Once, ingredients did not arrive with stories written for them.
They were known by touch, by aroma, by how they behaved in water or heat. A grain did not need justification. An oil did not announce itself. What mattered was recognition — not reassurance.
Ingredients were introduced early in life, not through instruction but through repetition. Watching, helping, tasting. Over time, familiarity replaced the need for explanation.
In those kitchens, food spoke a language that did not rely on labels. One learned which grain softened with soaking, which oil held heat patiently, which spice demanded restraint. Knowledge lived in use, not in packaging.
As food systems expanded, ingredients began to travel farther. With distance came detachment. What we could no longer recognise, we needed described. What we could no longer trust by instinct, we asked to be certified.
Labels became substitutes for relationships. They listed what an ingredient claimed to be, rather than what it did once cooked, eaten, and lived with.
Something quiet was lost in this transition. Not quality alone, but intimacy. When ingredients became products, kitchens became places of decision-making rather than knowing.
Returning to ingredients does not mean rejecting progress. It means rebuilding familiarity — choosing fewer things, using them longer, learning how they respond instead of what they promise.
When ingredients had names, food felt less confusing.
Perhaps the goal is not to remove labels, but to need them less.