When cooking becomes a mirror of its time: From the middle ages to systemic cooking

While reading Paul Freedman's "Spices and Medieval Imagination", I paused on a vivid image: an older Parisian gentleman in 1390 writing the Le Menagier de Paris, an entire household and cooking encyclopedia for his young wife.

More than four hundred recipes, notes, hints, observations... A personal lifetime album, the kind someone today might offer as a wedding gift, a condensed summary of wisdom gathered over decades.

And it made me think about how deeply food is woven into the culture of every era. It's not just what we cook. It's how we cook, why we cook it, and what it means for us.

In the new cycle of Systemic Cooking, this is exactly the dimension we bring to the table.

We take a recipe and explore, where it started, how it evolved through time, how we have touched it with our own experiences, where it may symbolically lead us. Because every recipe carries a story. And when we cook it, we bring along our own.

As we trace a dish from the Middle Ages to today, we might also be tracing our own path. How we have changed, where we have paused, what we have learned, what we have left behind, and perhaps even more importantly, where we want to go next.

With this spirit, we open the new cycle of sessions. With our love for cooking, our curiosity for history, and the desire to give our dreams a little more space to take shape.

Cook the day the way you dream it.