COOKING - AN ART

 FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:

  

 

COOKING – AN ART AND SCIENCE

 

Cooking - a science, art, and creative craft, especially Indian cuisine - is exceptionally diverse and many items incredibly delicious and delectable line up. Perhaps, India is home to a food wide-wonderland with a large number of edible items.

 

Here, I don’t intend to deal with any recipe or the know-how of cooking different meals but would like to dwell on the psychological, emotional, and empirical aspects thereof more than the physical ones.

 

Nothing else other than food leaves an everlasting effect on our taste buds. This behaviour of food makes it remembered as an art as well as a science; it is also like physical and chemical engineering blended together. Cooking is again synonymous to taste. No wonder, the versatile nature of cooking and the impact and imprint that it has on our senses make it one of the most influential arts human life has ever known.

 

A beautiful artwork appeals to only one sense (seeing), and a live show of music appeals to two senses (hearing and seeing), but cooking impacts all five senses - the way the food is prepared and arranged on a table and the way food is tasted, it impacts our hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling; hypothetically, it has left a greater footprint on the dinners and diners; thus, it is a greater form of artwork. Food is globally a basic necessity. Of course, some food items are tastier while being hot while others are after the heat is gone.

 

Husbands (and other male members of the family), maybe, you are breadwinners but wives (and other female members of the family) are the tastily-dressed bread providers. In this context, the usage of the word ‘Annadaata’ assumes importance. In India, we have a food-provider Goddess ANNAPOORANI.

 

The cook should keep all the input materials around the stove or oven even before burning it to make the cooking process fuel-effective, easy and ready-to-mix, and time-saving.

 

One of the clans that go unappreciated is perhaps the cook. Eaters, please remember, your appreciation will not only be a morale booster but also an energizer and shot-in-the-arm for the cook (mostly wives or in some cases, the husbands) enabling you to get food items more and more delicious than before.

 

Perfection is doing the same thing again and again in the same or in a little improvised way but achieving better results every time. This squarely applies to cooking also.

 

In addition to putting the necessary tangible ingredients and inputs while cooking, if you profusely pour intangibles like your love, affection, care, attention, sympathy, and empathy, the output will be richer and more palatable to your family members and loved ones. The proverb ‘Better pay the cook than the doctor’ drives home the point.

 

A cook presses a few cods (grains) of boiling rice to be able to declare that the whole pot of cooked rice is ready to be served. Remember the Tamil proverb ‘ஒரு பானைக்கு ஒரு சோறு பதம்’. 

 

Combination or mixing of things does the trick in cooking. It is important how long to boil, how long to roast and to which level, how, to what extent, like what, when, and much or more, to mix different things and how to proceed further - all these go to make the food yummy!

 

As an Indian culinary artist, you will master the art of Indian cooking as you deal with food grains, pulses, millets, grams, fruits, vegetables, etc., You will also master how to mix and blend, and flavour dishes beyond anything your kitchen would have ever witnessed before. In what proportions the inputs are mixed and further processed hold the key to churning out palatable items.

 

Sweet (இனிப்பு), sour (புளிப்பு), salty (உவர்ப்பு), bitterness, piquant (கசப்பு), pungent, alkali (காரம்) and astringent (துவர்ப்பு), among others, are the important tastes a cook has to work with.

 

The proportion of spices really matters. Indian spices have specific properties and flavour; so, if you add too much or too little, the dish can end up tasting bland and get washed out, or become too strong and almost inedible.

 

Taste/aroma-enhancing and enriching things/powders like Coriander, Cumin, Garam Masala, Asafoetida, Turmeric, Lavang (Clove), Elaichi (Cardamom), and Red/Green Chilies are important, among others.

While cooking is an art, patiently articulating the recipe and know-how of different food items to others (for which today we have many social media portals including TV and Radio) is a special and intellectual art.

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The following sayings are noteworthy in regard to cooking, serving and eating:

 

Food tastes better when you eat it with your family.

Eating is a necessity but cooking is an art.

Cooking, some claim, is truly an act of love.

Cooking is love you can taste.

 

To quote Craig Claiborne “Cooking is one of the simplest and most gratifying of the arts, but to cook well, one must love and respect food.”

 

Sophia Loren said, “The most indispensable ingredient of all good home cooking: Love for those you are cooking for.”

 

The idiomatic expression “something is cooking’ (meaning that ‘something / plot / conspiracy’ is happening behind the back/scene” is interesting.

 

 

(R.SAMPATH)

23/2/2023