Voices in the Kitchen - Ch. 2 Sazon The Flavors of Culinary Epistemology

Chapter 2 delves into the idea of sazon. Sazon in this context refers to using the senses to cook. Sazon is a language and communication with food while preparing it. The women in the study learned to cook through their senses and feelings. This cooking is sans recipe, a gift that not everybody possesses. In class we compared this talent to that of having a green thumb. Everything about their style of cooking is sensory; tactile repetition, visual colors, etc. The lives of these women influence the way that they cook (ex: salting the food in the sign/form of the cross).

While these women developed their talents in a very organic manner, discourse, charla and memory serve them empowerment. While Abarca discusses the higher vs. lower senses debate, she does well to shed light on the idea that maybe because these women didn’t go to college and don’t think academically, doesn’t mean that these women aren’t scientists in their own right. Abarca points out that these women have the ability to transform sensation into knowledge. One doesn’t need an expensive education to learn. What is needed are the senses to create. The women are Feminists in their own right. They are applying chemistry into their everyday lives without realizing it. These are women that society may dismiss because they’re in the kitchen, but these women are scientists and healers too! Women have so much knowledge that is not measured in academia.

Things that can happen in the kitchen: cooking, comradery, nourishment, tradition, culture and bonding.