A short story by Aishwariya
My nuclear family consisting of my mom, dad, and me has looked to food more as sustenance than any big celebratory event. My mom always says, ‘We eat to live and not live to eat.’ But I do enjoy tasty food and so does she. It’s just the cooking of it that neither of us enjoys. So we have Jyoti, our cook, who helps us out. And that makes a lot of difference to our lives. My mom has given her directions on how to make a particular dish and over the years, Jyoti has learned several new dishes my mom’s way.
A Brahmin family trained Jyoti in her early teens although she is a Naidu by birth. We are Tam Brahms, too, but not very traditional ones. We enjoy Jyoti’s sambar of different types, her kootu, aviyal, poriyal, ennai kathirikkai and other dishes. My mom has also taught her to make Baigan ka bharta, chana bhatura and a few other North Indian dishes, including thepla. We avoid overly oily or fried foods. Last week, Jyoti went on a 4-day leave since she wanted to go on a pilgrimage. My mom had had her cataract surgery in one eye a week ago and the doctor had asked her not to go into the kitchen or near a gas stove for a minimum of two weeks.
Since I wanted to rise to the occasion and save the day, I volunteered to make lunch the first day. Enthusiastically, I geared up, wearing a floral apron that my friend had gifted me and looked very much the Masterchef. I decided I would make two simple dishes: A pizza in the OTG and Vegetable Hakka Noodles. Little did I know how much could go wrong with these two so-called simple dishes.
My dad is a chemical engineer and a self-declared expert in breakfast foods and beverages. He can make toast, idli, dosas, instant coffee and cocoa, to name his entire repertoire. He applies his rubber processing and curing knowhow to food science and technology in his retirement with moderate success. He sat me down to explain the process of cooking in “simple” chemical terms.
“Cooking, Sathya, is the process of preparing dishes by combining, mixing, and heating food ingredients at atmospheric or elevated temperatures and pressures, much as you would manufacture a rubber product. It is more empirical though than rubber rheology and vulcanization in that there are no equations of state for the reactants and products, and no clear indication of the extent of the reaction so that it can be controlled and a runaway reaction avoided. The chemical processes involve hydrolysis, oxidation, pyrolysis, and glycation reactions: the last popularly known as Maillard reactions. Maillard reaction is what makes dosas rust brown when dough is roasted in a pan. Sometimes, high pressures and temperatures can ruin a food.
Cooking makes food more palatable, digestible, and nutritious for human consumption through molecular gastronomy. Why only humans?, Indeed I have observed that dogs, cattle ,monkeys and birds prefer cooked food to natural grass and nuts. They seem to enjoy pakoras, french fries, and chips in particular rather than sambar rice. It shows their aversion to pressure cookers, microwaves, and OTGs and a preference for deep oil-pan fried food” he continued.
Wait! Was this a really oblique hint that I should make pakoras, french fries, and chips rather than hakka noodles and pizza?
“Of course, the calorific value of foods is important, and is flaunted on food packages, but it reduces food to fuel, and the stomach to a boiler, which de-glamorizes the profession somewhat. But not to worry, there’s a whole lot of food characteristics waiting to be characterized, and enough scope for creative expression. Food should be a feast for the senses,“ he said.
‘None of this was particularly helpful in preparing lunch in the afternoon’ I thought, as I recalled my school days in Chemistry class. A big blank is what appeared in my head and here was dad trying to equate cooking with Chemistry! Any remaining enthusiasm I had in making lunch was being killed and fast at the end of dad’s speech.
Just then, my friend from Bangalore, Rashmi, pinged me on the phone. Rashmi was my college friend who was now married and settled in Bangalore. She loved food like me, and we often bonded over food at fancy restaurants in Bangalore. We both appreciated food on a whole new level, and I always turned to her for any advice related to food. She also followed a lot of chefs on Instagram and food blogs. There were days that Rashmi went out for breakfast in the morning, lunch in the evening, and dinner at night!
She was also a gold member on all the food apps.
When I told her earlier that my cook was on leave and my mom was just recovering from her cataract surgery, she shared some recipes via DM on Instagram and asked me to follow them to the letter. I sent her a quick voice message, ” Babe, there’s no way I can do that in time for lunch.” And then I told her about my plan to make pizza and hakka noodles.
Rashmi gave me a couple of quick hints on which vessel I should use and how long I should keep the OTG on for. I ran upstairs to check with my mom about the vessel to use for the hakka noodles. She was referring to some copper-bottom saucepan, but I had no idea where it was. So she came downstairs to take it out from the cupboard and hand it over to me. I felt bad that she had to come down the stairs just for this. I told her to go “relax” in my room downstairs, but it looked like she was afraid I would burn down the house. After all, it was me who left the gas on during the pandemic with some vessel on the flame. It was on for 45 minutes then and I had burned the food to a crisp. So I couldn’t blame my mom for being restless and jittery.
I hadn’t used the OTG in forever. The OTG came with a helpful manual that outlined the basic operations: preheating the oven, using the right utensils, selecting the right temperature and duration, and turning off the oven when the dish is “done”. To check for “doneness,” it suggested: ‘When the timer goes off, check if the food is fully cooked. Use a toothpick (?) or a food thermometer (??) if necessary.
