Cooking to Change the World

By Dominique Paredes-Rupp, Former ARCH intern

When I turned 21, my mom sent me two packages: one contained a variety of German Haribo candy and two small bottles of La Marca prosecco. All of my roommates at the time thought it was the coolest thing that a parent actively supported the consumption of alcohol on one’s 21st birthday. The other package, contained a German Fissler pressure cooker, in a smaller size for “personal” cooking. While the candy and booze were great, this was the present I shrieked at. My roommates never fully understood this.

I grew up in a multicultural home with a German mother and an Ecuadorian father. My mom and grandmother both cooked in a pressure cooker that pumped out stews and soups for the rest of the family. My Ecuadorian family used pressure cookers too to cook pork and make locro. If you treat a pressure cooker right, it lasts forever; you just have to replace the rubber ring in the lid. Essentially, it was always the pot that somehow made the family come together. It was goulasch and spaetzle and great conversation that truly remind me of home, first starting with that pot.

In college, there were a lot of times that I was homesick. My mom sent me away to school with a binder of her recipes and told me to cook when home was too far away. I’ve never received wiser advice. Cooking is an act of love. Growing up, food was what brought the family together, what made time stop just for a little bit. We all sat around a table to celebrate, whether it was a birth, a wedding, or just the sweetness of life. When I got sick it was caldo that was put in front of me. When it was my birthday we made lasagna. Now, without my giant family present, I take my pressure cooker and I make it for myself.

I am the college student who hosts dinner parties in their dorm, and now apartment. I bring soup to friends when they’re sick. People ask me how I learned to cook, and I respond, how can you go through life not learning? I learned by observing my grandmothers and parents and family members come into the kitchen and make magic. By eating. By figuring out what goes with what over 22 flavorful years. I find peace and happiness in watching people laugh together over good food, and knowing that I made that happen. Studies have shown that one of the reasons why US politics is so divided today more than ever before is that congress members and their families don’t host dinner parties for other congress members and their families anymore. Therefore, all the conversation and compromises and understanding that happened during these meals and brought people together is lost. Good food accomplishes miracles.

So I ask you this. Find your favorite recipe, one that reminds you of home and of good times and of laughter. Buy the ingredients. Go home and cook in your favorite pot with your favorite music playing. Have your kids and neighbors to join you. Make it a family affair. And then, after all that, invite your worst enemy to dinner.

And while cleaning the dishes later that night, you will find you have made a friend.