Kitchen witch series#

Spiritual nourishment is, after all, nothing without taste.

“I learned to make a bomb Japanese curry during quarantine that just warms my soul.” Until the pandemic, she hadn’t deeply explored the nonclinical side of her practice, but the results have been as spiritually fulfilling as they are delicious. “It’s been a really beautiful, healing experience, taking the time to dig in and develop my ancestral recipes,” Wilkins says. Each class focuses on the relationship between Asian foods and folk traditions by discussing how spiritual and philosophical Chinese medicine concepts appear in common dishes (such as the circulating life force known as qi in dashi and root vegetable broth).

Kitchen witch series#

In January, Chang collaborated with Erin Wilkins, founder of Bay Area–based herbal medicine shop and clinic Herb Folk, for a series of popular online workshops. Turning to one’s own cultural history through cooking, he says, serves as a source of vital connection with the divine. “Speaking as a person of color, our foods are who we are, who our parents are, who our ancestors are,” Chang says. Ongoing racial reckonings have also catalyzed a boom in food spirituality. After months of grocery shortages and restaurant closings, spiritual cooking has offered people an empowering framework through which to approach uncertainty, both within and beyond the kitchen. But never in recent history have global events so sharply altered so many people's relationship to food. Of course, no credible practitioners are hawking coronavirus-curing food spells or herbal remedies for geopolitical crises. Medieval forms of magical “cures” offered a false hope during the Black Plague some turned to witchcraft as a form of political resistance post-2016 election. “People want to be more present in their lives.”ĭuring periods of political instability and institutional mistrust, spiritual practices have long been a source of comfort and motivation. “It’s no coincidence that everyone in the world right now is going through this kind of soul-searching, whether that’s by baking sourdough or just going back to the basics and rediscovering our purpose,” Chang says. “One just happens to be more aesthetically mystical than the other.” Chang has been experimenting with spirituality in his cooking for several years now, but he isn’t surprised to see the uptick in interest throughout the pandemic. “Spell casting with food and simply being mindful about your intentions, those are the same things,” says Adrian Chang of food journal My Kitsune Café.

Got an excess of shallots you panic-ordered online? Domestic pagan Madge_LaRue believes these pocket-size alliums hold powerful healing qualities and suggests to her 124,000 followers to fry and store them for later use in salads, sandwiches, and casseroles. The culinary rituals of kitchen witchery are wide-ranging, from multi-ingredient recipe spells to practical applications addressing specific pandemic woes. Though magical cooking has been around since prerecorded history, the pandemic has inspired a renaissance of these age-old traditions, reaching eager home cooks. Markham, who has amassed more than 87,000 TikTok followers since December, belongs to a new wave of social media kitchen witches: spiritually-minded cooks who combine mysticism and wellness with recipe content. As Markham reminds you with a wink, this cocktail is not meant to be savored: “The faster you drink, the faster you feel better.”

To make Lizzie Markham’s “ Black Raspberry Daiquiri for When Emotions Are Running High,” you’ll need white rum for strength and connection, simple syrup for sweetness, Chambord for pleasure and joy, lime juice for a mood boost, and a sprinkle of edible glitter “just because it’s beautiful.” Shake off the bad vibes in a shaker tin, then strain the shimmering contents into a glass.