“I’m not a chef; I am a very serious cook.” Maya Angelou
Poet, cook, and inspiration. Very few people know that Maya Angelou was also a cookbook writer. As someone who doesn’t read a lot of cookbooks or watch a lot of cooking shows, hers seemed different for me- she was a poet, a writer, someone who loved to write and loved food.
In this day and age where people write for recognition, “freebies” and countless superficial reasons- I choose not to write until something makes me feel. It is always the writer’s choice what words they choose and what they want to express, however in the very end it is always the reader who chooses what the writing means.
Maya Angelou was famous for saying ” I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” This is something I have always believed, that nothing I write, unless I feel it, will be worth sharing.
Maya Angelou was a civil rights activist, literary legend and “foodie”! Her writings of food were always emotional, nostalgic and uplifting for whoever came across them. The Welcome Table is one of my favorites, “A lifetime of memories with recipes”. She took the words out of my heart, and proved that food is not just a pretty, tasty or decadent consumption: food is a feeling, an emotion and can only be appreciated with passion. We are lucky that she left her legacy in places so easy for us to access: her poetry, her novels and her cookbooks.
It is truly a loss for the world, but if one new person picks up a Maya Angelou book, poem or recipe and discovers her greatness through all of our mourning- she will live on.
Below is a collection of Maya’s “food wisdom”, from http://www.eater.com. A truly worthy tribute to a woman who spoke, cooked and wrote like it is.
You can also find the full article here.
The Cooking Wisdom of Maya Angelou
On not being a chef: “I am a cook. And I consider myself a serious cook. I know someone who interviewed me thought she was flattering me by calling me a chef. I’m not a chef; I am a very serious cook. I have knowledge of and great respect for ingredients, and understand how they react.”
On Southern food: “I love the slow way of cooking. I like the country foods: the greens and the beans and the cornbreads and the biscuits. Not just for the taste, but because it infuses the house with an aroma that says ‘You are welcome. You’re going to have some good food. It’s going to take some time. And once you eat it you won’t want to leave.'”
On the first steps in cooking: “My first lesson in the kitchen: Wash your hands. If I walked into the kitchen without washing my hands as a kid, I’d hear a loud ‘A-hem!’ from my mother or grandmother. Now I count on other people to do the same.”
On ignoring the rules: “You can eat anything at any time … Who made the rule that you have to have eggs in the morning, and steak at night?”
On knowing when a dish is good: “You know, people are talking, aba dabba, dabba, dabba, and then they swallow something and there’s… then someone says, ‘Mm, mm, mmm,’ and I know I’ve mixed the groceries the right way.”
On creating recipes with integrity: “I feel cooking is a natural extension to my autobiography. In fiction, the story can be moulded to the author’s needs but in autobiography you have to tell the truth. The reader has to believe what the writer is saying or else the book has failed. The same applies to cooking; if there is no integrity to the recipes, no one will trust them.”
Wisdom from Great Food, All Day Long
On shopping: “It is wise for a cook to spend serious money on heavy pots. The same goes for good knives. It is wise for a cook to make friends in a local kitchen store, where there will be news about cooking classes and a good produce market, and where knives can be sharpened.”
On overeating: “I have noticed that many people eat long after they are filled. I think they are searching in their plates not for a myth, but for a taste, which seems to elude them. If a person’s taste buds are really calling for a prime rib of beef or a crispy brown pork chop, stewed chicken will not satisfy. So the diner will have another piece of chicken and another piece of bread and some more potatoes, searching in vain for the flavor that is missing.”
On timing: “Plan your meal carefully. If you are cooking meat, remember it will take longer than vegetables, and some vegetables will cook before others. Do not start every dish at the same time.”
On choosing books to cook from: “Hundreds of cookbooks line the walls in my country kitchen. I can sit at the table and reach the books. Since I have read each one at least one time, I do not make a selection. I simply choose whatever book my hand falls on.”
On adapting recipes: “I rarely follow recipes from one cookbook at a time. I will study three recipes for the same dish to see how three different cooks would prepare the ingredients. I might select ideas from one, and then add my own innovation. The end results are not always successful, but the chances and changes, more often than not, offer a wonderful dish that I doubt any of the original cooks would recognize.”
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