I’m nurturing that connection as I silver. That pivotal connection with crispy pork belly, spicy slivered cabbage, avocado sushi, foie gras popsicles, palak khichdi... But I have a confession to make. I never wanted to be the queen of the kitchen.
I have tremendous respect for those with culinary prowess, and their own delicious fiefdoms. I relish cocktails and conversations with the best chefs, enjoy understanding the shaping of umami, and food artistry, yet have never experienced the urge to shop, sliver and saute with gusto, consistently. It is a glaring misnomer that every woman loves to cook, or can joyfully fluff up rotis. I am a gregarious gastronome, a daring eater, yet have never been assaulted by the fire to own the kitchen. I’m happy with others wearing the culinary wreath.
Unless you’ve carved a commercially viable career in the food world, cooking 24x7 for your family is the most under-appreciated chore in the world. I know, it’s all about love and yada, but the hot job can be outsourced daily. Unless you are prepared to challenge the chompers while you mince away in the sweaty confines of the burner grove in your 2x2 inch apartment. “The rajma was a bit tough, still” or “why did you have to put so many green leaves in the dal” are comments I don’t remember signing up for.
Married into a family that plans the next meal while one meal is in progress, the obsessive fixation for food sometimes makes me want to throw a Molotov in the midst of the spice route discussions. I confess, it has something to do with my often peculiar, sometimes peckish relationship with food. Dad was over-determined, not to let the obvious relegation to the scullery happen, zealously pushing us into honing grey matter in other fields.
While I grew up surreptitiously sunning the kanji, sun drying chillies, making sabudana papad with my grandmother, she too vocally championed studies over cooking. “You can always learn to cook whenever you want, hire someone. If you are financially independent, you have a voice,” she used to say. Not that my heart sang with the desire to swirl puris as I grew up on the Nawabi palate in Lucknow with khatti machhli, galoutis, makhan malai, Malihabadi mangoes (with my bony ribs, I could pack in one kg a day) and more.
Modelling brought in senseless watermelon diets to stay skinny in Milan mania. Post my masters, and pub-grub crawls, a new world of flavours exploded. I discovered my love for bizarre foods: ox tongue, roo steaks, crocodile meat, ant chutney, frog legs... wrote a food guide to sin city, tweaked heirloom recipes for food memoirs... Mommy mode made me piggy-back on curated fruit boxes for snacks and quickie renditions for tiffins. Then the lockdown changed it all with me slow-cooking mutton stew and kali dal, juggling work and yoga. Divine vengeance. As a woman, you’re expected to ace the stove. The point you can, when you want to. I did.
I’ll skip the morning mimosas and gluten-free cupcakes. I don’t understand the keto carp and dodge the bread lovers club, preferring my comfort bites in rajma chawal. But then, that’s the beauty of food. It has what I knead in its all-encompassing, warm hug. ‘As a chef, at home or otherwise, you are more than just a sum of recipes,’ said the world’s numero uno chef Massimo Bottura during our quick chat a few days back. Agreed. Fork it.
Shilpi Madan
me@shilpimadan.com
Mumbai-based journalist and editor