Cooking with Grief

Everyone once in a while, a book on dealing with a life-threatening illness catches my attention because it deals with anticipatory grief. Recently it was Karen Babine’s All the Wild Hungers: A Season of Cooking and Cancer, published this year by Milkweed Editions.

This is a creative look into how a daughter copes with her mother’s diagnosis of a deadly form of cancer by cooking. The book is accessible to everyone who likes to eat, cook, or knows someone with cancer. 

In 64 crafted micro-essays, Babine talks about her mother’s cancer treatments and learning to cook with cast iron as she tries to make something that her mother can eat. There is little separation between her thoughts on cancer and thoughts on cooking. They flow with each other as parts of the same river.

The ingredients that make up the book are balanced. There is the cancer and cooking, of course, along with several recipes, but also Babine’s lyrical writing, a discussion of metaphors, humor, touching portrayals of her family, the historical view of the value of women to society, the color blue, ethical eating, the moral differences between agriculture and agribusiness, and insights into the culture of northern Minnesota. Having grown up in Wisconsin, I’m intrigued that the stoic, non-emotive culture of Scandinavian Americans sounds much like my German American one.

This is one of the best books about cancer/dying I’ve read. Unlike many of the books dealing with serious illnesses, this one is not stuffed with medical details, and the main focus is not on the person fighting off death, but on Babine’s struggles to care for her mother and keep herself together. It feels like she is sharing with us as friends.

Now and then, Babine pauses in her narrative to face the darkness looming before her and wonders how she will endure living in the space between her dread of what might happen and her hope. She says metaphors can cover some of this uncertainty when we don’t have any facts, but ultimately we have to let go of trying to make sense and accept the unpredictability of life. The depth of her reflections is refreshing.

When we’re under stress like this, we find it helpful to do something physical. Babine finds release, and regains a measure of control, by cooking. When I was grieving Evelyn’s death, I went hiking. She also gathers with her network of family and friends to nourish and encourage one another. 

To not do what we can do is to abdicate our responsibilities. We may not be able to change the outcome of what is happening, but we can listen to the stillness between our fears and our hope and take care of those who are on this journey with us. We can feed the hungry, comfort the suffering, and sit with those who are grieving. 

More grief books should be like this.

(FYI - I have an old cast iron aebleskiver pan that I want to find and cook with again. It hasn’t been used since Ev died.)