Ham

I spend more shifts as "kitchen person" now at the restaurant, so upon the occasion of slicing my first ham (and not losing any fingers to the whirring blade), I would now like to recount the famous Taoist tale of the butcher (from my Idiot's Guide to Taoism, Toropov/Hansen).


"Cook Ting was slicing up an oxen for Lord Wenhui. At every push of his hand, every angle of his shoulder, every step with his foot, every bend of his knee-- zip! zoop! --he slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were dancing to Mulberry Grove or keeping time, as in Qingshou music.

"Ah, this is marvelous," said Lord Wenhui. "Imagine skill reaching such heights!"
Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, "What I care about is a Tao that advances my skill. When first I began cutting up oxen, I could see nothing that was not ox. After three years, I never saw a whole ox. And now-- now I go at it by spirit and do not look with my eyes. Controlling knowledge has stopped, and my spirit wills the performance. I depend on the natural makeup, cut through the creases, guide through the fissures. I depend on things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less bone.

"A good cook changes his knife once a year because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month because he hacks. I have had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I've cut up thousands of oxen with it. Yet the blade is as good as if it had just come from the grindstone."