Cooking with Love

Summary

The author emphasizes that the essential ingredient in cooking is love, which enhances the cooking process and the resulting dish.

Abstract

In the personal essay "Cooking with Love," the author asserts that love should be the foundational ingredient in any recipe. This love is expressed through a prayer for guidance, which instills humility and gratitude, leading to meticulous preparation and attentiveness in the kitchen. Whether it's ensuring uniformity when chopping onions, delicately handling curry leaves, or beating cake batter by hand at 4 am, the author believes that these acts of devotion infuse the food with a special quality. The essay describes the sensory experiences and the emotional connection that transform the act of cooking into an art form, where each step is performed with care and intention. The author finds joy in the perfection of a risen cake or a well-cooked dish, and ultimately, the food prepared with love is received with heightened anticipation and pleasure.

Opinions

The author believes that prayer before cooking is not superstition but a practice that fosters humility and gratitude, essential for mindful cooking.
Cooking with love involves being attentive to details, such as the size of chopped onions and the treatment of ingredients like garlic, green chillies, and curry leaves.
The act of making cake batter by hand is seen as a solitary, focused ritual best performed without distractions.
The author values the sensory feedback during cooking, such as the fragrance of garlic and green chillies and the visual cue of butter near flying consistency when beaten.
There is a deep satisfaction in achieving culinary perfection, whether it's in the rise of a cake or the flavor of a potato 'ishtu'.
The author holds the traditional view that love is a timeless ingredient that should never be considered old-fashioned or discarded in cooking.
The essay suggests that food prepared with love as its base has a profound impact on the senses and emotions of those who consume it.

Cooking with Love

A Personal Essay

The primary ingredient of any recipe should be love.

Breathe a small prayer before you actually begin cooking something elaborate, difficult, rare or painstaking. Say, ‘God, please guide my fingers and heart while I make this, because I love the person I am making it for, very much.’

Superstition?

No.

I find that all prayers, to whichever God we believe in, teach us humility and gratitude. These cleanse the mind, causing it to pause, and be more careful while cooking. So, I am more attentive while cutting the onions just so, and each the same size as the other. I know that when I crush the garlic and the green chillies together, the fragrance should permeate the room, but they should not be beaten up so mercilessly that they die of shock. I know that before I put in the curry leaves, I need to gently, gently, gently press them within five fingers, so that they just exude aroma, but not break the skin of a single leaf.

I know that beating up cake batter by hand, for that precious Madeira Cake everyone loves, should be done when no one is around to distract you with empty talk and impotent emotions. My ideal time for this is 4 am. I know hat after you beat up the butter, the sugar and the eggs, you need to know when the butter is close to flying when you blow at it, that the alien looking eggs, blend and merge with the grainy sugar, and that when you add in the flour/cocoa/chocolate powder/lemon rind/rum-soaked dry fruits, for whatever miracle you are creating, all of them should run into each other, drunk with their own poetry.

I know the feeling of sheer exhilaration when the cake rises or the meat is cooked to perfection. And the coconut milk, the gently, gently, gently mashed potatoes, the crushed ginger and green chillies and the curry leaves, and virgin coconut oil combine together to make the most ethereal potato ‘ishtu’ you have ever had.

I know how eyes widen, the nose twitches, the fingers itch and the tongue salivates when brought face to face with a platter of food, that has love as its base.

Humility fuelled by prayer and gratitude helps.

Always.

Old fashioned?

Perhaps.

But I would hate to live in a world where love becomes old fashioned enough to be discarded.

I am tagging one of DMTakeshi’s superlative pieces of poetry about her love for dance, and what dance does for her mood and her mind, and her movement:

Cooking with Love

Elusive Dancer

You won’t catch me dancing, much