In an answer to one of the frequently asked questions, it assured, ‘Of course, you can make pizza in an OTG. Choose a pizza recipe of your choice and get ready to relish delicious home- made pizza.’
There was no mention of the preheat temperature, time, heating options, and the oven exit temperature. The OTG came with a temperature control knob, timer, three racks etc. along with safety and cleaning instructions.
The OTG wasn’t even plugged in. I went to plug it in so that I could start with my pizza. As I searched for the black wire behind the OTG, a creepy crawly arachnid skittered across the kitchen counter. I dropped the pan to be used inside the OTG and screamed so loud, it could be heard across all the villas in our neighborhood.
I ran out of the room and called my dad using the phone so that he could come to my rescue. He rushed down from upstairs and he caught the offending insect and threw it out of the house. I was still jittery since I have severe arachnophobia, but I decided to play some music and get into the mood for cooking. I played Diljit Dosanjh and as he crooned Punjabi lyrics, I set about putting the tomato sauce and cheese on the pizza. I also cut up capsicum and tomato to use on top of the pizza base. I loaded the pizza base in the middle rack of the OTG, and I confidently selected what I thought was the right preheating, timer, and temperature setting.
I then sauntered to the other end of the kitchen to start working on the hakka noodles. I was beginning to wonder why I had offered to make hakka noodles rather than just 2-minute Maggi. My culinary skills were certainly rusty and questionable to boot. But I started boiling the noodles in hot water. I poked about looking for the seasoning packet and grated the vegetables using a device I had bought off Amazon.
Now, ‘Ek Gilaasi’ was playing in the background and I was getting into a dancey mood.I suddenly remembered the pizza in the OTG and when I went to check on it, a part of it had burned! “Done!” Oh no! It’s okay! I told myself. I will scrape off the burned part and serve the rest.
When I walked up to the noodles, it was looking like a soupy mix rather than any tasty noodles. I think I added more water than necessary. I added the seasoning and the veggies. A big mess there, too!
I felt rather deflated when my experiments in the kitchen were such a disaster. I went and switched off the music. I thought I would clear up the mess so that at least the kitchen and dining area would look neat and tidy. I took out the kitchen rag and started cleaning and drying the kitchen counter. I took out three plates: one for each of us and set the table. I arranged artificial flowers in the vase on the dining table and set placemats, too. Things looked a lot better. I cheered up.
I changed the music to instrumental, soft music and called my parents down for lunch. I had placed the pizza and hakka noodles on the table in fancy dishes and at least the setting looked good. I served them two pieces of pizza each and the noodles in a bowl. My mom clearly did not enjoy what she tasted. My dad made a better attempt at hiding his expressions. I could hear my dad’s mental gears whirring, ‘ I’ll have to cook the next meal!’.
The lo-fi music filled the dining hall and my forlorn face made my dad start talking just to lighten the atmosphere. “Come on! Satya, are you going to let us suffer alone? Eat with us.!” I burst out laughing and whined, “Appa, so mean! I tried my best. I’m sorry if it doesn’t taste good.”
I then joined them and we ate to the lo-fi music. I was reminded of the scene from F.R.I.E.N.D.S in which Rachel makes a terrible “dessert” with meat in it because she combines pages from different recipes and thinks the resulting pages are one recipe. She doesn’t have the slightest inkling that the resultant page is a weird combination of ingredients that would never be put together in one dish. Her friends try to spare her feelings by pretending to like the dish. Only Joey actually likes it but we all know Joey eats just about anything.
My parents did not pretend to like it, but they did eat the meal I cooked for them ….with love- So much love and good intentions. I berated myself inwardly for not being a better cook and not learning cooking all through high school, college, and later. I had no idea why I couldn’t cook to save my life, but if you asked my mother, she would tell you that if I had stepped into the kitchen and helped her with cooking as all little girls did, I wouldn’t be cutting this sorry figure today.
She has also told me endlessly that cooking is not about feminism; it’s a life skill that must be learned by everyone regardless of their gender. ‘Coz all human beings have to eat to live. I’m the girl who has endorsed books like ‘Failure to make round rotis’ and written blog posts about my culinary disasters. While I thanked God for blessing me with writing abilities, I felt bad I had not inherited a single culinary gene from my mom or grandparents.
My maternal grandmother’s Gajar Ka Halwa was to die for. Her Mysurpa too was the talk of the town. My paternal grandmother could make aviyal and sweets as well as savories that tasted heavenly.
What exactly happened when these genes were being distributed in their grand-daughter aka me? The genes seem to have completely missed the mark and disappeared into thin air. Here I was struggling to make tea and coffee, when women my age were cooking for their families and guests – A fact that has often been pointed out to me by family and friends. No one ever forgets Sathya’s disasters in the kitchen. They are the stuff of laughter and jokes at every family reunion and friend meet.
You know that quote falsely attributed to Einstein, “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”. I wanted to quote that back to the people putting me down about my cooking abilities. I wondered if like faulty wiring in dishwashers and defective refrigerators, I too was fundamentally flawed and an undomestic goddess! Sadly, my words didn’t seem to carry much weight in boardrooms either. But I cajoled myself that my heart was always in the right place, and I always did my best to do the right thing.
And what is life if it does not involve trying repeatedly until one succeeds? I suppose I will learn cooking by trial and error, which is how I’ve learned most things in life.
xxxxxx
#ShortStory
Pic from Canva
