murder in the kitchen

#5 in an eclectic collection of notable noshes to whet your appetite and brighten your day.

The one absolutely essential requirement for the art of cooking is a love for its raw materials: the shape and feel of eggs, the sniff of flour, or mint, or garlic, the marvelous form and shimmer of a mackerel, the marbled red texture of a cut of beef, the pale green translucence of fresh lettuce, the concentric ellipses of a sliced onion, and the weight, warmth, and resilience of flour-dusted dough under your fingers. The spiritual attitude of the cook will be all the more enriched if there is a familiarity with barns and vineyards, fishing wharves and dairies, orchards and kitchen gardens.

~ from the food essay, “Murder in the Kitchen,” by Alan Watts, first published in Playboy Magazine (1969), included in DOES IT MATTER?: ESSAYS ON MAN’S RELATIONSHIP TO MATERIALITY (New World Library, 2007).

♥ Read Jaime O’Neill’s article, “For the Love of Food,” to learn more about “Murder in the Kitchen” and its relevance today.

♥ Longer excerpt from the essay here.

♥ Big thanks to Jinx Stapleton Watson for sharing the excerpt!

♥ More Tasty Tidbits here.

Watts was a British philosopher, editor, writer and lecturer most widely known for his teachings on Eastern philosophy. He was also a sensualist who enjoyed cooking for the likes of Timothy Leary on his houseboat in Sausalito.