Whether it’s making a bowl of miso soup or adding an extra dish, it only takes a little effort. Even so, if I find it a faff, I won’t do it. I’m the same. In fact, there are more days when I think, ‘I’ll give it a miss today’.

Even so, the days when I do end up in the kitchen aren’t because I know it’s the better thing to do. It’s simply because, for some reason, I feel like cooking.

I’ve been watching that urge to create for so long, yet I’ve never given it a name.

I don’t know anyone who started cooking simply because they were asked to ‘let’s have a go at cooking’.

Yet I have seen countless people take action. Not a single one of them was told to get motivated. There were no orders, no persuasion, and no rewards. In fact, I didn’t even say, ‘Let’s do our best.’ And yet, they took action.

I think what I’ve been observing throughout this book is, ultimately, the moment when that ‘I’d like to give it a go’ feeling rears its head.

On the other hand, I have also seen countless examples of correct forms of address.

Home-cooked food is important. Food builds the body. Let’s get in the kitchen with our children. All of this sounds perfectly reasonable. But that alone isn’t enough to inspire people to take action. Those who accept this truth will nod deeply in agreement and then go back to living exactly as they did before.

As someone who tries to get the message across, I’ve come up against this barrier time and time again. The more I say the right things, the less people seem to be moved. In fact, I’ve even had the feeling that cooking was being pushed further and further down the list of ‘things I have to do’.

As long as we’re driven by the thought ‘I have to do this’, we inevitably tend to do only the bare minimum. I believe this is not so much laziness as a perfectly natural human reaction.

So, what was there in the places where those people had been?

Everything we had seen up to that point was gathered there. In a place where the conditions were right, the fire simply caught of its own accord.

Watching ‘I’d like to give it a go’ reminds me of fermentation.

Fermentation was a technique that relied on time itself. There is another important characteristic of fermentation: it cannot be commanded.

It is pointless to tell the koji to ‘get to work’. All you can do is regulate the temperature and moisture levels, and then wait. If the conditions are right, it will start of its own accord, without being asked. If the conditions are not right, it will not start, no matter how much you wish for it to.

Having worked for many years in both the fields of cooking and fermentation, I have come to see them as one and the same.

A person’s desire to ‘give something a go’ cannot be instilled from the outside. Nor can it be created directly. All we can do is provide the space, a sense of security and a place where they’ll receive a response, and then wait for them to take the first step.

As I continued in my teaching career, what I ultimately discovered was not the art of teaching, but rather how to create a space where one can wait.

That’s why I’ve decided not to say ‘this will be useful’ in the classroom.

This may come as a surprise. After all, this book is about how one’s abilities were nurtured through cooking. But I know exactly what happens the moment I say that in class. Play turns into homework.

The hand that stirs the butter is a hand that wants to know what will happen when it stirs, not a hand meant to build strength. If you add a single remark along the lines of ‘This is actually quite useful, you know’, the child will sense it immediately. ‘Ah, so this was something for grown-ups after all,’ they’ll think.

‘Delicious, fun, I’d like to do it again.’ That’s as far as I’ll go in saying such things in the classroom. Whether it’s beneficial or not is something that may become apparent later, even if I say nothing. At the very least, that’s the kind of distance I’d like to maintain.

For the same reason, I’ve decided not to try to get them to like cooking either.

The power of simply letting someone do as they please is remarkably effective in getting across to the other person. If your desire for them to like you is too strong, it can actually make them put their guard up. Just as a dish you’ve left on the table because you felt you ‘had’ to make it won’t last, so too does affection vanish the moment you turn it into an obligation.

All I can do is not let them do as they please, but simply accompany them until we reach the point where they might come to like it.

Whether or not a spark is kindled from there on is up to the individual. Some people won’t find that spark. And that’s perfectly fine.

Sometimes it just looks as though it isn’t working.

It took several months before Y-chan started asking more questions. It was not until much later, after she had been attending the classes, that S-san obtained her qualification. Among those who seemed as though nothing had happened on that particular day in the classroom, something begins to emerge later on.

Just as with fermentation, the time we perceive here and the time passing there flow at different rates. Therefore, it is too soon to conclude that the process has failed simply because there was no reaction on that particular day.

This job involves periods of waiting, during which the outcome remains unclear, that are much longer than you might expect.

However, I don’t think that waiting is simply a matter of patience.

When helping their children learn to ride a bike, parents rarely give up halfway through. Even if the child falls, they help them back up and push them along again. It is not because they are particularly patient. It is because they know that their child will definitely learn to ride.

It is precisely because I understand that I can trust. And it is because I can trust that I am able to wait whilst offering my support. To put it another way, when I find myself unable to wait, it is usually because I do not believe it is possible.

The reason I came to be able to wait in the classroom was not because I had learnt patience. It was because, having observed people for decades, I had come to believe that people inherently possess the power to take the initiative. Once you believe that, waiting is not all that difficult.

Now that I’ve written this down, I feel I can finally sum up what my job was in a single phrase.

I haven’t been working as a cookery teacher. I believe my work has been about encouraging more people to feel like giving cooking another go.

Recipes can be forgotten. Cooking techniques also change with the times. But as long as the desire to give it a go remains, people will keep returning to the kitchen time and time again.

There is just one thing, however, that’s been on my mind.

Fermentation requires a barrel. Even if you get the temperature and timing just right, nothing will happen unless there is somewhere to hold the ingredients. The same goes for wanting to give something a go. When that desire first springs to life, will the kitchen—that space where you can reach out and touch it—the ingredients, such as eggs, and someone who’ll tell you it’s all right to make a mistake—still be there?

If there are no opportunities left, the flame that has finally been kindled will have nowhere to burn.

So, how can we ensure that this ‘I’d like to give it a go’ feeling can return to us in the future?

TERUMI ISHIBASHI

FARM8 Ltd.,

Next chapter: ‘The Future Potential Nurtured by Cooking’ – Chapter 15: Opportunities for the Future