The Cook I Never Was

Some of my most vivid memories of my childhood are always to do with food. We are a family that loves to eat and loves to feed. Weekends were extended, lazy lunches at Grandma’s place where the whole family gathered to eat and share stories mostly about food. Some weekends were picnics in the park where we would eagerly await the aromas of pipping hot Biryani filling up our senses and other times it was the excitement of smuggling delicious parathas into the cinema hall and gorging on them while watching my favourite hero bash up goons.

While I enjoy food tremendously, I didn’t grow up learning how to cook and could not cook to save my life. Coming from a deeply patriarchal family, I was never held accountable for the important life skill of cooking. Watching my dad, never cook, meant I didn’t need to. Watching my mom cook three meals a day, sometimes four for the entire family meant that it was an expectation I had from my wife / partner.

Not knowing how to cook and all that goes into planning a meal, meant I never learnt to appreciate the hard work in cooking. I remember, many a morning, I would be irritated by my mom’s overtures to push breakfast down my throat while I was rushing to college or work. Disregarding her early morning wake-up, her planning, hours spent in the kitchen making a healthy, hearty meal all lost in that moment of irritation when her son growled for being late to work and disappeared without even a glance to the heartbreak she felt. My dad continues to do that for many a meal, invalidating her effort. Other than a cup of tea and flipping a Dosa over, my dad still can’t cook to save his life.

It was only after marriage and when I moved out of home, that I was made brutally aware that not knowing how to cook was laughable. My partner forced me into the kitchen to ensure we played an equal part in our partnership for life. I struggled with simple tasks such as putting on the gas cylinder and cutting vegetables. For months, we ended up eating out / ordering in because I didn’t know how to cook and  both of us were tired after a full day’s work. The initial years were a struggle to say the least, adjusting to our respective new realities and learning the failings that we each had.

Not knowing to cook was no longer an option in the relationship and with many disastrous first attempts with an encouraging and unforgiving partner, I pursued. Slowly and steadily, I learnt to cook and now cooked for pleasure, over a weekend meal or when I felt like. The smells, tastes, textures of the food I had grown up eating intuitively guiding me and of course hundreds of online tutorials. Being a man, also meant I was not an easy student to teach, for my ego hurt every time she pointed a mistake I made or attempted to correct a dish. Even when cooking, which I was still learning, I needed to believe and let her know that I knew more than her. Really? It is a surprise she even tolerated me. My partner continued to do the heavy lifting even though she didn’t enjoy the grind of daily cooking. But we needed to eat right?

Anyhow, my cooking improved and with it my confidence in the kitchen. My repertoire was limited but the intention was growing. However, I was not rising to the task soon enough, so we decided to keep a cook and my cooking was limited to weekend attempts.

When the pandemic hit in early 2020 and we were confined to our homes and could not have our cook any longer, we were forced to plan, prepare and cook all our meals. Thus, started a whole new journey. From cooking for joy and experimentation to now cooking three-meals a day everyday to survive. My partner and I learnt to divide our meals – Breakfast is mine, lunch is yours. If you do dinner, then I do the dishes. So, now cooking had to be planned – What do we cook for the week, what ingredients do we need, how do we plan our cooking to ensure minimum wastage of food resources, etc., etc. In the initial days, there was tremendous food wastage because I could not for the life of me manage quantities. With my newborn interest for cooking, I also ended up purchasing many exotic ingredients that were never used. It took me a long time to realize that the fantasy of a gourmet chef in my head is different from the daily grind of cooking.

Everyday, I was getting comfortable with vegetables, spices, combinations and ingredients. Soon, I was churning out better and better food, cooking faster and enjoying the process. I also learnt to listen to my partner, my mom and anyone with useful advice on cooking. For many months, the regularity of cooking a meal was the only thing keeping me sane in the lockdown.

In the second wave, when my mom contracted the virus and we decided to bring my dad and her to our place to care for them, things truly changed. Now, we were responsible to make three healthy meals everyday for them and had to run like a lean-mean machine. Between, my partner and I, we planned every meal meticulously and had to have it ready on time, tasting well, having the right nutritional content and catering to their palette. Since, we could not have any house help, it meant we were also ensuring the house is cleaned, sanitized, clothes are washed and dried and the dishes are done. There was always a pile up of dishes after every meal that needed to be cleared.

This daily grind has helped me realize what it must take for my mom and for many like her to cook everyday for years, decades and all their life. I acknowledge and appreciate many of my colleagues, who wake up at ungodly hours to ensure 2-3 meals are prepared for their family, packed and ready to go while also making sure they get to office on time and repeat that when they go back home at the end of each day. It is insane to plan ingredients, to think on the fly, to be creative, to not repeat a dish soon enough, to have variety, to attempt new dishes, to not waste, to cater to the demands of different family members, to have disasters in the kitchen, to deal with lack of acknowledgement, to be invalidated and yet show up every morning in the kitchen and cook all over again, day in and day out and it does not matter if one is tired, sick, demotivated or feeling lazy. And mind you, for many like my partner and my mom, it’s not the only thing they do – they also have active, busy, fulfilling and demanding careers that they truly enjoy and thrive in.

Today, cooking is a not just a hobby, an essential life skill, a way for me to rewrite my own story, a way to break stereotypical mindsets about men in the kitchen, an acknowledgement of all the women in my life who have fed me unconditionally and a therapeutic outlet to stay sane in these troubled times. It hasn’t been an easy journey, more so for my partner who has helped me, held me accountable, nudged me and not given up on me as I have attempted to break out of a deeply patriarchal upbringing.

Now, I enjoy cooking, I am much better at it, have a reasonable variety and am becoming a meticulous, efficient cook but still unsure, I want to do this every day of my life. From a cook I never was, today, I am a proud almost cook and happy to say it.