Cooked Part II: the Cookpot

Michael Pollan describes the transition/evolution/transformation from barbecue to pot cooking as - masculine into feminine, external into internal, and I might add, tribal into familial. Rather than leaving barbecue behind he argues with aristotle's claim of boiling to be a higher form of cooking. Mr. Aristotle never got to try true southern barbecue, he reflects.  As so, this section, Part II, brings a steamy balance to the infernal Part I.

I love how the tension now mounts as his four elements take relationship.  Fire and Water, masculine and feminine, and as tarot would describe, swords and cups (like spits and cookpots).  These simple elements are  dividing like  sacred geometry, unfolding from the unity of fire, into the dyad of man and woman.

He does, though, hint at the triad, calling the pot harmonizing as  the ding, the Chinese cauldron with three legs, that symbolizes the well-governed state.

But what of the secrecy of the cooking pot when trust is compromised? Does the trusted mother becomes the evil witch. He describes the eating from the pot as Dionysian soup a leap into unknown waters.

I can't wait to try making dashi.

It is hard to stop the BBQ while the weather is so nice though,