Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Wicca in the Kitchen (3 page)

Chapter Three

The Tools of Food Magic
& Magical Cooking

F
ood magic is a direct and simple form of self-transformation. Its most important tools are food and the magician's personal power. Other implements, however, are necessary to prepare and to cook empowered dishes. This chapter describes the magical qualities of these tools and some basic magical cooking tips. Since this isn't a gourmet cookbook, no unusual objects are required. Your own kitchen should provide virtually everything you'll need.
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Cups, Bowls, and Pots

The earliest form of food container must have been cupped hands. Later, leather was shaped in imitation of this form and used to contain liquids and solid foods. In some parts of the globe, basketry was tightly woven into bowls and storage units. Baskets made of fresh leaves are still quite common in tropical parts of the world.

Clay was also shaped into bowls, and these forms were subjected to heat to firm their shapes and to prolong their lives. Gourds have been used as containers around the world for hundreds of years. Carved wooden bowls were in common use until quite recently.

With the coming of the Bronze and Iron Ages, peoples that possessed the knowledge of metalworking used these materials to create their bowls. Silver and gold vessels were also common grave goods in royal tombs in the ancient world.

Cups, bowls, and pots are certainly receptive; they
contain
. As implements related to the element of water and to the earth's moon, they possess loving energies and recall the loving cups—trophies—still awarded to exceptional individuals and teams.

Earlier cultures identified the pot as a symbol of the Great Mother. This concept is almost universal.
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Rounded pots and bowls, associated with goddess energy, were also used to prepare food. Thus, a goddess symbol physically nourished humans. The Zuni, for example, saw the bowl as the emblem of the earth, which they described as “our Mother.” They drew food and drink from the bowl, as does a baby from its mother's breast. The bowl's rim was as round as the horizon of the earth.
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Pottery was invented by women, and pottery remained a feminine craft among virtually all culturally unadvanced early peoples. One of the hallmarks of “advanced” culture was the forced transference of this women's art to men.
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Throughout the world, pots have been used for magical purposes. In Panama, a pot shaped like a human being was placed on the roof of a house for protection. In West Africa, shamans trapped the winds and rains in huge jars,
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and ancient Hawaiian deities are said to have done much the same thing with gourds.

Chinese New Year's festivities often included stuffing a clay pot with stones and bits of iron, which represented the ills of the past year. Gunpowder was added to the pot, along with a fuse. The pot was buried, the fuse was lit, and the resulting explosion wiped out the evils of the past year.
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On their ceremonial pots, the Pueblo Indians of North America rendered animals that are found near springs. This was done to ensure a steady supply of water.
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Any cup or bowl can be used in magic, as long as it's not made of plastic or aluminum. Earth colors (browns, beiges, and whites) are most appropriate for a container. Choose cooking pots of the same colors, and made preferably of glazed ceramic, glass, enameled metal, or stainless steel.

Avoid using aluminum implements in magical cooking.

The Oven

The oven is another symbol of the divine.
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It encloses, performs a transformative process (cooking), and is warm and bright. Humans have used many types of ovens, from the mud-brick ovens of the Middle East to the earthen ovens used in both North America and Polynesia. Some cultures honored an oven goddess, such as Fornacalia of ancient Rome.
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Others, like the Chinese, see a male deity within its sun-like warmth. In Europe, the oven didn't come into common use until the eighteenth century; the cauldron, a kind of portable oven, was used in its place.
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The oven's purpose is to retain heat from the burning fuel and to provide the even temperature necessary for proper cooking. Gas or electrically heated ovens are fine for magical cooking. Modern microwave ovens work on a completely different principle to heat the food. As food magic is a traditional practice, it's best to avoid microwaves and utilize the time-honored, traditional tools of food preparation.

The Cauldron

Long linked with Witches in the popular imagination, cauldrons were once the common cooking pots used throughout Europe. Made of iron, marked with ribs used for measuring, and standing on three long legs, millions of cauldrons have swung or stood on hearths to cook the family meal
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—the stockpot so loved by contemporary cooks has its origins
in the lowly cauldron. The cauldron's association with Witches derives from the infamous “three Witches” scene in Shakespeare's
Macbeth.
To use an iron pot for brewing (such as in making teas) or cooking wasn't unusual in the sixteenth century. What
was
unusual, and what attracted the public's attention, was the
type
of cooking being done by these three women.

Among modern Wiccans, the cauldron is honored as a symbol of the Mother Goddess, just as bowls, jars, and pots have been. Cast-iron, three-legged pots are still produced for decorative and occult purposes, but I don't recommend trying to cook in a cauldron unless you have an open hearth and plenty of time. It takes hours to boil water in one of these big iron pots.

Plates and Platters

Plates were probably used before bowls. The first plates were flat pieces of wood or stiff leaves, which came in handy for holding and slightly cooling cooked food prior to eating.

Plates are ruled by the sun and the element of earth. Generally speaking, they represent the physical world, money, and abundance. Any plate made of natural materials can be used for magic.

Mortar and Pestle

The blender and food processor of earlier times, the mortar and pestle is still used by some cooks to crush or to grind herbs and nuts. Prehistoric mortars have been found among the archaeological remains of many peoples dating back to Neolithic times.
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Mortars identical to those used by preconquest Mexican peoples are still used in contemporary Mexico.

Many Indian tribes of southern California fashioned mortars by grinding holes into huge rocks. A round stone was used as the pestle. As a child, I often threw acorns into such
mortars
in the Laguna Mountains near San Diego. I even tried to grind the acorns, as had the Digueno Indians.

Food processors are important tools for many of us, and they do save time. They, or the mortar and pestle, can be used if you wish. Grinding two cups of almonds with a mortar and pestle is a lengthy business; but while doing so we can pour our personal power into the food and concentrate on its eventual use.

