- Vaishali Sethi
Being an Indian make me a part of the
culture where the kitchen is the most happening place in the house. It is one
place where some work is usually happening at almost all times during the day.
Kitchen work generally forms the most important engagement of the home makers and provides employment as well, be it to the lady who comes to clean the dishes or be it the cook or others in similar professions.
Here are a few very striking pointers I came across while my hanging around outside the kitchen at home:
Kitchen work generally forms the most important engagement of the home makers and provides employment as well, be it to the lady who comes to clean the dishes or be it the cook or others in similar professions.
Here are a few very striking pointers I came across while my hanging around outside the kitchen at home:
Ü One must have the right knowledge of the task undertaken.
Imagine a cook who has no knowledge
of what is to be cooked and how. All we can expect from such a person is to
come up with either a brilliant new invention (rarely so) or just some
disastrous, inedible attempted replication of some existing recipe. Remember
the age old joke of people having discovered sugar in place of salt and vice
versa in the dishes they were eating? Imperfect knowledge can only, most likely,
lead to a catastrophe and be extremely bad and harmful for life in general.
Ü Right ingredients in the right quantity and at the right
time.
All of us are well aware of what
might happen if the ingredients of a dish were not added in the right quantity
and proportion. We might just end up having a turmeric and pepper laced ‘halwa’ too sugary or chapatti smeared
with peanut butter. Yuck! In real life also, it is of significant importance
that we add the right components in perfect or near perfect proportions to get
the desired results.
Ü It is all about group work.
We must assess our abilities well in
advance and work accordingly. Just as a single grain of rice or a single gram
seed cannot make an entire meal, it is possible that we are a part of a task that
we cannot humanly bring about alone. Here comes the importance of team work. A
bowl full of rice grains can definitely make a decent meal. A lot many of the
tasks which cannot be accomplished alone can be, by a group.
Ü Ghee-Makhan Laga ke.
Have you ever seen how nasty it smells when the
butter at home is boiled to make Ghee? Butter is tasty, but Ghee has its own
place of pride. It is one thing that is used in the pious rituals like hawans, is a symbol of prosperity and
affluence, and, no doubt, makes the food super tasty. Is this not due to the
tough transformation it has to go through. Rephrasing the age old proverb,
‘Test of heat makes fine ghee’!
Ü Difficulties mustn’t enslave us.
It is the difficult time that makes
a man what he is. Tasting is fine, but can we actually eat the raw batter of a
cake? Not even 1 spoonful, I can bet on it. When the eggs are beaten, and added
to a number of other things and the whole thing is made to shift bowls and
finally made to endure the hardship of 180o C of the oven, what come
out is the sweet smelling cake. The rising of the batter is a sign of triumph
over all the difficulties that all the ingredients have had to face in their
run to be the cake. None of the ingredients has its original entity intact now,
but the awesome unified mass is what makes all of them the equal kings.
Ü Flexibility is the key.
Rigidity is the aspect that can sure
bring upon the downfall of even the mightiest. Those who wish to survive in the
long run must inculcate flexibility. Just as a whole big bottle gourd or a big
round pumpkin cannot be cooked and eaten as a whole and have to be cut into
smaller pieces, it is of paramount importance, that at times we must be willing
to let go of our pride and rigidity to accomplish great goals of life.
(The article was published in a local newspaper, THE MAYUR INFOMAIL, MAY 1-15, 2013)
