Yeah, I, uh, I suppose that may be because it's an integral part of staying alive -- food makes a great metaphor for lots of things because it's such a primal need/set of reactions? It's not like anyone isn't going to understand the concept of food or eating, so if you can get a more complex concept to match up to that, you can convey the underlying principles.

Never thought about how much cooking is a good metaphor for, before your comment, or about why that might be so! Now my brain wants to start a "cooking is like..." tag and start applying it to everything. *giggles*