Foodie or not, I think everyone has food rituals.They are different from just foods you eat regularly or foods you love. The process of cooking and eating them is savored; there is a particular way that you go about eating them. Ritual foods are important in teaching a child how to appreciate food as nourishment to the body and soul.
A food ritual is the clockwise turn and scoop of a bowl of oatmeal. Scoop and turn, scoop and turn, until only the sugary center is left to savor.
It is the meditation of chopping vegetables, child at my side chopping along. Thinking about the rich soil that enveloped them a few days, hopefully even a few hours, ago. It is the sound of those veggies and herbs plopping into a pot of homemade stock for our warm winter soup.
It is the smell that sparks a cherished memory of food. It is the flashback of your grandmother rolling out pastry dough with her heavy wooden rolling pin.
It is the magic of mixing and combining ingredients that transform them into something so delicious it causes you to pause and relish in the way it heightens the senses, feeds the soul, and makes you want to replicate that experience perfectly over and over again.
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