a stranger to do it. From the washing of undies to the cleaning of one’s toilet, from the mending of a broken heart to insomnia or nightmares, from toenail clipping to hair removal, these days one need never turn to one’s family or friends for help in caring for one’s ailing body or soul. In general I find this enormously liberating. Who wants to assault one’s friends with yet another round of howling over a lover’s betrayal, or the details of that (let’s face it, unpleasant) intimate medical issue? Professional help, if affordable, is a fine thing, allowing the maintenance of one’s dignity and privacy in matters of the heart or hoof. And yet. I think of Ruby, and the freezer, and Jim, and my neighbour dissolving in tears over a baconand-egg quiche. And these incidents reinforce what I already know: food is not just food, and cooking is not just a practical act. A casserole on the doorstep can be nourishment not only to the body—which is essential—but also an act of love, a refreshment for the mind and the soul. When things are too terrible to talk about, an offering of home-cooked food is a silent, loving letter telling your broken-hearted friend or your ailing aunt that they are not alone, that someone cares, that they are loved. There is one more incident I’ve remembered. My friend Paul, an excellent cook, was devastated to learn of the serious illness of a family friend who himself had a young family. Paul came up with the obvious way to help: he would deliver a weekly meal to the family home without fuss, without intrusion. He rang the friend’s wife to make his offer, relieved he had finally found a practical way to help. Her response was unexpected. No thank you, she said icily. She was not a charity case, his social work was not required, and he should find someone else to patronise. Paul, of course, was mortified. Not only had he not found a way to help, he had made things much, much worse. This is a dreadful story, but it’s rare. To my mind the story only shows that the woman was in a state of such grief that she could not respond to kindness. Which brings me to realise that there is more than one gift happening when you offer a dish of food: the gracious acceptance of it is a gift in return. What my sisters did every time they took one of Ruby’s pineapple-and-Vegemite pizzas was let her know that her kindness was helping them, and it did. The food
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there is more than one gift happening when you offer food may have been inedible, but the love in it was one of the many acts of simple humanity that sustained those young women through six months of caring for a dying mother. Just as importantly, offerings like Ruby’s taught us how to do the same (with a few adjustments!) for others. In The Gift, Lewis Hyde’s much-loved book on creativity, Hyde says: ‘Whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again, not kept ... In fact, it is better if the gift is not returned but is given instead to some new, third party. The only essential is this: the gift must always move.’ If your gift is refused, there is nothing to be done but mark it down to experience. But I can guarantee that there are many more neighbours who will be grateful for the smallest plate of home-cooked food than there are those who might lash out at the offer. Amazingly, most human beings intuitively understand—even in the depths of their despair— that the gift must always move. So, to anyone who has ever heard of a friend in need and thought, ‘I wish there was something I could do to help,’ there is. It’s called chicken cacciatore or lamb tagine or couscous with pine nuts or soupe au pistou or beef Bourguignon or linguine al pesto. It’s also called, simply, love. n
