Three Kinds of Kitchen Witch

Three Kinds of Kitchen Witch

For those who are not familiar with the term, a Kitchen Witch is a person who focuses their magical and/or spiritual practice through the act of cooking. One of the classic elements of fictional witches is the potions cauldron; the image of a sorcerer pouring exotic ingredients to elaborate powerful concoctions is based on real life. Working with the ingredients that come from the Earth, feeling them, transforming them into something new by using Fire and Water, precieving the aromas carried by the Air and imprinting every preparation with a special energy is what a Kitchen Witch does. From stirring with the ladle clockwise, to sing chants or spells while we cook, there are countless magical acts with can bring into our food preparation, to create beverages that will fill us with energy, stews that will give happiness to our family, or cookies that will sweeten the relation among friends or colleagues.

That said, the same way there is a infinite number of tastes and cooking styles, there are many ways of doing kitchen magic. In this case I will encompass in three categories the complex and variated practices that a Kitchen Witch can have. 

Ancestral Cooking

One of the most common practices among witches is the conection or cult of ancestors, those poeple who came before us and left us a legacy of wisdom. Incidentally, one of the most common inheritances that people leave are their familiy recipes, which added up become the gastronomy of a place or a culture. When this two traditions come together, we have a powerful way of cooking that honors the ancestors and help preserving the teachings from generation to generation.

It is common that these witches own an old notebook or cookbook, passed down from the great grandmother to the grandmother and to the mother, in which they have compiled with different handwrittings all the creations that took place in their kitchens for yeas and years. Inadvertently, this becomes also a journal of family history. It i s a way to keep a strong bond with your ancestors and at the same time, make your own contribution, be part of your lineage; so do not be afraid of adding your own recipes, make side notes or modify them a little, to leave your own remnant.

Seasonal Cooking

It was hard for me to come up with a name for this way of cooking; I also considered "Earth cooking" (but all of them are so), "Adaptable cooking" or "Receptive cooking" (but I don't think these gt to clearly express what I mean by it). This gastronomy focuses in using ingredients found in the season and area in which you are; that is, recieving whatever the Earth provides you with in a given place and time, and flowing with it. As a result, you have food that changes throughout the year with each season, with the sowing and harvesting cycles, and also that will be different in each region. It also turns out to be a more sustainable diet. 

In this modern world we are used to be able to get any ingredient from any part of the world, at any time of the year; but lets be honest, we do not appreciate it anymore. Practicing this kind of cooking brings back the excitement of waiting for a season to come so we can eat something we like,  and it even makes more meaningful the typical dishes of a holiday or celebration. On the other hand, it makes the experience of traveling richer, because you will be able to try local foods that otherwise you would not be able to find outside cetrain place. For me, this is a way for a witch to worship, not the whole Earth, but the one that sustains them, the very earth on which they live, by recieving its gifts with no conditions or modifications. If you want to take it one step further, try to cook one day using only whatbyou harvest in your own garden. 

Intuitive Cooking

For practicing this kind of cooking, a particular kind of personality or a very specific mood is required: you need to let go, let yourself flow. There are some people for whom this is the normal way of cooking, while for others this seems like a risky adventure. In intuitive cooking, you forget about recipes and instructions, you simply start to throw ingredients as you go, trying, imagining, almost like you were ina  trance. You put aside quantities, times and degrees, you simply follow your intuition and your creativity. 

Although definitely this si the most fun way of being a Kitchen Witch, it has its disadvantages, because sometimes you reach incredibly delicious results... that you can never recreate. On the other hand, there will always be something new in your plate. Also, to practice this kind of cooking you do not need any kind of experience or knowledge, you simply follow your hunch and accept that your experiments can end up very well, or not so much. 

Of course, these three categories tend to overlap. Most Kitchen Witches have fallen into all of them and the lines are blurred. For instance, to create a dish usuing only seasonal ingredients, sometimes you need the creativity that the inuitive cooking brings. Another example is the fact that many ancestral cooking was created using local ingredients, because in old times they did not have access to that many import products. Likewise, in order to cook within an inuitive trance, you can start from a family recipe and modifiy it. You probably are a combination of tow of these kinds, or even the three of them. 

Nothing is defined: your kitchen, your rules, your magic. The most important thing is that you bring a strong energy and that you know that the act of cooking can be something powerful and extraordinary.