Padma Lakshmi: As a Cook, Here’s What I See in Kamala Harris
Sept. 21, 2024
パドマ・ラクシュミの、「料理人として、私はカマラ・ハリスに見えたもの」ということ
I see what everyone else sees on Kamala Harris’s résumé（履歴書）: a history of public service （公職）that qualifies （資質がある）her for the presidency. But I would argue that the qualities she shows as a cook might say even more about her success as a leader.
What qualities make for a good cook? Which make for a good president? In a lot of cases, they overlap. Cooking well requires organization（計画性）, attention to detail, patience — and the impulse（衝動）to bring people together. In a divided country, these qualities can help Ms. Harris be a good, even a great, president.
Talking about food is a way to relate to more Americans, even those uninterested in her politics. We’ve all been eating since we were babies, and we’re experts on our own tastes. Talking about food paves the way to harder conversations. Food removes barriers and unites us.
Ms. Harris evinces （明らかにする）clear delight in cooking and in talking about almost any type of food — a passion that is core（核となるもの） to who she is（彼女の本質）, like basketball for Barack Obama or golf for Donald Trump.
She is omnivorous （雑食性の）and a versatile（多才な）cook. We got a glimpse （垣間見る） of who Ms. Harris is in the kitchen in the YouTube series “Cooking With Kamala,” filmed during the 2020 campaign. In the videos and elsewhere, she talks about turkey stock （出汁）and tacos, Moroccan tagines and gumbo, frying bacon with apples (she says that “bacon is a spice, as far as I’m concerned”).
彼女は何でも食べるし、様々な料理を作ります。2020年のキャンペーン中に撮影されたユーチューブシリーズ「カマラとクッキング(Cooking With Kamala)」では、キッチンでハリスさんがどんな人物なのかを垣間見ることができます。動画やそのほかの場所で、彼女は七面鳥のストック(だし）やタコス、モロッコ風タジン鍋やガンボ、リンゴと一緒にベーコンを炒めること(彼女は「私にとってベーコンはスパイスです」と言っています)について語っています。
As a host and a judge on “Top Chef,” I could see contestants’ characteristics and potential by watching them in the kitchen. One chef, for instance, always splattered （まき散らした）food and left jars knocked over — he was frazzled （ボロボロだった）and out of his depth, （手の付けようがない）displaying a lack of leadership potential.
If people are handling food carefully enough to elevate（高める）it, I know they’re thoughtful. If they panic under pressure when the clock is ticking, I know what they’re like in a crisis.
On my show “Taste the Nation,” I saw that many cooks are nurturers（子育てをする人）, using food to give care, comfort and create community. On a small island off South Carolina, I met a chef named Bill Green, whose restaurant, Gullah Grub, functions as a community center. He dispenses （販売する）food and teaches children to cook using the produce he and his partner grow on their farm by themarsh（沼地）.
Indeed, we cooks rarely cook just for ourselves. When I recently spoke with the great chef and educator Jacques Pépin, he told me that “you have to give of yourself （見返りを期待せず専念する）to be a good cook.”
私の番組「この国を味わおう(Taste the Nation)」（というアメリカ中をまわる番組）の中で、私は多くの料理人は子育てをしているのだと思いました。食べ物を使って思いやりや安らぎを与え、コミュニティを築いているのです。サウスカロライナ州の小さな島で、ビル・グリーンさんというシェフに出会ったのですが、彼のレストラン「ガラ・グラブ」はコミュニティセンターの役割も果たしています。ビルは、彼とパートナーが沼地に隣接する農場で育てた食材を使って料理を提供し、子供たちに料理を教えているのです。
ムラゴン ホーム
