Sam Wise

Kitchen witchery evolved from the ancient concept of the hearth as the sacred center of the home. In the ancient world the hearth, the place where food was prepared and warmth was created, had great importance and was treated with reverence. Humans have always inherently understood that the kitchen is a special place where magic happens.

For modern witches, the kitchen is a great place for everyday magic. Here are a few ways you can infuse some magic into your food.

Magical Cooking Techniques

Begin by taking a moment to clear your mind and focus your energy. Just like any other magical activity, kitchen magic is best performed in a focused, spiritual headspace. This doesn’t have to be anything elaborate (although, if you want to cook with incense and candles burning, more power to you). It can be as simple as taking a moment to close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and focus on your intention.

Set the mood. One of the simplest ways to put magic into your food is to infuse a dish with a certain energy or emotion. Let’s say you want to make a dish infused with the energy of happiness, so that everyone who eats it gets a little bit of those good vibes. The easiest way to do this is by making sure you’re happy when you cook it! Put on music that makes you feel happy, dance around your kitchen, and pour all of that happy energy into the food as you prepare it.

Enchant your ingredients. You may choose to layer ingredients with different magical purposes in order to create a stronger spell. For example, if you’re making a meal infused with protection magic, you might include some ingredients for physical protection, some for strength, and some for mental clarity. You can accomplish this by enchanting each ingredient individually as you add it to the food. Your enchantment can be as simple as thanking the spirit of the item, and asking to help you accomplish [insert intention here] in your spell.

Use numerology. Numerology is the idea that numbers have an inherent spiritual nature. There are many different systems of numerology, so it’s important to use what makes the most sense to you — this includes bringing in your own associations for numbers! You can use numerology in your cooking by adding a certain number of an ingredient based on that number’s magical value. For example, I might add nine shakes of salt to symbolize completion and the granting of wishes, or add three bay leaves to symbolize creativity and collaboration. Just make sure you’re not adding so much of an ingredient that it overpowers the other flavors in the dish!

Stir ingredients clockwise to bring blessings or counterclockwise to send away unwanted energy. This comes from an old Irish tradition that states that moving “sunwise” (clockwise) brings blessings while moving against the sun (counterclockwise) brings curses or banishes something. When you’re mixing your food, stir it clockwise to bring in desired energies, like love, joy, or peace. Stir it counterclockwise to cast out undesired energies, like sickness or stress.

Draw or carve sacred symbols on your food. I talked about runes and sigils at length in my last post so I won’t repeat myself here, but you can also use magical symbols in kitchen magic! You can carve runes or sigils into vegetables and charge them before slicing them up, use your spoon to trace them in the surface of a soup as you stir it, or draw the symbols in the air over your food before you serve it. If you’re drawing a symbol with a name, you should speak the name out loud or in your mind as you draw it. If you’re drawing a sigil, speak the intention behind that sigil out loud or in your mind. These symbols are like batteries for magical power, so they’re a great way to add a boost to your kitchen magic.

Use blessed water. If you make moon water during the full moon, try adding a few drops of it to the next thing you cook and see how much more energized you feel after eating it! Making moon water is an easy way to get blessed water, since all it requires is leaving a jug of water out under the full moon, but there are other kinds of blessed water you can use as well. Some Catholics sprinkle holy water (water that has been blessed by a priest) into their food or drink. You can create your own “holy water” by speaking a blessing over a jug of water — it can be a general blessing for peace and good fortune, or can be more specific based on your intent. You can also use water that has been infused with edible plants based on their magical associations, but this will of course change the flavor of your food.

Speak an incantation. The spoken word is a powerful source of magic. Write an incantation or statement of intention based on what you want to accomplish with this magical food. Speak this incantation aloud at some point during the cooking process — I like to say it when I’m mixing all the ingredients together. This can be as simple as, “May [insert food here] bring me [insert benefit here],” or can be long and elaborate. If there are words from another source, like a poem or song lyrics, that feel like they fit your intention, you should absolutely feel free to use them as your incantation.

