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To cook means to fail..a lot. You are going to have days where you cook lousy dishes. You are going to have patronizing family members mock you. You could hold a day job as a doctor or a Fortune 500 CEO, but you can be made to feel little in the kitchen.
Some can come from people looking to tear you down. It is easy to ignore those. However, sometimes criticism can come from well-meaning loved ones. Children, who are pure in their heart and have no filters, can be ruthless in their feedback. “It tastes yucky”, they easily say, ignoring the hours one spends peeling, chopping, cooking and cleaning. Reading recipe books, watching Youtube videos make cooking seem easy, but translates to many errors in the kitchen when you duplicate them.
Most likely, just like me, you are surrounded by wonderful cooks. My mom, my mother-in-law, my aunts and cousins are my go-to resources for cooking questions. They must be so tired of my out-of-the-blue random Whatsapp cooking questions. Starting with “Hi perimma, how are you? By the way…” And I would hammer away….why do you add green chillies in ‘X’ recipe and not red chilli? What is the difference between thickening stews with rice flour or besan? Why do you soak rice if you are going to dry it anyway before grinding when making fried snacks? And on and on…I am lucky to have patient folks around me who put up with my incessant questions. But not everyone has this resource.
This constant feeling inside that you are the only one who is not able to grasp seemingly simple cooking concepts is not an India-specific problem. My favorite food writer Samin Nosrat asked chefs whether mastering dishes boils down to understanding 4 factors - salt, fat, acid, heat levels in a dish. They were like: “yes, isn’t that obvious?” Guess what, it wasn’t obvious. Her book explaining these basics became a New York best seller and she developed a show on Netflix about it. So, yes, lots of people are hungry to understand the basics of cooking.
I never learned cooking when I was growing up. There was no need to. First of all, I was supposed to be the “studious” one. I was encouraged to focus on my studies and not worry about cooking. Secondly, my mom, my dad and my older sister were all experts in cooking. My chores were to set up the dining table and clean up afterwards. Once I left my home for my Bachelor’s in Engineering degree, I only went back for vacations. And vacations were a sacred time to enjoy my mom’s cooking that I missed terribly. My masters degree, job and later establishing my own family all ended up in different places away from my parents.
Owing to this, I started cooking only at the ripe old age of 22. I did not know the difference between toor dal and chana dal for some time. Dosas would come out tattered when I tried spreading the batter on the tava. Western dishes like pasta and sandwiches seemed more attainable than Indian recipes. I would rather order food from outside than risk humiliation if people visited my home for dinner. I spent a lot of time looking at recipes, but it did not translate into much progress in my cooking abilities.
But, here was the silver lining. I always wondered about the ‘whys’ behind the recipes. Why can’t we cook toor dal along with tamarind? Why are fenugreek seeds added to dosa batter? Why is parboiled rice better for making idlis? My mind would not stop asking these types of questions. If I had grown up with experience in cooking, I think I would have accepted the instruction without worrying about the whys. Looking back, my lack of expertise in the kitchen ended up being a blessing in disguise.
More than 20 years later, I am now a confident cook. Of course, as mentioned above, my family has helped me immensely. Youtube chefs have guided me, recipe books have come in handy. But, over the years, what gave me the most confidence was the knowledge of food science. Looking at recipes from the angle of food science clarified so many of my doubts and questions. I didn't need to watch a recipe over and over again, I just needed to understand the reactions necessary to attain the dish. I could deliver delicious food without overcompensating with fat or sugar. I understand the properties of each food ingredient and why they were treated differently. It felt liberating.
In our family, there is a saying that some people are blessed with a “cooking hand”. A lot of people approach cooking as a passion, putting their heart and soul into it. I think that is wonderful. A few are appalled at the need to break things down in a scientific manner. They feel that it takes away the beauty of cooking. And I understand where they are coming from. But, I am not a very artistic person. I can only make sense out of the world when I understand the science behind the concepts. I trust there are others who want to take a similar path as mine.
With demystifying food in mind, I wrote a blog for 7 years which I folded into this substack. I write regular food science columns for Hindustan Times and I have written for Serious Eats, Truth Be Told and other publications. People often ask me for resources on food science. I always recommend the same starting point that I had - the book “On Food and Cooking” by Harold McGee. The minute I opened that book and saw the detailed science behind each food ingredient, I was hooked. The first edition of this book came out in 1984. There have been revised editions since then. This book continues to be a must-read book among food scientists and chefs to this day, more than 40 years later showcases how valuable it is. I also took courses on food science in which they explained the science of fermentation, frying, desserts, etc. I love this subject. I read all the books I can get my hands on. But, when it comes to Indian food specifically, I found that this is a burgeoning field. Some answers, I had to find them myself.
So, I started experimenting. Every week, I ran trials with a control group cooked the normal way and an experiment group that would answer the whys. I publish my observations here and in my social media channels. I find a lot of people who resonate with this kind of testing. I understand that I am not alone in my search for answers.
This substack is a written version of my learnings so far. I hope this is useful to you. Maybe you are a science nerd like me. Or maybe all you want is a practical guide to get a home cooked meal ready for your family. Or maybe you just started cooking…It does not matter. Whoever is reading this, I hope this blog builds up your confidence to cook, saves you time and clarifies your ‘whys’ in the kitchen. Good luck on your culinary journey!
