Ramble On Cooking

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After reading the post on my weirdness, Bhargav wondered why cooking was not in the list of things I love to do in the 'woman’s domain'. Here is the reply.

The key word in that list was 'love'. I don't love cooking. I can't even say I like cooking.

I still clearly remember my mom's alarm when I declared this to her. In reality, I had never even tried cooking to know that I didn't like it. Since I was old enough to gather that in any household it was the woman who did most of the house work, I didn't want any of it. Consider this: Men and women could love reading, they could dislike gardening. They could both hate driving. Both could hate walking in the sun, and both were allowed to love teaching. But all women had to like cooking? Was there no choice at all for me with regard to liking or disliking cooking? Then I must hate it. As simple as that. And I did.

And then what changed everything was that, like most others in this world, I married. If you think i tried to impress my husband by cooking, no. I am not one of those who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Since my husband had assured me that I had already entered his heart - by some mysterious route which I still haven't identified - I saw no reason to explore new ones. A second path could only be used for exit, specially if it involved my cooking. It is just that after getting married and setting up my own home, I discovered that the good, healthy, tasty food that I had taken for granted all my life was no longer available everyday. I loved my food and I liked it a certain way. It dawned on me rather slowly that if I wanted the kind of food I liked to eat, I better learn to cook it myself.

My husband can cook. With the hope that he won't read this, I confess that he can roll out the most perfectly round aloo parathas. The Andhra style vegetable fries he makes are some of the best I have eaten. (And I have been very careful not to learn to make them as well as him). But he had longer working hours and his workplace was further away from mine. Tell me, how do men manage to arrange this in most marriages? Anyway, if I wanted the kind of food my mother made, and anything else that I happened to eat somewhere and liked very much, I had to learn. And that is the reason I learnt cooking.

Once my son was born it was yet another story. I think it is George Mikes who says in the opening page of his autobiography that everyone's mother is the most beautiful in the world and everyone's mother is the best cook in the world. Except his. He thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world but certainly the worst cook. I didn’t want my son to write something like this in his autobiography. I couldn’t do anything about the beauty part, but being the best cook in the world for my son was perhaps in my hands. Also, once he grew up, and joined college he shouldn’t insist on staying in the hostel for the only reason that hostel food was better.

The net result of all this is that, I have turned out to be a pretty decent cook. My family is happy with home food, though we do eat out occasionally. I have even earned a name among friends and relatives for some of the tasty traditional food I make and a variety of other dishes new to us Indians, like the Italian pasta and risotto and the Mexican enchilada. But let me be clear, if anyone else is ready to make all this for me the way I want, when I want, I will have no hesitation to crown him/her 'super cook' and retire happily. That is the difference between the items on the list, and cooking. With the items on my list, the pleasure is in the doing, whereas in cooking, the pleasure is only and entirely in the result.

How many of you have come across men who point out smugly that though so many women cook, most of the best known chefs are men? There are umpteen reasons for that. But I have absolutely no doubt that by making cooking compulsory for women, the world has lost a few great and innovative chefs. Just consider how many novels you read as text books you still like.

One of my friends is expecting her second child. The other day when I met her she looked absolutely radiant. Her doctor had just told her that it was going to be a girl. She already had a son. She told me the reactions of the rest of the family. Her husband was very happy she said. He was already dreaming of the day when the little one would grow up and make his tea and serve it with love. I almost wished they had another son. I almost asked if the older son would make the pakoras. But I couldn't dampen my friend's happiness. I congratulated her and moved on. In all probability, this man will be a doting father to both his children and will do everything a father needs to do for his children. But he has already placed a subtle extra burden on his unborn daughter.

Since cooking is something we can't do away with, I wish families will teach both their sons and daughters the art of cooking, and in such a way that they both come to enjoy it to some extent, and also the burden is not placed heavily on the women. I am most definitely doing my bit here. My son proudly tells everyone, that he will be cooking as well as his mom by the time he is eighteen. "My mom has promised me that!"