Food, Made With Love.
Some feelings are easier to serve on a plate.
“Have You Eaten?” Is Sometimes Another Way of Saying “I Care”
Growing up, food was a highly discussed topic. One meal followed another, and with it, planning and discussing the next meal.
Some people say “I love you.” My parents cook as a sign of affection. Sudden chocolate cakes, prawn fritters, cheesy chicken kebabs and so much more. My gallery is 80% food at this point in time.
I think my gratitude towards them cooking amazing meals surged when I turned 25 and started living alone. I cooked. Horribly. The rice was always par-boiled, I called it al-dente as if rice was pasta’s third cousin. My dal lacked a certain flavour, and the chicken I cooked somehow tasted like seafood. I don’t know how I was able to achieve that till this day.
But soon cooking took over a part of my soul. I did my 100 days of practice.
I started whipping up dishes watching YouTube videos, Instagram reels, recipes as directed by my talented parents and lo and behold I started cooking what I can only describe as ‘Amazing’. Not to brag, I don’t just cook for survival.
Living alone also allowed me to notice one common question asked everyday by my mother — “Did you eat?” And I kept pondering on how food becomes a quiet showcase of affection.
Affection isn’t always verbal.
- Someone cutting fruit for you.
- Making coffee exactly the way you like it.
- Saving the crispy piece because they know it’s your favourite.
- Mom asking whether you’ve eaten instead of saying she misses you.
Food transcends boundaries. And cooking for someone or being cooked for is a whole other level of initimacy.
Cooking Requires You to Notice People
Our tastebuds are different. Not biologically, but in the way we perceive a particular taste. I might love the mouth feel of a decadent coconut curry while you might be visibly choking on the same.
Cooking for someone else makes you notice their likes and dislikes and remembering those tiny details.
- She likes the pomegranate in the curd rice
- He hates anything coconutty especially if there’s pieces of coconut in it
- He loves vanilla tea cakes
- She likes her sweet to not taste overtly sweet
There’s something intimate about knowing someone’s preferences without needing to ask anymore. It takes a lot of time, presence and observation to get to know these details but it’s worth it.
The first time I cooked for my closest guy friend he said “स्वाद तो है तुम्हारे हाथ में” that translates literally to “There is definitely taste in your hands.”
For people who are from a different geography, in South Asian culture, people believe that good cooking isn’t just about following a recipe or using the right ingredients; it is about the zaika (flavor) or barakat (blessing) in a specific person’s hands.
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When someone says this to you, they are saying you are a naturally gifted cook.
Sometimes love is knowing exactly how much spice they can tolerate.
Food Carry Memories
Some dishes stop being ‘just food’ because we attach it to a person, a place or a particular period in your life.
There’s a specific fish curry cooked with nigella seeds, ginger, turmeric and green chilli that makes me think of my mom. It’s an incredibly simple dish. But the smell and taste immediately makes me think of her. It can make me homesick even when I wasn’t 5 minutes ago.
Then there are foods that carry entire places with them.
I associate dahi vada with Bangalore. Lentil balls drenched in decadent, flavoured yoghurt and chutney, one bite takes me back to Rameshwaram Cafe, sitting with my friends as they savour their plates of dosa. The memory isn’t only about food anymore. It’s about Bangalore, my friends, that table and that particular version of my life.
And sometimes, I create the memory by cooking for someone.
I have cooked quite a few meals for my nearest and dearest. My favourite so far has been the chicken with mashed potatoes & grilled veggies cooked for Rie, Indian-style egg cury and rice for Khush, fragrant pulao with paneer cooked for my mother.
Once a dish has a person attached to it, making it years later might still make me think, I made this for Rie once.
That’s the beautiful thing about food.
We think we are collecting recipes, when sometimes we are actually collecting people, places and little pieces of our lives.
The Effort and Consideration Behind Cooking
Cooking involves deciding what to make, buying ingredients, chopping, waiting, tasting, adjusting and then cleaning up the absolute disaster you’ve created.
And after doing all that, we casually put the plate down and say:
“Try this.”
The person receiving it may only experience the meal. The person cooking knows everything that went into it.
Maybe that’s why when someone cooks for me it feels like I have won a lottery. Think about when somebody cooked specifically for you.
Not restaurant food.
Not ordering something together.
Something they actually made because you were going to eat it.
A close friend of mine cooked an entire spread from scratch, all by himself, because I told him once that I loved the flavour of pesto and I enjoyed aglio-e-olio.
There’s a subtle difference between:
“I made pasta.”
and
“I made that pasta you like.”
That “you like” is essentially the whole essay.
Years later, we may forget the conversations we had around a table. But we somehow remember tastes. The late night microwave cake we baked. The pav bhaji that took me 3 hours to cook and exactly 15 mins to eat. The thing a friend cooked terribly but insisted we finish.
Perhaps that’s why I enjoy cooking for people. Food gets eaten, plates get cleared and recipes change. But somehow, the people stay attached to them.
So if I ever cook for you, just know there’s a lot of love on the plate. And hopefully, the right amount of salt.
