When the novelist Marian Keyes recently revealed that baking cakes had helped in her battle with depression, I’m sure that many supposed that the succour came from eating the product; enjoying a sweet treat. But to assume that the happiness is in the eating is to overlook the positive role that the process of cooking can play in our lives.
I will declare my interest here. I am a passionate cook. I have early memories of cooking with my mother and of understanding that dinner with friends was an important and enjoyable part of grown-up life. When I suffered a spinal-cord injury in 2005, I was thrown into a situation where I depended on other people for everything. After the initial shock, I spent several months in rehabilitation, gradually reclaiming my independence. Every time I discovered that something from my “old life” was still possible, I felt a surge of excitement, none more so than when I got back to the kitchen.
Cooking doesn’t just connect me with my family’s history, it connects me to my own history. I also get a “provider’s lift” by making dinner for the family every night, instead of wrestling elk or whatever it is for which I evolved. These days, I enjoy anything that makes me feel whole and useful.
If this gives my children an early memory of the warmth and pleasure of cooking, so much the better.
Some people find that the positive impact of cooking as a therapeutic activity can have a profound effect on their emotional wellbeing. Bread for Life is a fortnightly session run by Freedom from Torture, formerly the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. Saba Stefanos and Shamsi Mahdavi started the group in 2006. Why did they choose bread making?
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“When our clients come to therapy they are stuck in the trauma part of their life,” Mahdavi says. “We were looking for a vehicle to move them, a way of accessing a good memory. The idea was to find something to link the past and present and also the future. Bread is a staple food in so many cultures and a way of bringing people together.
“We currently have six in the group, but the numbers vary. Many are refugees who feel really rejected. They are traumatised by their experience, and then they come here and have practical and immigration problems. They feel rejected by the host population and they have lost life skills they had before. Having this space to find their own way of creating things can give them a real boost to their self-esteem. This can then feed into the rest of their lives.
“Because making bread links to a lot of memories, they share their thoughts. It has become a storytelling group; sharing experiences. Many of the participants are very timid to begin with. Some have never baked bread before, but over time you can see their knowledge and confidence grow until they become experts and they help the newcomers.”
I meet some of the bread makers at Freedom from Torture’s North London headquarters. On arrival they grab bowls and start mixing ingredients. A strong sense of purpose fills the room, as if this physical activity releases any concerns people may have arrived with.
Ahmed came to the UK from Algeria in 1999 after he was tortured for being a political activist. As we talk, he kneads a semolina dough dotted with nigella seeds. Ahmed tells me that he found his first bread-group sessions very difficult.
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“I was very shy, but gradually I got used to the people,” he says. “Now we are like family. When I was a kid, my mum always used to make this bread at home. In cold weather especially, we all used to get around the cooker. This is a strong childhood memory.”
Afareen, an Iranian, started with her own traditional bread recipes but has since diversified and sells her bread locally. “The most important thing is to make our minds busy,” she says. “Especially when making bread, the kneading can be so relaxing. We get rid of tension.”
It isn’t long before Afareen is talking to the group about her son, who has been in prison without charge in Iran for 12 years. Khalil is from Syria. He came to the UK with his wife in 2006, having been detained for six months because one of his relatives had become romantically involved with a member of an elite family. When he joined the bread-making group in 2007, Khalil’s cultural background made him reluctant to make bread.
“I didn’t want to touch the ingredients, but I have more experience now. What I get from the group is something that you can’t find anywhere else. The talking and learning.” When he finally made his own bread, he was very proud of the results. Although Khalil left the bread group in 2009, the start of the Syrian uprising increased his anxiety about those members of his family who were still in Syria. He expressed his wish to rejoin the bread group, because he wanted to talk about his feelings.
While the bread group is using cooking to access positive memories and associations, the cooking programme at the Sybil Elgar School is creating them. Run by the National Autistic Society, the school caters to 40 students, from 11 to 16 years old, who all take part in some kind of cooking activity. I arrive at the school to find a pizza-making session in full flow. It involves three students, each with very different issues.
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Paul is able to read and follow instructions with a little support and clearly enjoys the responsibility he is given, George follows picture information, while for Karan the session is more about the tactile stimulation of holding and shaping the dough.
By the end of the class all three boys are beaming with pride; it is clear that they have enjoyed themselves. Afterwards, the school occupational therapist Eavan McCrudden outlines the positive effects of cooking as a therapeutic activity for their students.
“Cooking can offer improvements in upper-limb motor-skills function, in sensory processing and in cognitive skills. It also helps our young people to develop skills such as organisation, planning, sequencing, judgment and reasoning.
“Generally, young people with autism-spectrum disorders won’t engage in new or unfamiliar activities. They will do only what they have control over and what they can predict. But we have found that they absolutely love the food-technology lessons. It gives them such a sense of achievement, because while it may seem simple to us, it’s quite a complex activity to them.”
The children with autism are benefiting in a very different way to the bread makers, but it is clear that cooking can have a positive impact for both groups of people. Dr Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation explains why the experience of mixing ingredients can be so therapeutic: “There’s a good number of reasons why cooking can be good for you. For a start, it’s decentring. In other words, you focus on the cooking and away from your own negative thinking and stress.
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“Cooking can raise your self-esteem and sense of self worth. Importantly, if you’re cooking for other people, this is an offering that you are bringing, and we know that caring for others is one of the key planks of mental health. If it’s a social or family activity, contact with others is good for your mental health. If your cooking gets really creative, that’s a plus because, as with arts and crafts, creativity is known to be good for mental health.”
With so many possible benefits, why hasn’t there been more research into cooking as a therapeutic activity?
Dr McCulloch can see no specific reason. “Perhaps it’s because, while cooking is a hobby for some people, it’s something we all do,” he says. “Often the focus is on the food or on the social skills rather than the process of cooking. Most people working in public mental health will say that cooking is good for you, but there isn’t a scientific evidence base.”
Some people may see cooking as a chore and associate it with drudgery, but with a bit of thought, it’s possible to turn time in the kitchen into an opportunity to enjoy a simple pleasure that could have a positive impact on the rest of our stress-filled lives.
Some names have been changed.
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For more information go to freedomfromtorture.org; autism.org.uk; and mentalhealth.org.uk