I love cooking shows. I'm largely self-taught, with the help of cookbooks, online recipes, good ole trial-and-error, and the
occasional question to key grown ups during childhood (like "Moo" and Grandma). Years ago, I found this gem of a program on PBS called Breaking Bread with Father Dominick.
occasional question to key grown ups during childhood (like "Moo" and Grandma). Years ago, I found this gem of a program on PBS called Breaking Bread with Father Dominick.
How cute is the logo? Father Dom (as he's called) also has cookbooks to go with his mini-empire. At the time, the show was a welcome reminder of my culture, a taste of back home. I was living out west, where Catholicism is not widely practiced. I encountered some derisive thinking and the odd question like, did we "believe in animal sacrifice"? Hmm. Ignorance in the late 20th century...with the amount of information we put out there?! Not cool, man. It was kinda shocking, and also deeply isolating. There's no better time to find out what you're made of, than when you meet prejudice. It wasn't the first time, and it certainly won't be the last.
So I relished this time to watch a person of my faith present himself simply as he is: a man of God, who also bakes bread. The Last Supper is a key depiction of the Act of Communion: to come together in worship and break bread, in the form of a wafer, which represents the Body of Christ. And no, it's not cannibalism. It's a concept called "Transubstantiation", which is defined thusly: (in Latin, transsubstantiatio, in Greek μετουσίωσις metousiosis) "means the change, in the Eucharist, of the substance of wheat bread and grape wine into the substance of the Body and the Blood of Jesus,[1] while all that is accessible to the senses (the appearances - species in Latin) remains as before."[2][3][4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation
The priest intones these words, during service, when we prepare to accept The Host: “This is my body…this is my blood”, which are represented by the wafer and the wine we eat and drink. We imbibe them as symbols of Jesus, words he spoke during that last meal with His Apostles. You can imagine eating and drinking feature quite importantly: "Give us this day our daily bread." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Prayer.
It speaks to who we are as Catholics, because who among us doesn't eat daily? As we do, the very act of a meal can also become an act of devotion, a reminder of those words spoken by a man who would revolutionize the world and shape it for thousands of years. But those concepts, looming large and powerful, can seem distant, cold, unattainable, overwhelming, unreachable, unreal, magical, beyond human scope and imagining. 
A cooking show brings these extremely intellectual concepts back down to earth, and into your kitchen. I love Father Doms' obvious warmth and joie de vive, as do many of his fans, Catholic or not. He's not "preachy", punching you in the head with complex ideas. He's punching dough, to teach you how to do this one thing well, and in the process, you just might connect it back to something bigger than yourself. It's real, it's human, it's fun, and it's life. This is who we are, so come see for yourself. Good luck in the kitchen today!
