Anatomy of a kitchen, the heart of the house
THE WHISTLE OF THE PRESSURE COOKER TEACHES ONE TO LET THE STEAM OFF. TIMECONSUMING RECIPES TEACH ONE HOW PATIENCE IS THE CHIEF INGREDIENT NEEDED TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS
S ounds strange, but it’s a bitter sweet fact. The muscular frame of a wrestler owes its tenacity to the kitchen. The ‘dollay-shollay’ (biceps) and six-pack abs of a bodybuilder may be shaped in an akhara (a traditional gym) but they draw their strength from the hearth.
The position that the ‘health factory’ (kitchen) enjoys in a house is equivalent to that of heart in a body; with the former cooking up micro-nutrients for the body and latter pumping it to its last cell.
A writer rightly says, “The heart of the home beats in the kitchen and a healthy one beats three times a day.”
Like a sacred thread, the kitchen keeps the beads of a family rosary united. Stuffed paranthas are not simply a piece of bread but a fountain of a mother’s love for her kids, a sister’s for her brothers and a wife’s for her husband. The centuries old adage that a way to man’s heart is through his stomach needs to be altered a bit. It does not go through the stomach, it rather routes through the kitchen. This is the reason why a newly-wed bride, and of late the groom, is first sent to the kitchen to cook something sweet before she takes charge of the house she steps in. After all, sweetness in relations brews from the kitchen.
With the kitchen offering ‘tasty’ lessons, it is no less than a university that hands out a recipe for worthwhile living. The whistle of the pressure cooker teaches one to let the steam off. Time-consuming recipes teach one how patience is the chief ingredient needed to achieve success. The sprinkling of a palmful of cool water to tame the milk that gushes out of the pan offers a lesson in cooling surging anger in relations with sweet words. A wellgarnished plate of salad shows how life can be become colourful if one sketches the portrait of life with the pencil of noble deeds and brush of good actions. The mysterious lesson that ‘kheer’ holds is that a strong and lasting bond in relations can be established only by dropping one’s ego and releasing sweetness.
Modern kitchens have become gender neutral. With both men and women enthusiastically participating, the old stereotype ‘men for the field, and women for the hearth’ has changed.
A kitchen has metamorphosed into a melting pot of cultures that promises taste and health. But alas, of late this river of health has fallen prey to junk food. Many varieties of fast food have edged out traditional delicacies. The trend to peck on fast food has changed the traditional character of a kitchen from a health-provider to health-destroyer.
It is sad that the kitchen faces a threat from the small screen. Modern sop operas have turned kitchens into hubs of conspiracies where evil plots are cooked up and executed. This must stop as a kitchen is what makes a house a home.