Something's Cooking

A Tribute To My Mother…

It’s been very long since I was inspired to write. Indeed there were instances which touched me or hurt me & prompted me to write, but probably they were not as strong as the incident that took place a couple of weeks back.

It felt like any other day when I woke up thinking of what I wanted to cook for that particular day. I kept the vegetables ready as usual and started with my preparations just like any other day. But that day a big fat brinjal made me realize how I had started forgetting the world around me when I was cooking. The feeling I get when I hold those vegetables…the calculations that my brain does when I think how symmetrically I can cut them…what spices will go with them…how I can innovate with an age-old recipe etc. These feelings just cannot be explained in words. I was holding this big fat brinjal directly over fire when slowly the process engrossed me completely. I could hear noises (voices of people) around me but I was hardly aware of what was happening. The flames engulfed the brinjal slowly. First nothing much happened and then the magic happened right in front of my eyes. The brinjal was ‘perspiring’, the colours were changing. The violet looked so royal with it’s changing hues. I wanted to see more and more of it, but the fire was gaining an upper hand over the meek brinjal. The shade had now changed to a somber grey and then finally the skin turned black to ashes. Finally when the aroma filled the kitchen my brinjal was ready to be peeled. And magic happened once again when my hand felt the pulp. The fire was lit again so that the pulp could be made interesting with some spices. The result was just marvelous.

It is indeed amazing when sometimes it also turns out that what our eyes cannot do our hands can do. That is our sense of sight proves weaker at times in comparison to our sense of touch. For example I would rather sprinkle salt with my two fingers rather than see to measure it with my sight.

Cooking indeed is such a beautiful art that probably this is the only art which utilizes all our senses – sense of touch, sense of sight, sense of sound, sense of smell and sense of taste. It’s worth giving it a thought. I feel we all have the urge or inclinations to cook. It starts from the day when as a child we choose what to eat and what not to eat. Remember the times when we visit our local ‘chaat’-wala and tell him “no spicy, only sweet and sour please”. Out choices are made. If we take these choices a step further we will find ourselves in the kitchen choosing between our spices ourselves. My explorations started similarly. My taste buds were so attuned to my mother’s style of cooking that I indeed found myself in a soup when I tried to recreate the magic. My mother was one of the few mothers who would rather coax me to study than to cook. On the other hand my father used to coax me to learn to cook. But why mess my hands with coking when I could have it served ready-made on a platter? When my parents used to be away on trips my elder brother compensated for their absence and set my taste-buds rolling. Finally when I found myself in the kitchen I was frustrated at being unable to create the magic that my mother and sibling had managed to, least realizing the fact that it all stemmed from years of experience and a natural intuitive interest in cooking. As marital bliss happened, I found myself in a different world adapting myself to change. But my taste buds refused to co-operate in the land of coconuts – Kerala. I would gulp my food down trying to keep a smiling face and say “Oh Coconuts? I love them!!!” In my heart of hearts I knew for sure if this was to continue I would soon go on a hunger strike. I craved for my mother’s touch of magic and realized her importance. She had always been making South-Indian dishes with a North-Indian twist to it to suit our taste buds. I raked up some courage to slowly venture and put my skills to test. Over the next few months all I did was observe. I had to anyway satisfy my household by learning the Kerala dishes. But during the times when I found myself alone in the kitchen I would let my senses guide me and add an extra spice or two to an everyday recipe and Voila! It tastes different.

Memory plays such a vital role in cooking. I never realized it till I took up the ladle independently. Whenever I insisted on learning a recipe my mother would always push me away saying, “You are going to end up cooking for the rest of your life after marriage. What’s the big deal with cooking? There’s nothing difficult in it.” Probably this casual attitude is what saved me. Today many a times I am found in the kitchen lost in thought just standing there motionless as I try to remember a taste from my memory, or try to remember the smell and feel of a particular dish. In fact it may be surprising to some if I say we can smell an ingredient through a taste in our tongue. Try it someday and you would realize how true it is.

As a child I’ve spent most of my time in the kitchen without consciously realizing it. The spelling dictations, the school home-work, the music practice sessions all used to take place under the strict supervision of my mother. As a result during silent intervals I would hear the sound of mustard seeds spluttering in oil followed by the smell and sound of wet curry leaves. My brain would tell me “something’s cooking” when after lunch I could smell the aroma filling the house – “Wow!! Mom’s making a sweet dish…!” But my mother would promise to give me an extra helping only if I completed my home-work on time.

All these sights, smell and sounds had registered deeply in my brain. I still remember even as my mother kept me occupied with my home-work she would be rattling off about the recipe, “this is not the correct way to make this dish, don’t follow my footsteps…” OR “Don’t add salt in the beginning itself for certain vegetables, they will not be cooked properly.” All these and many more… Of course for me all this was just daily routine. Who wants to cook anyway? But these daily repetitions are what sailed me easily through my first attempts.

It is indeed surprising how I would hear my mother’s voice in my head all the time when I was making a particular dish. My hands would automatically follow the instructions my mother was giving me in my head even before I consciously realized it. “Do this…don’t do that…”

Similarly I don’t know how many of you would have experienced the following. I used to hate accompanying my mother to the vegetable market. I hated to set my foot on the discarded vegetable waste and endure the smell of rotting vegetables. The only reason I used to budge was because my ‘best’ friend stayed close-by to the market. I used to slip away on the pretext of meeting her. By the time my mother would walk from one end of the market to the other, I would run to see my friend and be back on time. Nevertheless sometimes when I didn’t get permission to visit my friend, my mother would tag me along with her. And here too I would see her feeling each and every vegetable with her hand, breaking the tip of the lady’s finger etc. But all this would only further frustrate me and I would think “why is she taking so long?” She would keep telling me how to select vegetables. At times I would have to pick some vegetables too but that meant soiling my hands with some wet rotten vegetables and the feeling would leave me disinterested anyway. But all these instructions had registered deep in my mind because my mother coupled each instruction with a funny anecdote or incident. So all this left a deep imprint on my mind.

On reaching home, I would always assist my mother in peeling peas. This was my favourite chore as I would get to eat all the sweet peas. The result being a 1 kg purchase of peas would end up as a ½ kg in the pan! I was given all the liberty to try my hand at cutting vegetables provided they were required only for the next day as I was pretty slow in cutting them!

Post marriage attempts discouraged me in the beginning and I would end up crying over my colleague’s shoulder at office. She then told me something wonderful, something that I will remember for the rest of my life. She said, “Don’t cook because you want your husband to like it, just enjoy the process of cooking and it will end up being loved by everyone.” Till date I have held on to this philosophy coupled with my mother’s instructions of a casual approach towards cooking. This combination has made my dishes if not excellent, at least interesting and different!