For the tasting lab correlated with Chapter 4 of Racial Indigestion, Annie brought bread, and we made butter from heavy whipping cream.

Although initially during this reading, I was triggered by the reference to bread and bread making, during the tasting lab I found the act of creating butter through shaking heavy whipping cream in a jar to be very rewarding. I had never made butter before in any sort of way, and the experience was very rewarding.

The shaking of the jar and the repetitious labor attached to this process reminded me of the first time I ever kneaded bread dough, or rolled out fresh pasta. I am constantly intrigued by making food from scratch – it has always been more rewarding, feels more honest, and almost always tastes better.

Perhaps part of the reason it feels so good is because it is a practice of moving away from food as a abstract, manipulated commodity, and toward the an honest, basic form of love and nourishment.