Nerve Endings Firing Away

It is early fall and summer has already made an exit. The leaves haven’t yet begun changing their color and the surroundings are still sultry with occasional cloudbursts and frequent hurricanes. A trip, few weeks back to the nearest big airport during the afternoon and you would see hordes of Indian students disembarking, telling you that fall is indeed here. Befuddled looks with expressions almost crying aloud with desperation and fear are most common but the others with fake uber cool attitudes are not uncommon too. But no matter where they hail from, the most common attribute is the near inability to cook a decent meal. Pampered and protected souls, who never have ventured within a mile’s radius of the kitchen, suddenly are faced with the daunting task of cooking their own meals. Cooking is not the biggest problem but eating that cooked food is a Herculean task.

Much like the first plunge off the bridge with the bungee cord, eating the first morsel is pretty frightening. To top it all, you have at least 3 other people waiting for you to take the first bite to see if the food is palatable or just plain “frothing at the mouth” kind. But it isn’t really that bad. Of course, the famed “maa-ke-haath-ka-khana” taste is missing and all your veggies taste the same. It doesn’t take a certain Mr. Holmes to figure that out since the recipes are similar, be it bhendi or aloo. It takes at least a year to understand that the secret to cooking is not what you put in but rather what you don’t. Dumping all the possible spices that your mother packed for you in small 1-kg packets is not the way to go. You make a bigger mess in cooking than a horny teen on Ecstasy ever would. The real pain is in clearing the mess after you done with your sub-standard cooking and you have managed to push down that stuff with gallons of Coke. One ex-roomie had the “bright idea” of taking a waffle that he had heated in the morning, for lunch. Little did he know that certain things taste better when hot and fresh. The stone-cold hard waffle could have killed any unsuspecting soul when he hurled it in anguish. Eating out is ruled out after the dollar-rupee conversions. A mere sandwich that will only act as an appetizer for Rs.200 almost instantly kills hunger (Don’t convert is the lesson I have taught first to any newcomer).

But then, not everything is that dreary. You learn slowly, graduating from anda-bhurji to aloo ki sabzee and can cook a definitely delectable bhaingan ka bharta, chhole masala, and chicken curry. You discover exotic ingredients and soon, you are inventing recipes that actually taste good. Your ego takes a massive boost and you challenge your mom’s cooking which is only grounded at your first trip home and countless days of cooking. Frustration can reach dizzying heights when you almost want to get married for the heck of someone else cooking for you. But then you slowly sober down (thankfully) in the morning. The guy who said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach never learnt to cook. Guys, imagine this; your wife will never be able to threaten you with starvation if you learn to cook. See, now it does make sense, doesn’t it? Everything does if you see things with the correct lenses.

Why the sudden interest in cooking meals when abroad? Check out this story in the Slimes [via Yazad]. Counseling for admission was just the first step in spoon feeding. Today’s bacchas want everything on a platter (literally!) and in an instant. Whatever happened to learning through experimenting? Making a mess and barely-tolerable food may not be fun but gives you enough to laugh about later when you are a gourmet chef.

Buy yourself a bunch of CDs and tapes with the money you would give to the cooking-tutor. It will give you good company as you cook another meal after a tiring day at school/work. Trust me, if I can learn to cook [the hard way], anyone with a faint interest in food can.