Pantry

Pantries were once common to every home. Today, most of us fill cupboards with staples and canned foods. The pantry is ruled by the element of earth and the moon; because it is a container that houses food, it's intimately linked with the Mother Goddess. For our purposes, your kitchen cabinets constitute a pantry.

The magical cook should keep a stock of basic culinary ingredients: salt; sugar (if you use it); honey; maple syrup; herbs and spices; whole grains; flours of all types; corn meal; vinegar; and vegetable oils and other similar foods, stored in airtight containers.

As a place where food is stored, the pantry should be protected. A rope of braided garlic or chili peppers hung in or on the pantry will serve it well. While hanging the rope, visualize the vegetable's forceful energies driving away anything that would contaminate the food.

Spoons and Spatulas

The spoon is a bowl with a handle. As such, it is related to the moon and to the element of water.

Spoons have been used for thousands of years. Until quite recently in Japan, the
shamoji,
or rice-spatula, was considered a magical object. Small spatulas were nailed over the front door of a house to guard it, and in the hope that its inhabitants would never go hungry for lack of rice.
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Forks

Though they are commonly found on Western tables today, forks were once used solely for noneating purposes such as spearing fish, working with hay, and digging. The first fork was probably a forked stick. Until late in the seventeenth century, most Western peoples ate with their fingers. Though the fork was introduced into Europe in the eleventh century, it took five hundred years for it to gain widespread use.
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The fork is ruled by Mars and the element of fire. As a tool for eating, it has been regarded as sacred, and bent forks played a role in European protective rituals. They were buried in gardens or placed inside walls to ward off negativity.

Knives

Knives were first created by flaking flint, jasper, and other crypto-crystalline quartzes into finely edged tools. The knife is ruled by Mars and the element of fire. This tool has been used both for life-threatening (stabbing) as well as life-affirming (cooking) purposes. It was the first implement used for eating, for it could both cut food as well as transfer it to the mouth.

A Note on Magical Cooking

—When preparing foods for specific magical purposes, cook with purpose and care. Keep your goal in mind. Know that the food contains the energies that you require.

—Always stir clockwise. Clockwise motion is thought to be in harmony with the apparent movement of the sun in the sky, and has been linked with life, health, and success.

—Cut foods into shapes symbolic of your magical goal; i.e., hearts, stars, or circles (see
chapter 21
through 31 for specific ideas).

—If you're cooking food that will be consumed by others as well as by yourself, don't load the whole dish with energy. Prepare it as you normally would. Then, just before you eat, charge your own portion with visualization. Failing to separate your empowered share is treading on the dangerous ground of manipulative magic.

—Cook with love.

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Chapter Four

The Ritual
of Eating

E
ating is a simple practice. We put food into our mouths, then chew and swallow it. Nothing mystical about that, right?

Perhaps not. But because of food's importance, it has been linked with politics, social structures, legal systems, health maintenance, magic and, oh yes, religion.

Our lives still contain vestiges of these earlier practices. Prayer (or “saying grace”) before meals is perhaps the most common. It is popular not only in Christianity but also in many other religions. The urge to give thanks for food prior to eating has its origins in the Pagan sacrifices common in ancient Egypt, Sumer, Greece, Rome, and many other cultures. Portions of the food were burned or placed in offering bowls. The food is now simply blessed.
¶

The idea today is the same: verbally or psychologically linking food with deity. Long ago, humans spent most of their time ensuring a steady supply of food, which could be wiped out by fires, droughts, insect infestations, torrential rains, storms, and unseasonal freezes. Unable to physically prevent such catastrophes, humans naturally turned to their deities for protection.

When the harvest had been spared, our ancestors thanked their deities with offerings of food. This may have been buried, flung into the air, or tossed into a fire. The portion earmarked for the deities wasn't consumed by humans.

Even today, with tremendous botanical knowledge and global weather reporting, farmers in most parts of the world are still at the mercy of natural forces. The increased knowledge and tools available to farmers and agribusinesses can't stop such events from destroying their crops.

In many parts of the world that suffer food shortages, food has become a tool of politics. People
are
starving on every continent and within our own borders. Emergency supplies shipped to the hungry are often held up by government intervention, or are funneled to those in power.

These two factors—the uncertainty of our food supply and its scarcity in many parts of the world—should deepen our appreciation of food.

Our ancestors
**
worshipped food, seeing it as a gift from the hands of their deities. Food magicians don't worship food, though we respect it as a life-sustaining substance containing the energies of the earth. Food is a manifestation of divine energies that's vital to our survival. Approaching food from this frame of mind makes it easier for us to utilize it as a tool of self-transformation.

About prayer: if you don't subscribe to any particular religion, and haven't been in the habit of praying before meals, there's no reason for you to begin to do so. Prior to eating, simply attune with the food (all of the food, not just that which you're eating for magical purposes). You can easily do this by placing your hands on either side of your portion of the food before beginning to eat. Sense their energies for a few seconds. You need say nothing. This simple act, which you can do in front of those who know nothing about your magical studies, prepares your body to accept the food. You absorb its essence (power) before absorbing its manifestation.

If it is your custom to pray before meals, continue to do so. Religion and magic have always been closely linked—religion worships the energy that created all things; magic utilizes the energies in those things that have been created.

You can also include a prayer to your deity while eating, or address your conception of deity during the magical preparation and consumption of the food. Though this may seem to be a new idea, it isn't. It's performed around the world by millions of non-Christian, nonWestern peoples.

Eating (and the resultant digestion) is an act of transformation. Our bodies change food into the fuel necessary for our continued physical existence. Be aware also of the higher aspects of food every time that you eat.

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