The introduction to Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation reveals that Michael Pollan had been pondering several issues. These include how to be more connected to his quickly growing son, how to improve the health and wellness of people — particularly his own family — and how to help people connect with nature. His seemingly simple answer to these troubling issues was to cook.
The answer turned out to be anything but simple. Pollan divides cooking into the four basic Greek elements: fire, water, air and earth. The cooking examples of these four elements are barbecueing, braising, bread baking, and fermenting. He researches each element extensively both in typical academic style and by learning to cook with masters of each type of food preparation. He practices and masters barbecueing whole pigs, baking bread, braising a variety of meats and fermenting cheese, beer, and more.
In his typical lyrical style, he produces an extended essay on each of the four aspects of his research. Along with the anticipated information on foods and cooking, he offers information on the biological processes of cooking and digestion. For example, people don’t need the extra stomachs of cows because cooking and fermentation starts the process of food digestion for humans.
Most interesting to me, though, was the inclusion of seemingly unrelated historical, anthropological and literary references. He considers Prometheus and Homer. He offers the history of food preparation. He compares various aspects of cooking, its products, and the food’s consumption to religious rituals. He describes the process and effects of animals drinking alcoholic beverages. He explores the relationship of various styles of cooking to the personalities and social places of the cooks.
In the process of researching and practicing with his son, Pollan transformed his relationship with his son and greater community. He also transformed his relationship to food and nature.
Hence the title of the book. To me, though, the book is more about his innovative thinking providing connections between seemingly unrelated elements of our world.
Discuss this book and Michael Pollan’s other works at Bookmamas with the Shared Pages book club on Tuesday, August 13 at 7:00 p.m. at Bookmamas, 9 South Johnson Avenue.
