The “Joy” of Cooking
In these lockdown times, social-media is awash in glorious pictures of elaborate insta-perfect recipes made by seasoned (chuckle) and fresh cooks alike. Sometimes these pictures delight and inspire me to go beyond my usual evening shout of “Chipotle or pizza today?” to actually try something moderately edible.
Back in the mid 90s — fresh off the boat from India — I was thrown into uncharted territory. No, not a new, unknown, and scary land . That, I could handle . I was confronted with a heretofore unknown terror — cooking for myself. Being the spoilt brat that I was, I never had to cook growing up. Besides, when I left home for Mumbai, affordable food options were limitless. In the States though, having found myself a low-on-money, Desi roommate, just like myself, I was forced to agree to a rotating cooking schedule — something the young, single Desis did as a rule — or so, I was told . Yes, that was the de-facto evening activity! Who would want to go out when all the fun you could possibly have was right there at the stove?
The first couple of days, I tried to follow my roommate to learn some basic skills, but she — not withstanding her high opinions of herself — was no better than myself. (Or maybe she was and I was just a lousy learner) In any case, I managed to memorize two or three quick recipes and made them repeatedly for six months. It got so bad, that I would eat plain bread and butter after I had cooked the same unappetizing dish for the eighteenth time.
Thankfully, after that stint, my next roommate was a Burger-King-only white girl who could not be bothered to even enter the kitchen. Goal!!!!! No more cooking contracts! I spent the next six months luxuriating in the warm morning glow of corn-flakes. Except, in my case, it was mornings, evenings and in-betweens. My cooking days were behind me — for a little while.
Marriage changes everything, they say. It is probably also one of “them” who gifts you a copy of “Ruchira”, the canonical cookbook of the Marathi speaking world and expects you to model your behavior after the woman. Just three dinner plates? Well, ladies and gentlemen, “they also serve who stand and wait” — in this case, literally. :-)
The first couple months of my wedded culinary journey were interesting, dare I say, even fun. Phrases like “roast to fork-tender” or “simmer until thickened” were nothing short of cryptic clues in the Sunday crossword. It took more than a few take-outs to finally understand the deep significance of “add salt to taste.”
With time, I learned enough to make somewhat palatable meals, but food still remained a necessary-evil. I couldn’t justify the effort-result ratio enough to actually look forward to a home-cooked meal — there just wasn’t enough return on my investment of time. Food being an afterthought for me personally, my husband and I became intimately familiar with take-out menus and left-overs.
A child changed things once more. I wasn’t the mom who bought fancy gadgets to make purees of organic fruit , but I did become more competent in the kitchen than ever before. Basically, it meant I had one winning pasta recipe — made with bottled spices — that my kid could eat any time of the day. (Let’s just say, I benefitted from eliminating choices.) Nevertheless, cooking became more routine and less mysterious, if only to fit the canonical “mom” mold.
Fast forward a decade — or two — and here we are in an unending pandemic. Brushing off meal-times with a shrug and a nod is no longer an option. Cooking, now a necessity, also serves as a marker to split the day into functional chunks instead of becoming one giant blob of pajama-clad-sameness for months. When shopping for groceries is one of only few times sanctioned for leaving the confines of a house, the excursion itself became a sort of sacred pilgrimage.
In the early days of lockdown, inspiration — and possibly self-shaming — was everywhere on social-media. Cooks of every ilk were constantly reminding you of the “possibilities” — the novice ones who had baked their first misshapen chocolate cookies, the experimenters who were using ingredients from the back of the pantry in never-before imagined ways, the eclectics who served leftover mashed potatoes with freshly prepared raitas to go with yesterday’s takeout injeera, and the veterans who made me cry into my already watery dough with their 30-ingredient dishes, prepared assiduously and presented impeccably.
I gave in to the ennui of the relentless sameness and started spending more time in the kitchen than ever before. (It also didn’t hurt that my work desk was three feet away.) More and more unpronounceable ingredients started showing up in my pantry and, after a while, I even figured out how to use them. Following recipes to the letter, I managed to make things that I wouldn’t be able to name. (What is this? A failed quesadilla masquerading as a burrito, dressed in some gooey green sauce? Must not have tasted bad as I don’t remember any major complaints. )
In spite of all that color, there were those dark times when I was once again questioning the investment I was making in time and mental cycles. There were a million background processes occupying my already overflowing brain — each keeping track of one aspect of meal-planning, prepping, serving, saving etc. There were expiring ingredients to be used up, low ingredients to be purchased, novel ingredients to be found, recipes to be searched, times to be met, arguments to be resolved ….. !
Even the most ardent of home-chefs, I’m sure, have by now tired of the unendingness of an activity that once felt fulfilling and nourishing, for the body and soul alike. So should I banish home-cooking as a fool’s errand where you do everything one day only to repeat the same process over the next and the next… ?
Perhaps I wouldn’t go quite as far. Looking back over the years and particularly 2020, some of the most calming moments in a deeply unsettling time have come while stirring sauces, mixing dough, dicing vegetables and generally zoning out the world at the stove. In spite of all my fumbling mess, some previously untried recipes turned out to be surprisingly delicious and now I even have my own repertoire of family-favorites. I can almost experience the rapture of “a burst of flavor.” My cooking may never rise-up to the level of a perfectly fermented dosa-batter, but it will still aspire to the just-right texture of a perfect dosa — neither too soft not too crispy.