Ingredients

After talking with the newly named "Supreme Auntie Mary Jo," I started thinking about the meaning of ingredients.

She and I were talking about the novelty that many children have when they discover that foods aren't always the thing in itself. I don't think that's an unusual discovery for many kids. When a child first encounters the idea that jam isn't picked from the jam tree, Coke isnt' siphoned from Coke Lake, it is startling.

There are consequences to this lack of information. Jam is a great example since so much jam is just sugar, fruited up. The consumption of Cokes and candies would suffer greatly if a label visualizing the volume of ingredients were on the package.

At some point, I started thinking about how you decide what the ingredients will be. I cook improvisationally so I get this in a deepish way, I hope. Recipes, ingredients, come from learning standards and taste curiosity. For cooks, a question gets lodged somewhere in them and helps form their cooking and eating identity. Usually the question is seemingly harmless like "What would happen if I added this? What would that taste like?" Man, that opens a can of corn, so to speak. You can't stuff that Pandora back into her box once she's on the scene.

So typically, an ingredient is a question answered or an experiment that will provide an answer or at least clarity. Nope, no more popcorn casseroles, as an acquaintance found out.

You, my three loyal readers, know that I keep trying to exhaust the stores of metaphors available in English. I keep thinking that if I find the perfect one, then the merry-go-round of Life will start spitting brass rings at me. With any luck, not at a high velocity.

In my current store of recipes, I've been ticking off the ingredients and finding the roster a bit tired. What to add, what to take away? More than that, I've been gripped with the fear that I might have missed key ingredients that I don't even know exist. Maybe that's a natural consequence of just asking the question. Maybe it might do me well to enjoy the meal in front of me, take it with, you know....