I came across a very interesting post on the Cheskin blog about China’s window to the world. Food.
In China, food is love. Food represents familial ties and status between people: the elderly and most prestigious guests are always served the first and best parts of the dish. Food represents commitment: business deals and marriages aren’t sealed with paperwork but by the opulence of the dinner banquet. Food represents all that Chinese parents feel but aren’t in the habit of saying: parents will spend without limit on fancy packaged snacks to show their love for their little emperors and empresses. And increasingly, food represents China’s window to the world.
As I read it, I thought about how true all that is for India too… Food – familiar, comforting, love, all emotions good and bad, blackmail, memories, anticipation, longing…
Familiar food is what you miss first when you travel to a strange place. And the hunt for smells and tastes that remind you of home…
Food is the pent up love of mothers who have their sons (and daughters) away at hostel. Or in a different country. All anticipation of visits and activity during the visit revolves around food. I have been living away from my parents, in a different city for over ten years now… When I was in hostel, my mom would cook my favorite food on the day I went home in the holidays. And she still does. That first meal then is the ultimate feeling of being at home. Beta, maine tumhari pasand ka gajar ka halwa banaya hai… Yeh lo khao…
Food is comfort – when the chips are down, I turn to basics – comfort food – food from my childhood and the way mother used to make them… vettha kuzhambu for instance is more than food – it is a warm blanket of childhood memories and being reassured by mom’s nearness… a very spicy and tangy blanket but comfort food like nothing else…
Food is the memory of khichdi during illness and sakkara pongal during festivals… Food is also recipes that I never learnt from my grandmother, flavours and smells that I always took for granted.. that are now lost to me forever…
Food is the mirror to the way a city or a society changes and evolves… It is the way slow and sleepy “pensioners’ paradise” Bangalore moved from the Lal Bagh MTR multi-course lazy Sunday lunch stretching for over an hour of ghee soaked bliss, to vacuum packed, ready-to-eat, dosa-wrapped, flyover-infested cybercity… MTR packed foods…
Food is what people remember from a wedding, that friends meet over, that families go out together for, that crosses borders first… Food is that first sign of acceptance – of another person, another culture, another country… Turning vegetarian for a loved one, Jain Italian cuisine, garam masala in Chiniss, sambhar powder in Maggi…
charu – MTR is such a wonderfully comforting bangalore institution, isn’t it? one of the most cherished things we do as an extended family that meets rarely is an annual lunch there. and while it’s true that bangalore has gone into instant-food madness, i think a leisurely sunday spent in basavanagudi (where i am from) or malleswaram can still be a glimpse into the city it was. and i hope we can see you at the Blank Noise meeting on saturday!
I’ve just finished cooking ulli sambhar and bhindi, trying to recreate tastes of home for my husband and myself. Came to my computer to get a rest and saw your post! Just what I was thinking…
chinmayee, yup, MTR is a “comfort” food (product / service)… for ocne you turn your stomach into a bototmless pit and forget about everything else!
Mumbaigirl, I find that I can never recreate tastes of home… whatever I do… even if I follow the exact recipe of my mom’s (which I rarely do – I take shortcuts :))
Lovely post. In the weeks up to our annual trip home my mother is flooded with food requests from my sister and I… sometimes even entire menus are dictated over the phone 🙂
That was a lovely post. I still cant make the vetta kuzhambu the way mom makes it. I find mine so awful that now I stopped making it and wait for my trips home so that mom can concoct it for me. 🙂
Hi Charu
Nice post.
Food is that first sign of acceptance – of another person, another culture, another country… Turning vegetarian for a loved one,
What you said there is very true.
I remember the first summer of marriage. I did not think I would like Indian food too much – I had tried it before and not liked it. But I was open-minded and want very much to learn to appreciate the food of my new wife. And I did like it. It was simple but satisfying food: sambhar and rice, potatoes, yogurt.
She also tried eat some of the things I made. She liked my “chili beans” a vegetarian version of chili with chick peas instead of meat. But one disastorous Thanksgiving turkey made vegetarians out of both of us. 🙂
Shoefiend, I know what you mean 🙂 While I don’t dictate menus over the ohone, I give her a list of the podis I am going to carry back (from the quintessential sambhar podi to molagai podi – the works:)) even my mom in law gets a list beforehand of pickles we want – fiery Andhra stuff!
RT, I make a mean vettha kozhambu but not like mom makes anyways!
Michael, I thought your first date with the wife was at an Indian restaurant? And you did well by beginning with plain home fare like sambhar and potato… 🙂
and i will go to sleep dreaming about the next full course kalyana sapadu. Chenai varuval, vazhakai curry, aviyal, sambhar, rasam, 2-3 more molaghais, appalams…….
“Food is that first sign of acceptance”…. How true. And it makes me go all ssssllurrrrpp !!
Sunil, avial yummmm… I think I was sleepy when I read this first. wondered about chennai varural (ah, namma Madras?) and also more molaghai – the 2-3 more bit 🙂
Chitra, happy going slurrppp 🙂
Hi Charu
Yes, you are right. Of course, I wrote about that just a few weeks ago.
But that wasn’t the first time I ate Indian food. I ate it in St. Louis when my Indian roommate made some. He couldn’t cook at all. His food was just awful. He admitted as much.
So I was a bit apprehensive that my new wife’s cooking skills might be closer to my old India
roommate’s than restaurant quality cooking.
“vettha kuzhambu for instance is more than food – it is a warm blanket of childhood memories and being reassured by mom’s nearness… a very spicy and tangy blanket but comfort food like nothing else… ”
Sonnathu, noothula oru sentence 🙂 I have switched to amma’s sambar powder and molagai podi, even though I can make or buy them. Nothing like amma’s kai manam. The sambar made from her powder has whiffs of amma.
I want my mommy 🙁
My favorite go to sleep food is vanilla ice cream with Herseys choc. syrup. Couple that with a Yanni cd softly playing and you have it made. WBR LeoP