My Relationship with Food and Cooking
I have had a complicated relationship with food and cooking. As a child I viewed food as an instrument of oppression and comfort because my mother was constantly trying to get me to eat more of it (me being a skinny rake even then), but was also soothed by it and her preparations. There was a time when I could only eat her cooking and my aunt’s; I would feel ill after eating in a restaurant or anyone else’s food!
I didn’t have a very large appetite and preferred curling up with a book to eating any day. I even read while eating, the book propped up in front of my plate, or laid flat beside it. My mother allowed it because it got more food down me. My sister objected strongly, protesting that I should converse with her instead.
I got burned when I was quite young, not in the kitchen, but by boiling water with vicks in it, set aside for me to inhale because I had a cold. I dropped it over. I lost all interest in going into the kitchen and started to dislike Diwali fireworks. I didn’t even make tea, when quite grown up, and had several arguments with my father, a complete foodie, who would try and convince me to take an interest in cooking every now and then.
After a few years of boarding school, college and hostel life in India, I began to feel a faint flicker of interest in cooking. It took coming to university in England and feeling really famished for the first time in my life and wonderful friends that forced me into cooking. A came over from his university and gave me my first practical lesson in cooking-we made mushrooms and peppers in butter. Later, my friends and I cooked huge amounts and we had students, lecturers and professors coming to eat with us.
When I got married, the unspoken assumption that I should be cooking a lot, hints from both sides of the family (not from A) really began to kill the interest I had started to develop at university. It was something I didn’t want to do because it was expected of me as the wife. I remembered how the men in my family had behaved, expecting hot, good, food of great variety, on the table, every day, not really doing anything to help, how they would only cook, as my mother would say, to “fulfil a fantasy,” and not really on a regular basis to feed the family, and how they would need the women, as sous-chefs, constantly calling out to ask where things were and making a mess. I felt rebellious, against that memory.
I can cook reasonably well, the simple things I like to eat, like dals, sambhar, vegetables etc. I don’t cook every day, it’s more like once in a while, but now I am trying to enjoy it when I do, and make it a pleasant experience. My sister in law, R1, bakes wonderfully, on a regular basis, we eat the results. R2 also helps with the cooking and A cooks when he is free. He’s been frying fish after coming home from work saying he finds it relaxing. I don’t mind him connecting with his inner Malluness this way, because I love fried fish with rice! We also have someone who helps with cooking things I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy doing, like making chapatis and puris and samosas.
It would be fair to say I eat to live and not the other way around, though the food does have to be good. Simple is just fine, dal and rice is my favourite meal. I enjoy the new foods we get to sample on our travels and find people who refuse to sample local cuisines very strange. We’ve had some difficult guests from India who expect their hot fluffy rotis even while in London and have heard some horror stories from friends who’ve had guests expecting them to pack a tiffin for them every day. That is something I just would not be able to do.
Such magic – and discomfort – in the images and aromas your words create.
“how they would only cook, as my mother would say, to “fulfil a fantasy,” and not really on a regular basis to feed the family, and how they would need the women, as sous-chefs, constantly calling out to ask where things were and making a mess”
So true.
Makes me think food is loaded with so many conotations – obvious ones like region, class, social and cultural obligations, but even feelings such as fear – or nostalgia. It’s never a simple choice for sustenance, is it?!
No, it isn’t only about sustenance! As Indians especially, and I include myself in this, we build and destroy relationships based on food!
In my younger days, I absolutely hated cooking and not to mention that I had a complex that nothing I cook could ever taste good. But all that vanished the moment I got to the UK. I love cooking and the more I cooked, the better I got at it. With a sister-in-law and husband who likes almost everything that I serve them, my confidence is growing by the day. And ooh Mallu fish fry, nobody does it like them…do they?
I forgot to mention I had a complex too. Because I never cooked, all the women in the family said I probably couldn’t and I believed them. Now I know better!
Needless to say I live to eat and not the other way round. I think I might do a post on my relationship with food, inspired by yours….
I am always very happy to eat your cooking
Writing here for the first time…although i have been following your blog for a while now.
Love the fact that i get to read about different things everyday on your blog!
The part about men not cooking on a daily basis is so aptly put…..
I enjoy cooking more than anything …in fact i would have loved to be a chef had i not been in my current profession!
Just like 30in2005, am inspired to do a post on cooking as well!
Thanks for delurking! Do tell me when and where you do the post!
I love food! But hate cooking. I think it comes from the ‘you are the woman, so you must cook’ expectation that totally pisses me off.
I do like good food, think it is essential, but don’t obsess about it. Yes that expectation is really irritating, especially when it comes from other women.
I so relate with this post, except that I am no longer thin. I have a few extra kilos which I need to shed. I used to be fussy about eating. My mother had to struggle to make me eat. And now i eat so much!
And yes I have just about begun to enjoy cooking post marriage. But only once in a while
Once in a while is good!
