Highlights
Every now and then, I have a version of the same conversation with a different person. It begins with an acquaintance expressing a wish that she could host people more often or take meals to new moms. A confession follows that she does not feel confident cooking for others—especially if a large crowd is involved—and that she barely feels confident enough cooking for her own family.
I get it. No one likes eating subpar meals. And yet, I wonder if the proliferation of restaurants of all kinds of ethnic cuisines, even in small towns, is adding subconscious pressure to modern-day cooks, in turn, deterring many of us from regularly extending hospitality to others. After all, the meals we make at home probably do not live up to restaurant quality. Even less helpful are the social media cooking gurus, who perform multi-step recipe creations with incredible speed—and with the kind of graceful ease that few of us could replicate for ourselves. It definitely takes me longer than 20 seconds to chop an onion.
But perhaps the path to comfortable and joyful hospitality begins with recognizing that gathering with friends does not require five-star, restaurant-quality meals. Yes, we want to enjoy food together, but the meal is not the star of the show—it is a means of fostering something beautiful, rather than the end point itself. Here is an example. Recently, my daughter was invited to a friend’s birthday party. Actually, it was a large family gathering of three generations, and we were the happy (and welcomed) extras. The host prepared a delightful meatloaf, and there were vegetable sides in massive crockpots. All 30 or so people who were there ate until full. But while the food was excellent, the main point of the gathering was a birthday celebration for a little girl in the form of a relaxed afternoon of visiting with family and friends. It was clear that this large extended family took great joy in simply being together.
The meal is not the star of the show—it is a means of fostering something beautiful.
In the case of this party—and the party host—the lessons of hospitality were inextricably connected to being part of a large family that gathers regularly. As a result of practice, the family had a well-choreographed routine both for knowing just how much food to make and for feeding everyone in an orderly fashion: get the kids through the line first, then let the adults serve themselves. But the lesson here for the rest of us is that cooking for a crowd doesn’t have to be scary.
In my case, I inadvertently got to practice these lessons one summer eight years ago, when I was invited to cook for a summer youth camp at the church we attended at the time. For a week, the church would rent several cabins at a beautiful camp in the north Georgia mountains, far from civilization. Driving in and out of the camp required crossing a running creek—mildly alarming in a small car that was low to the ground. The camp amenities were minimal and did not include meals—but a large kitchen was available, so a parent was brought in to be the cook. And so, that one summer, that was my job. This meant I was in charge of providing three meals a day to approximately 20 people. Because a good number of these were teenage boys (including my own), this was more like feeding 30 people. Practically every morning after breakfast, I would drive to the store, where I would buy the produce section out of bananas (which the teens ate by the dozen for snacks). I would also restock whatever else was needed for lunch and dinner.
This was my first experience cooking for such a large crowd, but to my surprise, it really wasn’t any harder than cooking for a smaller crowd. Scrambling eggs for 20 is the same as scrambling eggs for four—you just need a lot more eggs and a bigger pan. But there were two key requirements for making this process work. First, I had to come up with a menu in advance for all the meals for the week—so I could plan exact amounts of the ingredients needed. And second, the items on the menu had to be simple and easily scalable. The mom who had cooked for the camp for a few preceding summers helped with both tasks.
The most popular breakfast of the week was oatmeal. It involved simply cooking an entire canister of oats in an industrial-sized pot, then setting it out with a variety of toppings so everyone could customize their bowl. And the teens loved it. Take that, professional chefs! Lunches mostly involved letting the kids make their own sandwiches, while dinners were the kinds of easy meals that I regularly cook for my family and friends. One night, I made an industrial-sized pan of macaroni and cheese, served with a side salad. Another night was crockpot salsa chicken, served over rice or available to make into burritos with wraps. Yet another night’s meal featured a crockpot pasta sauce that simmered all day, so in the evening, all I had to do was boil pasta, assemble a side salad, and warm up garlic bread.
Our lives are more joyful with other people in them—and the purpose of hospitality is to foster this joy.
And so, for those who do not feel confident cooking for others, my recommendation is to master just one or two recipes that can feed a crowd. It does not need to be complicated or fancy—it should simply be welcoming. At the absolute simplest, even a make-your-own-sandwich station will work, or a basic chili or soup in the crockpot, which everyone can ladle for themselves.
This hospitality will enrich your family’s life in ways you may not even imagine possible until you experience it. As Luma Simms wrote for IFS,
If your idea of hospitality is restricted to a formal or semi-formal dinner party with no children within earshot, allow me to disabuse you of that thought. By hospitality, I mean a particular expression of love, an openness to other people, and a generosity of spirit. At the heart of hospitality is an orientation toward the other.
I agree—which is why hospitality was one of the New Year’s Resolutions I recommended for families this year (and, really, every year)—and my family enjoys fulfilling it. My kids learn from regularly practicing hospitality that our family is not an island unto itself, and that our lives are more joyful with other people in them.
Sharing meals together is a joy—not because of the food itself, but because of the people with whom we share these meals. And that is what hospitality is really about—being together in person in the age of AI and increased social isolation. Machines do not need to eat, but we do. Machines cannot experience joy, but we do. Most important, machines cannot appreciate hospitality—the delight of simply spending time with other people. But we do. Our lives are more joyful with other people in them—and the purpose of hospitality is to foster this joy.
Nadya Williams is a homeschooling mother, Books Editor for Mere Orthodoxy, and the author of Cultural Christians in the Early Church, and Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic.
*Photo credit: Shutterstock