Pray over your food. Saying grace before a meal is another way of blessing it. You don’t have to pray to a certain deity or higher power. Instead, you could simply thank the spirits of the plants and animals that died so that you could be fed, or you could thank the planet for providing this nourishment to you. Of course, if you do want to pray to a higher power and thank them for the food, that’s also a great way to bless your meal!

Magical Correspondences for Some Staple Foods

Another way to do kitchen magic is to work with the correspondences of your ingredients. Here’s a quick correspondence guide for some staple ingredients you probably already have in your pantry.

• Grains and breads correspond to abundance, health, and security. Historically, these foods were associated with the autumn harvest, and they are still sacred to harvest deities. Bread is a common offering to house spirits and to gods of hearth and home.
• Milk, cheese, and dairy correspond to the nurturing aspect of motherhood, love, sustenance, and abundance. Cows are sacred in some cultures, such as in Ancient Ireland, where offering someone milk was a form of blessing.
• Eggs correspond to fertility, hidden mysteries, and the feminine principle. In several different folk magic traditions, such as those of Appalachian America and of Italy, eggs are used to detect or remove curses.
• Salt corresponds to protection and purity, and can be used for grounding. Salt is useful for banishing unwanted energies, as well as for putting up protective barriers. Blessed salt has many uses in magical rituals and in a magical kitchen.
• Rice corresponds to money, good luck, and fertility. You might be familiar with the tradition of throwing rice at weddings — this is a good example of rice’s magic associations. Rice also absorbs negativity and, like salt, it can be used for protection.
• Onions corresponds to healing, prosperity, and protection. Onions are said to prevent and dispel illness, and are sometimes associated with love and lust.
• Garlic has similar associations to onion, but is also strongly connected with protection, banishing, and curse-breaking. I add garlic to all of my protection and uncrossing spells, and it can also be handy for banishing unwanted spirits.
• Sugar corresponds to love, affection, and attraction. Sugar is used in American folk magic to “sweeten” situations, making them more favorable. It can also be used to attract positive energy or positive outcomes.
• Honey corresponds to health, happiness, love, wisdom, and stability. Like sugar, honey can be used to sweeten a situation or to attract positive energy. Some witches believe that honey works slower than sugar, but brings longer lasting results.
• Vanilla corresponds to love, romance, and sensuality. It’s also a very comforting scent, and I’ve even seen one author claim that the smell repels negative spirits (although I’ve never used it for this purpose). Vanilla is perfect any time you want to conjure love, whether it’s self-love or love between people.

Hopefully, this list gives you some ideas for magical recipes. For example, if you want to conjure luck and abundance, you could make a risotto (a rice dish) with lots of Parmesan cheese, butter, garlic, and basil (not listed in this post, but strongly associated with wealth). If you want to create a stronger sense of self-love, you could make vanilla cookies with sugar and honey. If you need to kick a common cold, a soup with lots of onions and garlic will probably do the trick. You get the idea.

Make sure that the magical food you prepare is actually something you’ll want to eat! Just because an ingredient works with your intention doesn’t mean you should always include it. If you hate vanilla, you shouldn’t add it to your love brownies. Leave things out or make substitutions to ensure that you enjoy eating the finished product.

On a related note, you can substitute vegan products for milk, cheese, eggs, etc. but the magical correspondences won’t be exactly the same. Almond milk, for example, has the magical associations of almonds (prosperity and wisdom). This is similar, but not quite the same, as the correspondences for cow’s milk. Likewise, soy milk, coconut milk, and oat milk all have their own correspondences that will affect the energy of your spell. If you plan to keep your magical kitchen vegan, it’s a good idea to look up the magical uses of the plants your food is made from and use those as a guideline, rather than just substituting coconut milk for cow’s milk and expecting the exact same result.

Resources: 

• Wicca: Kitchen Witchery by Lisa Chamberlain
• A Green Witch’s Cupboard by Deborah J. Martin
• Where the Hawthorn Grows, Brigid: Meeting the Celtic Goddess of Poetry, Forge, and Healing Well, and The Morrigan: Meeting the Great Queens by Morgan Daimler
• Utterly Wicked by Dorothy Morrison