I discovered my love for cooking rather late. But that love is equally squished when there is an expectation that I WILL cook. Regardless of me liking the activity. I am a foodie, but there’s only so much time I will spend on keeping myself on a full stomach. On certain days, the sight of the kitchen annoys me. On others, I can’t wait to do something interesting.
Perhaps it’s the inherent gender construction of roles that pisses me off and puts me off cooking sometimes.
Exactly, that was what was happening to me…but now when I do cook I am having fun. Don’t think I want to be an every day cook though.
Me too hate the expectation. Otherwise I enjoy cooking once in a while. But I am the main and regular cook in our household.
I love fish fry but don’t get any here. When can I come to visit you?
As soon as possible!
A common thread right… How many of us got turned off cooking just because of that expectation. You are woman, You will cook. Tried experimenting in the kitchen around 15, heard all the comments, hated that expectation, did not return until it was just me and spouse on our own in the US 10 years later..
Since I dont have the privelige of a cook, maid etc in the US, I ONLY cook for one reason : home made food is healthy and helps keep the weight etc in check. I do however get rotis from an Indian lady who uses whole wheat flour and no oil. Also, it is only simple dal, sabzi, chaval that is made at home. The fancy stuff we get at restaurants when we feel like it. The only ‘fancy’ stuff I make at home is dosas
The challenge I am dealing with currently is to get the husband to be equally involved in the cooking efforts! Any tips???
Btw, delurking for the first time. Must add you write beautifully and have enjoyed all your posts! Did you study law in India and the UK?
Thanks very much for delurking and for the compliment. I have no tips? Stop cooking?! Maybe he’ll start then!
Beautifully written. Interesting pattern here. I never cared for food and started relating to cooking quite late in life. But as time went by , found it to be a relaxing activity after work each day that I ensure that I remain the sole cook.Ironically I have pretty much transformed into my grandmother/mother in the sense that I go out of the way to make sure no stomach that is / lands up in my house goes unfilled. (Expectation or no expectation I will cook for anyone as long as they don’t bother me with questions or dicussions on recipes, relative ratios or choice of ingredient A/B. Tastes good? Eat and keep moving
)
Eat and keep moving-my attitude too!
I LOVE food, LOVE eating, HATE cooking… it’s just gotten worse because everyone I know — family and friends, are awesome cooks. and I refuse to do it on a regular or irregular basis. Now I give up a lot of other ‘luxuries’ to have someone cook for me. Wish I ate to live… would save me a lot of trouble.
My relation with food is the other extreme. They talk to me, ask to be eaten
Similar to most others, I also started cooking post marriage and early on the thrill was a combination of creating something without my mother interefering and doing a good job of it. The husband is/was a good cook and he helped with basics and then some sort of competetiveness to be better than him took over. Smart man that he is, he let me ‘win’ and now only I cook
But, I cannot cook everyday either. Even every week is a chore but in the US there isnt much choice.
I love cooking and baking and that’s only cause I find it to be quite a stress-buster. Nothing can beat chopping onions after having a big fight with the boyfriend. The onions will be chopped just fine, preparing the dish and making sure it turns out perfect etc means everything else will be forgotten…and peace will reign once again.
Pack a tiffin? PACK A TIFFIN? :-O !!!! If any guests actually expected/demanded packed food – or hot fluffy rotis, for that matter – from me, the only thing to get packed would probably be them!
I do like cooking, but not every day, and certainly not for more than 4 people at a time. I do love eating, though… like Umm Oviya, it would save a great deal of hassle if I ate to live rather than the other way round… *sigh*
Ah, I grew up with the expectation that women cooked, though my own father had been pretty hands on in the kitchen. I cook regular simple food and enjoy cooking fancy stuff for guests. What I cannot stand is people fussing over food! Each meal need not be a culinary magnum opus. If you do not like a particular veg, eat the dal and pickle and salad, but please don’t crib about what has been made.
When me moved to Kolkata we were in the company guest house for two months, with a really good cook. Apart from gaining two kilos which are refusing to leave me, I realised that I prefer to have kitchen access and cook my own simple khana most of the time.
I like to cook cos I love to eat and I think it’s the best way I can get food to taste the way I want! Husband dearest is not a foodie – in the sense that he likes raw fruits and vegetables to cooked stuff. So no pressure
. We eat what we want when we want.
We have had guests who need packed tiffin – I make curd rice! I just make it look pretty with grapes and stuff and pretend that that’s the most I know to cook.
Very nice post on food and the cooking connection
I love food too but cooking is a different thing altogether although I really admire ppl who are good at conjouring amazing meals..they are a lucky breed..
Lurking quite a bit recently but this post made me comment! I am so glad to find that I am not the only woman who reacts to stuff that is supposed to be “woman’s work”. I like cooking, enjoy baking and am actually a clean freak. But I get completely put off by all these things when I’m told directly or indirectly that it’s my job/duty/whatever
Glad you delurked!