I´m a pretty good cook. And I don´t use recipies but rather use my intuition. My feeling is that I go by cooking more or less as I do in Moon related areas like music. My AK is the Moon, so my thought is: improvisation in the kitchen, it has to do with rhythm in a way, right? A little too salty, a little too hot etc... So: the Moon.
Venus should have a saying when it comes to cooking, of course. And Mercury perhaps?
I generally cook moisty stuff like stews and such. Moon food I guess.
Mercury would be dryer and more separate I guess; tapas would be the ideal Mercury food I guess?
Any ideas? Feel welcome to play around with the concepts.
Mars for fire. You don´t work at a grill without some Mars indication, probably.
Maybe you don´t become a cook at all without Mars indications? Fire and knives.
Staffan
Fun question! I know someone who has Mars AK and loves using his grill.
I know someone else who also has Mars AK in the 6th house. He's very service oriented and enjoys cooking for other people, not sure about how he goes about making that food though.
I'm relatively new to astrology and I'm mostly focused on understanding the planets and the rasis at the moment, so I've been thinking about similar things.
One of the challenging things for me about the planets is that all the planets can be involved in some way, even if one planet clearly rules that thing as a general indication.
It seems like Mars rules cooking as a whole. Firstly the effort required to even have food, whether by hunting, gathering, or farming, seems to be a Martian enterprise (similar to how Mars rules the mother in Jaimini). Then obviously, as you mentioned, fire and knives being the fundamental reality of cooking makes the task a Martian one. But you also can't really cook without Mercury, since he rules technical and manual skills...Mars rules the knife, but Mercury is the one that lets you use the knife.
Then the rest of the planets could have a say, in several ways: the kind of food, the reason for cooking the food, the context surrounding the food, maybe others.
As for the specific kind of food, I find that more challenging to consider, and less interesting, though each planet has a taste associated with it, so that could help, e.g., Moon is salty, Venus is sour, Jupiter is sweet, Mercury is umami, Mars is spicy?, Saturn astringent? (I think...that's just from memory).
Moon would rule comfort food.
Mercury would rule the buffet at a conference, where everyone is mixing and mingling.
Venus would rule a dinner date, or making food for your loved ones as a sign of your affection. If you make chicken soup for a sick friend, that is Venus as well.
Mars rules the food you eat that allows you to exercise or be active.
Jupiter would rule a spiritual relationship with food, e.g., monks and other ascetics may have a Jupiterian relationship with food, though it would also be a Saturnian relationship, since they are trying to renounce the attachment to food.
Traveling in order to eat food and learn about other cultures by a doing so seems like a Jupiterian relationship with food.
It seems like Saturn would rule meat. It reminds of Titus Andronicus, where one of the characters cooks the son of another character into a pie and serves it to that person's mother...seems like that is Saturnian, although maybe that is Rahu food actually?
A Saturnian relationship with food would be one where the person doesn't care about the food as a sensory experience, but eats only in order to survive. So Saturn would also rule food that is not entertaining or delicious, but simply the barest need to keep going. Saturn rules bland food.
Venus is the love of food as a sensory experience. Probably a lot of chefs have this too. The adventurousness of mixing new flavors and trying new combinations. Venus would also rule the presentation of food, especially in a fine dining context.
When I think about things like this it seems to me that so much has to do with why and how a person does something, rather than what a person does. Moon, as you mentioned, cooks intuitively, whereas Mercury follows as a recipe.
That was fun, thanks!
My grandmother was a sun ak and a professional chef. She was known for fried southern comfort foods.
I’m also a Sun ak and sag swamsa and I can bake sweets pretty well. I’m also a decent cook. I have moon conj ak in navamsa. My mars is conj ak in rasi (also sag) but my husband with an exalted mars gets really stressed out when he watches my knife skills 😂
Sun is cooked foods. We both have/had Venus with rahu so not exactly the healthiest food desires.
That’s a fun idea to play around with astrological indications 🙂
I find Mars particularly pivotal when it comes to cooking.
Another interesting aspect is how planets relate to the 2nd House, which governs what we eat.
Sattvic planets influencing this area promote a balanced diet. Having Tamasic Planets like Saturn and/or Rahu here can indicate unhealthy eating habits from the start.
Rajasic planets such as Mercury and Venus encourage culinary experimentation, sometimes using ingredients like onions (considered aggravating in Ayurveda) or a variety of spices.
As mentioned earlier, a well-placed Moon enhances intuitive cooking - how much salt…
With a strong influence of Mercury, I enjoy following recipes and have built up quite a collection of cookbooks over time.