Cooking is so much more than putting decent food on the table- it is truly an art form that people overlook. Combing creativity with a basic necessity – it’s practical, delicious, and appreciated. Very few become truly familiar with and master cooking, using the kitchen as their workspace. It’s not just throwing some ingredients together.

France; is the birthplace of the best chefs in the world. I mean, why wouldn’t French cuisine inspire the best chefs in the world? They have the most aromatic and tasty spices, beautiful, lush greenery to grow the food, and beautiful environments to raise livestock. This wouldn’t be a cooking article without the mention of the genius chef Julia Child. She took the delicious and unique cuisine of France to America right from our homes.

Julia Child was one of the first women to broadcast a cooking channel, and she did so much more than succeed in it. She mastered it, and everyone in the 1960s tuned into her channel to watch her vivacious personality work magic with food in her French kitchen. She was born and raised in America, and discovered her love for food in France, in the city of love. Child certainly found love in France, this love creating a culinary legacy.

James Hemings was born into slavery in 1765, and as a nine-year-old boy, he and his family became one of many slaves under Thomas Jefferson’s possession. Hemings was a half-brother to Jefferson’s wife, and he and his family were the largest in Monticello (free or enslaved). James Hemings was alongside Jefferson throughout his entire life and was trained in French cooking after Jefferson had become minister for a French court. There, in France, he began his career as the first colored chef.

Part of what made Heming’s cooking as incredible as it was was the fact that he combined French, Virginian, and African cooking styles into his food. It’s a miracle that we know of James Hemings today, as he went unrecognized and unacknowledged for centuries. It was only when people started exploring historic cooking that they stumbled upon Heming’s legacy that he left behind when he committed suicide in 1801. He was the one to create mac and cheese, ice cream, french fries, and much more that we frequently enjoy in America today.

The deep-rooted origins of cooking have led to our enjoyment of such delectable foods today. It’s not just about the food, it’s the blood, sweat, and tears that go into the process. There are hours, days, months, and even years of prep for one dish alone. It’s an intense amount of skill and knowledge of food and how they react and dance together, knowing what spices pair best with a dish, and experimenting with two foods that normally would never go together. It’s trial and error, and mistakes are encouraged in this field.

Cooking and baking are used to express feelings too. It can be relaxing for some and laborious for others. But it’s still an art form, and the results are always extremely rewarding. There’s an unspoken relief in food artistry when you’ve slaved on a dish and you or others get to enjoy it. To make something that nearly everybody can and loves to enjoy is so simple yet so beautiful. A tasty food can bring a smile to someone’s face in seconds as their tastebuds divulge into something utterly satiating.