Science behind the art of cooking

There are a couple of things about cooking. A melange of spices doesn’t make a dish. Just dumping an unreasonable number of spices makes the dish pungent. Every vegetable has its own flavour. Some vegetables need to be cooked more, some less, some need sautéing, some frying, some steaming, some braising, some pickling, some roasting. Chopped, diced, julienned, shredded, grated, slivered or ground. A recipe demands items, method, and technique. Above all, the person who cooks must have a good SQ (smell quotient) and TQ (taste quotient).

A simple veg curry can be made by just tempering it, adding the right amount of salt and cooking al dente. Cooked with salt, for just the right time, trapping the natural aromas of the ingredients in it, can make the simplest of the dishes heavenly. I have seen my mom, my grand mom, my aunts etc, cook and have also learnt a few recipes from them. I am no food connoisseur, but I have learnt to enjoy the finer nuances of some dishes.

There are ladies who can brew up mind-blowing recipes which taste delectable. When the mind visualises the dish, the tongue senses the tastes and flavours, the nose gets the whiff, the ears hear the crunch, hiss and the sizzles, and when the eyes see it, that is when a dish is born.

My great granny’s cooking

My great grandma would cook every dish by mere approximations. Just by looking at the dish she would know the amount of salt, which she would add with her bare hands. She would know the dish is ready, even without tasting it. She would dish out finger-licking, lip-smacking, ambrosial, gourmet food. This kind of cooking requires a different level of intelligence, aesthetic sense, patience and practice.

Looking at the science aspect of the food we eat, one tries to apply what we learnt at school, that we need to eat a balanced diet. Steaming retains the vitamins, frying kills certain nutrients. Which foods are rich in iron or calcium? What can we take with spinach to enhance the absorption of iron? Having innumerable questions, doubts, thoughts and after countless google searches, one is still left perplexed.

But weekends are cheat days and eating out is a pleasure. There are a few age-old restaurants which serve their authentic or signature dishes which cannot be replicated. After having tried to make the dish at home, one always ends up saying, “It still doesn’t taste that way!” probably we lack the TQ and SQ that the original recipe demands.

It is very difficult to make delicious food when one is in a bad mood. For no fault of the person, the dish might get burnt, there could be spilling, or one might drop the whole casserole, leading to kitchen disasters. Cooking is an art which requires presence of mind and tranquillity, only then can a masterpiece be produced.

Food is very cultural too. There is a lot of cooking when there are festivals. Food brings people together and people associate various food items to varied festivals, countries and societies.

It is not essential that one makes multiple dishes. One dish is more than enough if it is tasty. A family that eats together has happy memories of mealtime be it lunch, dinner or teatime. It automatically becomes fun time.

The art and science of cooking is not easy, but it comes naturally to some and some like me struggle to cook. I suppose one needs to define struggle too. “I’m too serious to be a dilettante and too much a dabbler to be a professional.”