A Bowl with Peaches and Plums, Giovanna Garzoni

COOKING is a form of argument. “Look,” the cook says, “at the splendor of the earth.”

We eat things of surpassing beauty. This fact is strange and wonderful. It is almost too strange to comprehend.

A Darwinist would say we evolved to find things beautiful that are good for us to eat. That is, at best, a partial explanation. A painting of a bowl of peaches, such as this one by the 17th century botanical artist Giovanna Garzoni, doesn’t make me hungry. It recalls this bond with the earth. We commune with the rain and sun. We taste the dew. We consume the sublime and make it part of ourselves.

The homage we pay to the peach is unnecessary to survival.

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