Last year, on the day after Boxing Day, I accompanied my father to purchase a cabbage. With my aunt and cousins expected for dinner, we needed the ingredient for our meal preparations. Finding the local supermarket closed, we were forced to buy an overpriced cabbage from an Italian deli nearby. Back home, we gathered around the kitchen island, chopping vegetables, preparing a rib of beef, and assembling dauphinoise potatoes, all while listening to music and conversing. The dinner was a success, with the caraway seed-decorated cabbage proving particularly tasty. More importantly, the time spent cooking fostered a stronger connection with my father.
This sense of intimacy often arises when I cook with others. At 14, I partnered with a classmate in food technology to create a meal from scratch, choosing jerk chicken with rice and peas. We practiced at my home with friends, and despite the mediocre results of our culinary efforts—which involved clumsily blending scotch bonnet peppers, onions, garlic, and sauces into a barely edible mixture—the shared experience strengthened our friendship.
A year later, following my parents' separation, cooking elaborate meals with my mother became a way to cope. We prepared Caesar salads with homemade dressing, substituting crème fraîche for egg yolks, or spent hours making rich ragù. I felt I was offering her companionship during a difficult time.
Later, my father remarried, and cooking with my stepsister, from fried chicken to parmesan custard with anchovy toast, solidified our sibling bond. A recent visit to her in Newcastle revolved around the food we prepared together, including blackened fish, Old Bay-seasoned corn, and miso-butter mushrooms.
Cooking with my father, a man of few words, involves discussions about films, music, and books, as well as updates on our lives while we prepare dishes, often from "A Taste of Our Cooking," a collection of traditional Ismaili recipes. One particular dish, a chicken pilau with cumin, cloves, and cardamom, evokes memories of my grandmother, who used to share food at the mosque. Although I am often the sous chef, I cherish this time together.
Charlotte Hastings, a psychotherapist and author of "Kitchen Therapy," explains, "Food is at the center of human connections. That’s how we began as a species: by making and enjoying food together. The way we cook gives us a way of expressing love between one another.”
Hastings utilizes cooking and food to explore personal and interpersonal issues with her patients. This approach allows her to transition from emotionally challenging topics to tasks like whisking eggs, while connecting feelings to the food being prepared. "It allows us to stay in the room and not run away from those feelings, while not staying in a dangerous place for too long with people. It’s an effective way of working with trauma.”
While cooking with friends and family may not always involve deep emotional revelations, the active nature of food preparation can alleviate the pressure or anxiety sometimes felt in one-on-one conversations. Hastings suggests, "We’re feeling that sense of being unified. You don’t have to be having really big, meaningful conversations to come away feeling sustained and nourished in those moments.”
Dr. Michael Kocet, assistant vice-chancellor for graduate education at the University of College Denver and a mental health counselor, developed a course on using cooking therapeutically. He agrees that cooking together is less threatening than direct conversation. "Research shows, especially with men and adolescents and boys, that parents often find their child opens up when they’re driving in the car. Why? Well, it’s because they’re not making eye contact. They’re focusing ahead, and that eye contact is less threatening," he says. "It’s the same thing with cooking. It’s less intimidating, less vulnerable, because you’re focusing on a task of chopping or stirring or having a common activity together.”
After moving from London to Sheffield, I found that cooking with friends helped ease feelings of loneliness. Kocet notes, "I think food is a binding opportunity. It brings friends together. It might not even be about being a good chef. I think it’s just a way to foster community.”
The Leeds-based charity Zest implements this through its social enterprise, Leeds Cookery School. Profits from cookery classes and kitchen rentals fund community projects focused on healthy eating and food preparation. Joe Grant, the charity’s head of social enterprise, states, "Food crosses all barriers, languages and demographics. I could be sitting next to you and we could be talking in different languages. But if we were to cook a meal together and share it, there would be smiles, there would be laughter, there would be a connection, and there would be a bond that’s made.”
Grant highlights the Men’s Pie Club, an initiative started by Food Nation to combat social isolation among men, and the Welcome Café, a community cooking session for refugees and asylum seekers.
Grant explains, "The premise of the Pie Club is that socially isolated men can come to a session once a week, roll up their sleeves, make some pastry and a filling and produce a pie. But the kinaesthetic act is somewhat secondary because they are having conversations. The pies just get made along the way.” He recounts the story of a man who initially lacked confidence but, through the pie club, became a leader in the sessions. Many participants also form friendships outside of cooking. "They have a WhatsApp group. They go home and share their success and failures in pie making. It doesn’t have to be about in-depth chats. They’re making connections with people.”
The Welcome Café shares this ethos. Each week, a participant chooses a dish, and the group shops for ingredients at Leeds Kirkgate Market before preparing the meal together. "We have people from Somalia, Algeria, Hong Kong," Grant says. "It’s just so international and varied. There’s 18 to 80-year-olds and so many different personalities. They all chip in and it’s this one big community meal.”
Despite the benefits of sharing food, a 2021 survey by Sainsbury’s revealed that only 28% of households eat the same meal at dinnertime, with 55% citing a lack of time. A 2016 study found that parents in 1.5 million UK families had never cooked with their children. Hastings attributes this to a disconnect between mind and body. "Obviously class and gender play into this, but I think in a capitalist culture we’ve lost the spiritual structure of making food as an act of love and communication. There’s this real disconnect around what the purpose of eating is," she says. "It is difficult when people don’t have enough time, but we need to ask ourselves why we don’t have enough time. Where is that coming from?”
Grant adds, "I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault: it’s the financial pressures, economic pressures and environmental pressures. Life has just got so much faster, almost exponentially, over the past 20 years and convenience has accelerated that. It’s created this environment which doesn’t enable a family to have the luxury to make time to cook together, but that is so important.”
Recently, after a challenging period, I visited a friend for dinner. We prepared a jambalaya, dicing peppers, celery, and onions together. As we cooked, our conversation eased the pressure I had been feeling, and the shared intimacy enhanced the meal.
