On a sunny but chilly afternoon in Amsterdam in 2018, VK and I took two ‘resolutions’. One was to somehow bring Tamil to centrestage in our lives, for despite being Tamilians born and raised in Madras, both of us could not sustain a conversation in Tamil any longer, didn’t know much of Tamil history and literature, and were clueless about current pop culture. The other was to cook every Sunday, inspired, perhaps, by the delicious fare turned out by my school friend, with whom we were staying there.
The Tamil resolution hasn’t worked out that well for me, although VK has had a spectacular learning curve in reading, writing and understanding literary Tamil.
The cooking, though, has stayed on, and this morning I realised how it’s helped me survive these confusing, depressing and still-strangely-enjoyable days of the lockdown.
In the weeks immediately following our 2018 resolution, we would religiously scout for recipes from different parts of India and prepare to cook, with some deliberately chosen music playing in the background, and a drink – a beer, some wine or a cocktail VK would experiment with. I’ve never really been into cooking, but these experiments were fun – in those few weeks, we tried some new Tamil dishes, and Bengali and Telugu dishes we had only eaten at restaurants. We would split up the cooking responsibilities, each one making one dish. Within a few weeks, though, we realised we were novices: most often, the food would be so spicy that we would open the balcony doors to let in the freezing Delhi winter air to cool our pores which seemed to be oozing heat from the spicy food. Often there would be laughter as we scooped in each mouthful, stunned as we were by how, despite following the recipe religiously, we were eating nearly-inedible food.
After a few more such attempts, I decided that we couldn’t continue cooking ‘exotic’ dishes – going back to the basics was a much more realistic option. If I didn’t know when tadka isn’t burnt or how many whistles of cooking toor dal needs, I’d better not be trying fancier stuff. And so for most weekends-in-town in 2019, we attempted simple dal, sabzi, rasam and sambar. As is bound to happen if one cooks once a week, and if one isn’t particularly interested in or talented with cooking, our attempts were mediocre or decent at best. If something turned out well, we were pleasantly surprised ourselves, and mighty pleased. To my absolute happiness, the one dish that I did manage to get right 7 out of 10 times was rasam the way my mother makes it. Tangy and flavourful, with her ‘brand’ of rasam powder. One of the last times we had a couple of friends over, days before the lockdown, I was delighted (and relieved) that the potatoes, lady’s finger, and rasam all turned out well, and the friends didn’t need to have mediocre fare.
Cut to the lockdown, and after a couple of weeks, VK and I figured out our cooking rhythm: breakfast is his responsibility, and lunch/dinner, mine. I don’t know what happened – maybe it’s that cooking wasn’t fun anymore but a necessity – that my cooking just got steadier and better. A few weeks in, I found that instances of extra salt or spice were reducing. That the dal most often didn’t need another round of cooking because I had prematurely opened the pressure cooker. The vegetables were boiled and cooked just fine. My paneer dishes were particularly tasty (even if it’s thanks to MDH spices that VK buys, fascinated). My estimates of spices were, for the most part, good. I was freely tossing them into the wok like an expert cook – ‘look ma, no tsp/tbsp measures!’
As a cooking duo, we graduated to another level in our cooking. We started making rotis. Within 4-5 days, VK had applied science and engineered the dough to get it right most of the time. Another 10 days and his speed of rolling a roti dramatically increased, while I was getting them to fluff up on the stove more often than not. ‘What’s the rate today?’ ‘5 out of 7’ – rotis that I’d made phulka-fy.
I’ve realised, with much amusement, that often I get out of bed thinking of whatever I am to cook that morning (it would have been decided the previous night, to avoid morning arguments or flusters). And that I am reluctant to relinquish the ‘main course’ cooking to VK on days when I’m tired or bored. That I enjoy pretending to know more than him (I do have a head start, but he usually catches up quickly), importantly telling him how big to chop or dice the vegetables, or trying to be the bigger person who doesn’t criticise but asks him questions that make him pause, and then not push my point further. I enjoy my quiet laugh.
All along, food reminds me of this and that, this person and that. One friend’s fondness for the tomato-onion base, another’s delicious potato fry that was a staple during college times. The way one friend cooks some vegetables in the pan rather than in the cooker. Our cook’s deliciously simple khichdi. Practically everything my mother makes. My college friends making fun of my poor cooking skills, or the time one of them laughed so much seeing how I chopped tomatoes.
The reason I write this today is because I woke up agitated, and realised I didn’t want to have cluster beans with coconut, as was decided last night. The last few days have had me preoccupied. Delhi, after all, is sweltering, and possibly facing a locust attack. Several people I knew or knew of are in deep distress of different kinds. I felt I deserved better than bland boiled vegetable.
And so, at the last minute, I decided to switch to paruppu usili, a delicious mix of boiled cluster beans with crumbled toor dal. I looked up measures and then confidently proceeded to make the dish without referring to a recipe. All along, I was muttering the ingredients to myself to make sure I didn’t forget them. Hing, mustard, urad dal, curry leaves, salt. No red chillies, because the dal crumble is spicy. I don’t like tasting food while I eat, but a few minutes before lunch – a few hours after cooking – I tasted the paruppu usili. It was good. The pepper-cumin rasam, not so much.
Today, paruppu usili brought me some peace. I’m still surprised that I haven’t tired of the mechanical-but-also-absorbing process of cooking. I would earlier roll my eyes at people who’d say cooking was easy and anyone can do it – I’d always go, ‘Yeah, easy for you to say’. But now, I want to tell the same thing to others – ‘No, really! If I can do it, I swear, you can too!’