Since I was young, my family had to cook a lot because I had many siblings. My favorite food was my father’s pizza. My father is very generous. When making pizzas, he generously puts the ingredients a lot. Meanwhile, he always asked me, “do you know which pizza is the most delicious in the world? It is not luxurious pizzas from Italian restaurants but generously-made pizzas with lots of toppings.”He was actually right. The pizza my father made had a lot of cheese and crusts were thick. Most of all, toppings were overly sprinkled on pizzas. They were always full of vegetables, meat and Italian sausages that anyone would be full only with a piece.
But everyone definitely gets addicted to this pizza once they try it. It just looks like an ordinary pizza but it is 10 times more delicious than pizzas from Italian luxurious restaurants. It not because of that my dad made it, but also my friends who ate my father’s pizza begged me to invite them again for it. The pizza looks super ordinary…and it does not have any special ingredients. But what on earth makes this pizza delicious?
One day, my father told me, “I can only make this pizza. I gave your sister a recipe and she made it accordingly. She couldn’t make it as delicious. Although I told her my secrets, she couldn’t make it as delicious.” Then I realized something: Oh! The food is made with the mind! There is a saying that taste varies depending on the mind of a person cooking food. I thought: because my father is the most generous person in the world and always hopes for other’s betterment, his mind must have been delivered to those eating my father’s food.
From interviews about famous restaurants on newspaper, chefs commonly have the basic mindset, which is to hope that customers eat their food and feel happy. Do you remember an animation called Ratatouille? Do you remember that Ratatouille that a tiny mouse cooked inspired the most fussy food critic in the world? It gives us a lesson that the food taste also depends on ingredients and cooking skills but the most important factor is one’s mindset. Suppose that you are a cook at a restaurant and you always complain that you are tired and exhausted. Then, could the food made from that mind give customers happiness? The exhaustion and tiredness would be delivered to people via food.
Sure enough, although I still like pizzas, I haven’t had pizzas more delicious than the one my father made for me. What this means is that it is the most delicious pizza if it is cooked with the generous mind, like my father, that wants to make us the most happiest.
I still miss that pizza.
