On Hospitality

Last week I read a novel for my book club.  It was a good book all the way through, but one very insignificant line in the book took me off-guard.  It was just a simple comment, but one that has stuck with me and that I've thought about over and over again since then. 

The author was contrasting a large group dinner in India with one here in the States.  She compared our Thanksgiving dinner with a family dinner in India.  When those in India get together with family, often on a weekly basis, it usually consists of huge groups of people, cousins and neighbors and in-laws numbering well into the twenties and above.  The women all get up early, gathering to cook together, laughing and talking and discussing everything while making dish after dish after dish. 

Here, when it's Thanksgiving, we all stress out about everything that needs to be done.  We get up alone at the crack of dawn, making lists and freaking out about what we're forgetting or how moist the turkey will be.  Everything has to be perfect or it will ruin the entire holiday.  Sure, we have fun eating together and watching football and playing games after the dinner, but the preparation is nothing if it's not stressful. 

What's the difference?  Why does the preparation in India tend to be full of joy and community, while for the most part Americans cook seperately in their own homes and then bring their "I hope it's good enough" dish to a dinner cooked by a sweaty, stressed-out host who is anxious for the whole thing to just be over with?

I know I'm generalizing.  I know it doesn't always happen this way.  There are many families in America who love cooking Thanksgiving dinner and who do it joyfully with friends and family.  I'm sure there are also Indian families who stress out about what they're cooking.  But something about what the author wrote rang true for me.  I want that joyful community dinner experience.  I want to gather in a kitchen with friends and cook whatever it is we're cooking while laughing and chatting.  I want there to be less stress and more fun in entertaining.  I want to invite people over even if I haven't mopped my kitchen floor in weeks, knowing that they will care more about the conversation than the cleanliness of my chaotic home.  I want to bake cookies for a friend's visit and laugh together with her about how I burned the bottoms.  Too often, I stress about the "stuff" and don't take enough joy in the "who".  I want it to be about the people, not about the food. 

I'm pretty sure that's what hospitality really is.