Generation, presence, and learning in the kitchen

Abstract

In this article, I discuss processes of culinary learning from a generational and relational perspective, drawing on ethnographic research conducted in collective and domestic kitchens with Black residents of São Paulo. I aim to understand how culinary knowledge is learned, developed, and extended through relationships between apprentices and skilled practitioners, both within and beyond the home. Engaging with the notions of generation and presence, I question the emphasis in the culinary skills literature on the individual and propose two conceptual shifts: first, expanding the notion of culinary skill from an individual technical competence to a relational practice; second, rethinking generation not as a fixed age-based block but as an ongoing process. I argue that learning to cook also involves developing the ability to remain in attentive presence—with foods, with the temporalities of culinary processes, with what unfolds in the kitchen, and with other people. Finally, I suggest that culinary knowledge is not transmitted between generational blocks but is continuously extended among apprentices and skilled practitioners who meet in the shared practice of cooking.