An Essay Concerning Culinary
Understanding
Recently
I came across a food memoir Climbing the
Mango Trees by Madhur Jaffrey, an eminent cook-book writer, who specialises
in Indian cuisine. The memoir of her childhood is replete with the names and
recipes of various delicacies, that her family used to savour on several
occasions. As I read, I too felt that at some point of time we need to document
our mothers’ endeavours in kitchen, which otherwise remain unrewarded. In
almost every household, cooking is regarded as a monotonous compulsion.
Primarily I must blame the consumers’ indifference, who never stop to think and
appreciate cooking as an art. As I am writing this article, my mind starts a
journey across time, and a picture of my dida’s
age old, sooty kitchen space appears before me. Even today I can hear the
jingling of her soiled bangles, the sound of over-used metal pots and
experience the tempting smell of luchi,
aloor dum, telebhaja, which used to draw us towards her stuffy kitchen even at
summer evenings. We usually had two trips to dadur bari (maternal grandfather’s house) in a year. In a week, that was allotted to our dida for
serving us, she created several wonders in her small kitchen without an
indispensable pressure cooker, mixer grinder or gas oven. Now I feel, how for
my not-so-educated but intelligent dida,
cooking was an important platform to display her hidden talents. Dida specialises in various kinds of
sweets including our very familiar pithe-puli
and patisapta. Our every winter
begins with her signature dishes like, koraishutir
kochuri, bhajapithe, dudh puli, malpoa and the list is endless.
In our family almost every occasion endorses some special
dishes, which are elaborately cooked, served and enjoyed. Our yearly calendar
is colourful with the frequent celebrations of birthdays, anniversaries, and
even in the days of my mother’s religious fasting we are served with hot puris, delicious veggies and home-cooked
halwa or payesh. My mother has inherited her spirit for culinary adventures
from dida. In fact, most of their
mother-daughter telephonic conversations are usually focussed on the exchange
of recipes. Apart from the authentic Bengali dishes like shukto, mochar paturi, lau chingri, bhapa ilish, she tries her hand in numerous innovations. For my
science graduate mother kitchen appears as an indispensable chemistry lab,
where she enjoys a freedom to create and re-create. Most of her endeavours
focus on the leftovers. I can very easily recall her earlier recipes like bhater bora with the last night’s
leftover rice or egg rolls with the leftover chapattis. Unlike my dida, she enjoys a spacious kitchen room
with the bliss of modern gadgets. But she has to cater to the innumerable needs
of a large family and her ailing mother-in-law as well. In spite of her
uncountable liabilities towards us, she finds time to experiment with her
culinary skills. Recently her new founded happiness rests on pleasing her
foodie son-in-law, who frequently showers praises, which prove to be informal
certificates of acknowledgement of her domestic skills.
The legacy of cooking has been passed on me by my
preceding generations, but I always play safe with cooking. My busy schedules
with research and teaching jobs as well as my considerate husband have made me
very lazy to execute elaborate cooking experiments. Once in a blue moon I also
try my mother’s very own recipes of potoler
dorma, pulao, gajarer halwa, doi ilish to appease my husband’s taste in our nuclear kitchen, but
mostly, I choose less time consuming recipes. It is true that the golden era of
our dida is no more. Our life style
has taught us to adopt short cuts. But, interestingly, the kitchen space is
now-a-days not exclusively considered to be a wife’s or a mother’s prerogative.
My apparently naive husband (who, before marriage didn’t even know to make
tea!!!) often startles me with his delicious soups, salads and raita. I realise that probably keeping
in mind his obese wife, and her health he has surreptitiously mastered the art
of cooking without oil.
At this late hour of night when I am scribbling this
piece, and trying to put my taste memory into pen and paper, I feel how
gradually I have been transcended to my lost childhood days, when kitchen
seemed to be a storehouse of several magical fits performed by my mother and
her mother. A quaint kitchen smell is coming from somewhere and stimulating my
senses...O how it is aggravating my longing to have all those dishes at this
hour of night! I am surfing the food blogger’s sites and the tempting images of
rosbora, patisapta, luchi-aloor dum
appear before me. I must stop writing here and rush to the kitchen to make at
least an omelette.
