us prefer to be.  Most other rooms are for leisure or distraction, but the kitchen is the center of activity in the house with a sense of purpose and fulfillment.  In the kitchen we discover.  We laugh in the kitchen and feel safe.  We grow drunk in the kitchen.  We talk loudly over the sound of the work.  The meal is often a satisfying end, a celebration, of what was accomplished in the kitchen.  

What were we doing all those centuries ago when as we huddled around the fire?  Keeping warm, pushing back the darkness, and cooking.  The fire light is still with us in tradition, in metaphor, in religion, in fond memories for those who have cooked over fire or watched a meal sizzle over an open flame.  As we roamed the fields and learned the ways of the animals about us we examined the world in order to eat it.  When we boil a liquid to separate it into it’s parts only to reconstitute those elements in another chamber through condensation we are experimenting in the kitchen, learning science, and distilling. 

In the kitchen the fruits, the grains, the meats, the tools of the world come together.  

This kitchen just now entered from  the Victorian Cabinet of Curiosities that was in turn connected to the Museum that we first entered on a bright and sunny fall day  in order to escape the crisp cold morning and spend a few hours learning something of interest, differs from other kitchens, in that this kitchen has been here for generations (thousands of years).  It began as a campfire.  At some point it acquired walls though still separate from the home.  It consisted of separate rooms for storage of dry goods and storage of meats.  It acquired an oven, then a sink, drainage, cold storages, a stove top, blenders, and today it even might have a dehydrator.  This kitchen has seen fish from the North Atlantic, peppers from South America, champignons from a hillside in Alsace,  roast duck, roast beef, roasted potatoes,  fermented cabbage from both Korea and Poland.  In short, the kitchen travels the world, or better yet, we travel the world through the Kitchen.  We start with basic fire, we learn the ways of harvesting, we sharpen our knives, we import and trade, we sautee, we toss, we bake, and all in order to eat.  Here, we cook and eat.

The Kitchen is a wonder to behold.  It is a place of Wonders.  The kitchen is a Cabinet of Wonders in and of itself residing in every home, under your nose, as it is said.

Before we continue on our journey, through that other door on the far wall, the large wooden one with an iron handle in the shape of a butcher’s knife, rest a bit, take a seat at the cutting board, have a wedge of Camembert, a sip of Trollinger wine, a warm slice of bread, a grape or two.  Relish the Kitchen.