“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” Hippocrates
It’s growing season in Minnesota. Farmer’s markets are bursting with vegetables that tease our tastebuds—radishes, scallions, arugula. Mint and dill transport lettuce into surprise spurts of flavor. The first snap peas pack a crunch when sautéed in a dash of olive oil. Rhubarb’s sweet-sour flavor opens doors to generational recipes.
Summer is for eating—eating well, eating healthy, eating together.
Whereas winter meals are constrained by dining space, summer’s sumptuous spreads have no walls to limit. The guest list is extensive. Here, in Minnesota, everyone adds to the largesse. What can I bring?
I often walk an old city park, the kind shaded with mature oak trees and hedges of overgrown lilacs, holding a few remaining tall swing sets that carry its passengers high into the sky. Weekends have people gathering at picnic shelters. Tables topped with red and white checked cloths hold bowls of potato, three bean, and pasta salads. Grills sizzle with burgers and brats. Strollers are parked next to walkers. A badminton net is set up nearby.
Our spiritual texts and traditions speak to the abundance of grace in terms of food. Manna rains from heaven, more than can be consumed in a single day. No need to store the extra, tomorrow’s will be showered upon us again. Two fish and five loaves of bread feed the multitude with baskets of leftover fragments. Eid al-Fitr ends the fasting month of Ramadan with a feast. A widow who uses the last of her flour and oil for a stranger is rewarded with an unending supply. Mahatma Gandhi said, “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
Gathering as family, as friends, as community over an overflowing table, we know we are held not only in an abundance of food, but also in an abundance of love.
I learn a lot about a community when I know what and how they eat. I visit local farmer’s markets as I travel to give me a taste of the community and a sense of its culinary specialties. Boston’s market includes fruits of the sea as well as of the land, all offered with an Italian accent. I ate some of the best strawberries ever on a September trip to Quebec City, fruit with a French flair. Smells of roasting coffee beans, juicy pineapples, and frying tortillas greeted me at a Guatemalan market, along with colorful hand-loomed weavings. An outdoor fish market in Bergen, Norway, included something that looked like a beautiful piece of beef—whale meat! Not something I would ever find in Minnesota!
I visited a friend in Manhattan in my early 20s. We were invited to her roommate’s Italian family’s Sunday dinner. I remember being crowded around a table with salad, olives, bread, and a huge, seemingly bottomless bowl of spaghetti. People kept dropping by, just in time to be fed. Everyone talked at once. One person, dressed a little too scantily for Grandma, was sent out for more clothes. Grandma held sway, delighted by the hungry attendees, eager to host and feed the multitude. Though I remember none of their names, I remember the welcome, warmth, and hospitality.
Not only do I enjoy summer’s eating, I also enjoy cooking its many offerings, especially after a visit to my local farmer’s market. Cooking gives me permission to make a mess, a creative mess, but nevertheless a mess. I unpack my bursting bag with its many splendorous finds. I wash and store lettuce and beets, beans and peas, new red potatoes and bright orange and yellow peppers. Later in the summer, tomatoes tumble from the bag as well. I let my creativity flow. What new recipes can I try? What familiar ones do I revisit or revise?
I have learned a lot through food—eating it, growing it, serving it. Take presence, for instance. When I am cooking, I need to be present. If I let my mind wander, I risk cutting myself on a sharp knife, missing the moment to turn down the burner before a boiling pot spills over, or burning the last tray of sugar cookies. Cooking takes my full attention.
Food prompts generosity. As I watch my garden grow, I want to share its abundance, whether a bag of freshly picked pea pods or after I have made it into something table-ready. I can assemble a whole dinner party around my urge to make a rhubarb pie.
There is nothing like cooking to give me a lesson in humility—overdressed soggy salad, undercooked Thanksgiving turkey, lopsided birthday cake. Public failures.
Cooking requires planning and organization. A stop mid-recipe to make a quick trip to the grocery store for a missing item disrupts my rhythm. I remember knocking on a new neighbor’s door to borrow a cup of flour. She gladly lent me the flour and celebrated that I could be a neighbor to borrow from. Food connects us.
When I moved into my 1917 house on a small city lot, I brought raspberry plants from my prior garden. The best place to plant them was next to my neighbor’s chain link fence. We made an agreement. I promised to care for the plants while the berries that grew on their side of the fence were theirs to eat. Soon that house changed hands. A single woman in her 20s moved in and I asked for the same arrangement. She, too, was willing to let me grow them on her fence though she would not be picking them. She didn’t eat fruit. I came to learn that her mother died when she was quite young and she hadn’t eaten fruit since. She didn’t know why, she just hadn’t. Her father and stepmother would stop by and help themselves to the fruit, but she didn’t. I got to know her through several over-the-fence chats. We talked about jobs, schooling, life. Eventually, during raspberry season, as we talked, she reached out and plucked a berry, popped it in her mouth and kept on talking. Food with friendship heals.
Food reflects who we are. Some of us are tidy and precise. Some are adventuresome and exploratory. Some are safe and some are wild. Food can give us a framework for our day and our week—breakfast/lunch/dinner, Taco Tuesdays, Sunday brunch. It can lead us to new friends and new adventures. It can comfort us when we’re hurting and soothe us when we’re ill.
Food is a sacred gift. Share it with someone you love.
Mary Lou Logsdon is a spiritual director in the Twin Cities. She can be reached at Logsdon.marylou@gmail.com.
Last Updated on July 2, 2025