alchemy

in the perpetual search to find meaning, i find cooking to be alchemy of a kind: it is an art in which one's very life can be translated into something tangible, which is then rendered back into intangible upon consumption. the full calculus of making food, however, is complex and delves into dark places. in the academic spirit, i will for the purposes of this demonstration ignore the external variables which do not relate to my object lesson.

consider the purchase, preparation and consumption of a portion of cow muscle. in order to acquire the ability to make said purchase, one would have to exert energy; in our modern world, the simplest example would be to work one hour for macburgerhut. in exchange for one hour of your life, you receive a paltry sum of paper and coin money, smelling faintly of cheese and tin. compensation in grubby hand, one treks to the butcher's and requests a filet mignon of modest size and very humble quality, costing let's say eight dollars, the full sum of your one hour's work. like magic, you have conducted transactions which have transformed one hour of your existence, never again to be regained in this life, into a material object.

returning to your dingy rented hovel (you do, after all, work at macburgerhut) you resolve to immediately cook and consume your steak - mostly to prevent your roommates from eating it before you... again, the odds being quite likely that all of you work at the equivalent of macburgerhut, which is why you're all sharing an apartment at the ripe old ages of 30.

let's further posit that, despite being employed at as disreputable a place as macburgerhut, you do have some modicum of cooking ability outside of waiting for the bell to alert you that the fries are done. by converting more of your existence into effort, you are able to induce reactions into the inanimate hunk of cow flesh which alter the structure of its proteins, fats and volatile organic components that cause it to become something that your reptilian brain now desires greatly. alchemy indeed.

finally, you stand (or rather sit on your threadbare, stained recliner) poised at the brink of consumption, the tiny browned chunk of cow flesh triggering a cascade of responses and counter-responses in your brain. your olfactory senses are alight, you are salivating profusely, and your brain's pleasure centers begin to fling synaptic charges wildly in anticipation of what is to come. you clumsily cut a couple of thin slices from the filet and place them into your mouth... steak, fat and seasonings touch your tongue and your brain's pleasure centers explode into the biochemical equivalent of multiple orgasm. for a very brief moment in time, all feels right with the world and you enjoy subtle rolling waves of bliss as the beef slides down your gullet into your belly. congratulations! you have now mystically converted a physical object into sensation, experience and various other intangibles.

the object lesson here is that, for the unimportant masses who toil away at thankless jobs for a pittance, an hour of life is valued at no more than a cut of filet mignon. what tawdry object could the entirety of one life be worth? and in the calculus of modern life, how is it that, with a straight face, we can value certain people so much more than ten, a hundred, a thousand times other people?