I started out as a “functional” cook, rustling up rice and a curry just to function during the day. As anyone who moves to a new place for work, cooking came into my life when I got fed up of take-outs and junk food. My “functional” cooking gradually progressed to something that I look forward to after work — a hobby, stress-buster and practice of mindfulness, all rolled into one. The rice and curry turned into a larger spread of curries, pickles, dips, hummus, three-course meals and what not.
My love and inspiration for cooking comes from not nostalgia or romance but from a passion for eating a good meal and the ease of looking up recipes on the Internet. While my family enjoys cooking, it was not something that we bonded over or created memories on. Cooking was seen as just a skill (like learning to open and operate a bank account). So I go looking for someone else’s legacy family recipes on the Internet.
An upside
While my family’s view of cooking is not an ideal story for a best-selling autobiography of a chef, it may have an upside. When we grew up (at least my generation, if not my grandmothers’), no one told us that cooking was a woman’s job. I recently realised that there are only a very few families like mine in our country even in this day and age.
In a country as obsessed with food as ours, it is unfortunate that cooking is associated with one gender, turning a simple skill into something that is stereotyped, debated on and dragged into conversations on gender and patriarchy. We have men who think their wives’ sole mission is “cooking them a good meal”, and some call themselves “progressive” because they know how to make tea and coffee.
When it comes to women, this stereotype attached to cooking has obviously not helped. This gender association and patriarchy have run so deep that some women identify themselves as “progressive” and “independent” just because they do not cook or know how to cook. This is equally problematic, as it reinforces the thinking that cooking is a woman’s job. Hence, people forget that cooking is nothing but a skill that is good for anyone to have. This may be wishful thinking, but I believe that cooking should be seen only as a skill that both sexes can pursue. However, it requires the undoing of centuries of cultural and gender conditioning.
I do see that this conversation has started in many homes, thanks to work from home. While I may never inherit old notebooks of secret handwritten recipes from my family, I am glad to have received an unintentional pointer on cooking from them — that it is just a useful skill.
anjanaravinarayan@gmail.com