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.