To cook or not to cook

Cooking may not be 'women's work' but it certainly is a life skill

 

I have lost count of the number of mothers of young women who have told me, with varying degrees of satisfaction, that their daughters do not cook. Their girls have never as much as stepped into the kitchen, they say with pride. Why, they wouldn’t even know how to boil an egg! And why should they toil in the kitchen, they add with barely-suppressed indignation, when there are worlds outside to conquer?

 

Yes, I get that: the feminist argument for not getting bogged down with getting breakfast, lunch and dinner ready. And when I was in my teens, wild horses couldn’t have dragged me into the kitchen either, though my mother, God bless her, tried her best to teach me some basic techniques. But no, I thought I was too good to learn how to make perfectly-puffed puris, thank you very much.

 

I often look back to that younger version of myself and wonder what I was thinking. What was so emasculating about rolling out a roti or making a tarka for a dal? And why was I so threatened by it? It’s not as if cooking a meal meant that my college privileges would be taken away or that I would have to give up on my dream of a career.

 

The kitchen may have been the preserve of women in that era (maybe it is even now) but that was no reason to banish myself from it. Learning how to cook is a life skill that everyone should possess. Feminism should not translate into an inability to feed yourself – or your family, if it came to that. 

 

My relationship with cooking changed once I moved away from my mother’s place and set up home for myself in Delhi. Now that there was no mum to churn out meals I had to learn to feed myself. I began with baby steps, trying my hand at fried eggs and then an omelet. Then, I moved on to easy recipes like pasta with pesto into which I could bung in a few vegetables, or Thai curries made with sauces that came out of a packet. Only after that did I trust myself to recreate some of my mom’s Indian recipes.

 

And in the process I discovered something about myself: I actually enjoyed cooking. I loved the meditative calm of chopping vegetables and getting my spices and herbs ready. I loved the process of throwing various ingredients into the pan and seeing them come together in a flavourful whole. And I loved feeding the people whom I loved the most in the world. 

 

In time, cooking became an activity that my husband and I enjoyed together. He is the more inventive cook between us while I am a more instinctive one. But when we put our heads and hands together in the kitchen, it can sometimes (though not always) create a bit of magic.

 

Looking back now, I can’t imagine a time when I regarded cooking with disdain. But then, I guess, our attitudes to cooking change with time. We may start off seeing it as anathema, then graduate to regarding it as an essential survival skill. It may morph into an adventure sport or just a way to feed your family. Or it may become the way you relax after a hard day at work or bond with your husband/mother/child.

 

All you have to do is give cooking a chance. It may yet surprise you.