Sunday, June 09, 2019

From The Tamil Kitchen

The other day, we watched the first episode of Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat. A few months ago, I bought Preeti Mistry's The Juhu Beach Club Cookbook as a gift after reading about her in the NY Times.  And, oh, how can I forget Yotam Ottolenghi or  Nik Sharma or ... This a glorious time for cookbooks and food shows, it feels like.

And there are kitchen gadgets galore.  A few minutes even in a small little kitchen store leaves me dazed, and wondering about my rather primitive kitchen where even the knives are not sharp, very much like me!

Yet, home cooking is becoming equally rare.

Not only is cooking at home a rapidly dying tradition, the foods that people eat are far from healthy--despite all those cookbooks and shows and all the scientific evidence that is touted every day.  Here in the US, and seemingly everywhere.  The global food revolution "has overwhelmed traditional diets pretty much everywhere in the world, and at an astonishing speed. This revolution is making massive numbers of people fat and sick."  I agree that "Cooking isn’t a luxury; it’s a survival skill."

Most of us "traditionalists" who cook at home will agree with this author who writes:
Here’s why I cook:
I like the way that closely following a recipe can alleviate pressure after a long day of having to make all the decisions.
I love how a dish that worked, or a meal that everyone liked, has the power to change my day.
I like that pulling off a good meal when you least expect it is the fastest way to feel victorious, even when real life does not.
I like the way that, even when I’m standing over the stove, cursing the recipe writer who suggested that onions might caramelize in 10 minutes, I’m totally absorbed. I’m not on group texts. I’m not following the outrage of the moment on Twitter. I’m getting a brief, needed respite and refuel from fretting over our democracy or forcibly separated families or any of the other horrible things humans do to one another. 
Indeed.

Well, except the part about "closely following a recipe," which I don't.

Last night, it was a table for four at The Tamil Kitchen ;)  Good times were had without junk food, without recipes, and without complicated gadgetry.  We had salt, fat, acid, sugar.  And laughs.


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