Original link: https://sehseh.substack.com/p/fd4
Text / Sona Yu
When I first arrived in India, I dreamed of having an Indian son. I said, “An Indian son will never leave his mother in his life. There is nothing better in the world than this.”
The extent to which Indian mothers and sons are “connected” with the kitchen once surprised me: male students go to a foreign country (other cities in India) to study, and bring their mothers to Zhangluo’s new kitchen. The mother will bring the necessary spices from home and buy them locally Key kitchen utensils, patrol the market, and teach his son to make tea, rice, bean curry and other basic life-saving dishes. Some mothers will stay for one or two semesters to accompany their sons to study and take care of food and lodging in the humble small suite in the study area. This is the case with the mother of my classmate, Xiaoxiong. Watching the 30-year-old bear in the same room and sleeping in the same bed with his mother, running outside since he was a child, and talking loudly to his mother, I feel quite incredible. The mother who guards the kitchen rarely goes out except to go to the market. Sometimes the son will take his mother on a micro-travel in the new city.
I imagine that this kind of conjoined can “until old age”.
A male teacher in his fifties was having a dinner with more than a dozen classmates. His mother happened to call. While eating, he chatted with his mother in dialect. I could not understand his dialect, but I vaguely understood that my mother was asking about what to eat. What surprised me was that during the conversation, I heard the names of every student present (including myself), and I heard from his tone. Come on, Mom seems to know everyone, who is who and what they are doing. I got a glimpse of the intimacy that the mother and son had talked about for half a century.
I have also seen a 60- to 70-year-old son traveling with an 80- to 90-year-old mother on a train. It took a long-distance train of more than 30 hours. A mother and son quietly watched and shared food. It’s so timeless and moving that I can’t help but burst into this desire.
mother-in-law
However, after being in India for a long time, I gradually understand that there is a scary side behind the moving pictures. For example, what is the situation of Indian daughter-in-law?
Mother-in-law is definitely the dream of most Indian daughters-in-law. Judy, who is a Catholic at home, faced a whole kitchen with kitchen utensils from her Hindu mother-in-law, and her daily concern about food (the mother-in-law is a strict vegetarian and doesn’t even touch onions and garlic), she is completely obsessed with “cooking”. Appetite, fully retreat from the kitchen and hand over the sole responsibility of the maid. She didn’t want to know what was in the fridge, what to cook today, and she didn’t want to command the maid. But she likes to bake cakes, and she is only willing to bake cakes. Years later, when I had the opportunity to spend Christmas at their house, I realized that, oh my, only those cookware in the whole kitchen belonged to “herself”.
Shrimp’s marriage experience can be called a horror movie. She was born into a conservative Hindu family and her marriage was matched through an intermediary. As everyone knows, the man is an only child, and the family of three is very close. In a conservative society, all the husband’s sexual knowledge comes from porn, and the process of doing it is like rape. What’s worse is that the mother-in-law, who is overwhelmed by jealousy, will leave every time their door is closed. Entering the kitchen, scolding loudly while slamming pots and pans with a shrill noise. The kitchen mom never lets herself be absent.
On the forty-fifth day after marriage, Xiaoxi decided to flee. The process of escape was thrilling, and the divorce lawsuit was fought for several years. I had accompanied her to court to see this terrifying mother and son in person. And the divorced Ronaldinho talked about his mother-in-law’s bridal chamber. The mother-in-law only happened to want to learn computer after Ronaldinho got married, and she happened to put the computer in the newlyweds’ room, and she happened to have a lot of questions every night.
The 2021 Indian movie “Sexy Delicious Sin” with the English title “The Great Indian Kitchen” is a good movie to help us understand Indian food and men and women. The plot of this movie is mild, and compared to my friends Xiao Xi, Judy and Ronaldinho, the daughter-in-law in the film is lucky to meet a “great” good mother-in-law.
The story takes place in the southern Indian state of Kerala (Kerala), which is the region with the highest level of female education in India. The heroine is a modern woman who learns to dance. Although her caste is low, she is rich because her family goes to work in the Middle East. Under the arrangement of a marriage broker, she “goes” to a traditional Brahmin family. Her husband is a teacher. The structure of the story is simple: the couple is newly married, the mother-in-law leaves home to take care of the child-bearing daughter, and the modern-educated daughter-in-law takes over all the “great work” from the mother-in-law.
Following the movie, we enter the “sensory world” of women. Their senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste are fully activated in the kitchen: wearing gold and silver and wearing a beautiful sari, the women listen to the slamming of pots and pans, their noses smell the timing of boiling the pot, Holding half a coconut in the palm of his hand, he was grinding back and forth against the vertical scraper. Women’s work is extremely complicated, getting up early to prepare lunch boxes for men, making morning tea, making breakfast, cleaning up the kitchen, cleaning the two-story mansion, laundry, lunch, cleaning up the kitchen, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, cleaning up the kitchen, Evening ceremony. Readers who don’t understand Indian cooking culture can’t really understand what an amazing woman’s job this is. A mother-in-law who can wear a sari and finish her work in a hurry without showing any impatience all day long and without any oil stains on her body, is basically a witch who has become refined.
There is a kitchen/room affair in the film which is very interesting. The newlyweds, who didn’t know each other, had spent the (embarrassing) first night. In the morning, the wife was making tea in the kitchen. The husband hugged him from behind and said, “We don’t have to travel on our honeymoon, it’s our honeymoon now.” The two seem to have turned from estrangement to closeness. The shy wife handed the freshly brewed tea to the husband, and the husband took a sip. The smile instantly froze on his face, his nose wrinkled, and he glared at the wife, who was busy with her hands and asked, “Too hot?” The husband replied He came to his senses, forced a smile, shook his head and said, “It’s okay.” At this time, the wife was pouring a spoonful of Dosa batter into the pan, and spread it into a circle with the bottom of the spoon. He stared at his wife for a long time, with an unbelievable look on his face, and his expression was terrifyingly stern. Frankly, I really don’t see what’s wrong with my wife’s actions.
misery in the kitchen
I once joked to a friend that “the spirit of Indian cuisine is to wear women to death”. The culture of exhausted women grows on the tip of men’s tongues. What they eat is not food, but women’s labored bodies and women’s “hard work”.
Indian food emphasizes fine workmanship. Those that should be diced are always cut into square cubes of uniform size. The shredded ones are definitely filaments. The higher the caste, the more emphasis on handicraft. That’s why modern technology can’t get into the traditional mansion, and it can’t help the busy woman in the kitchen.
After the mother-in-law left home, the daughter-in-law was in charge of the kitchen. The cumbersome housework made her use a machine for a while. She used a cooking machine to smash the coconut. Unlike her mother-in-law who used firewood to cook rice, she chose a gas stove, and her father-in-law could eat without the smell of firewood. Men eat hot pancakes fresh from the pan, so women have to run back and forth between the kitchen and dining room while people eat, counting the time and putting the hot pancakes in everyone’s pan before they finish a slice. on the plate.
This smart daughter-in-law used a heat preservation pot, and put the freshly fried rice cakes in the heat preservation pot and served it at one time, but the husband lightly touched the cake with his hand and said lightly, “Give me a warmer one.” , the wife had to go into the kitchen again.
It is absolutely impossible for a family to sit down and eat together in a good family like India. When people eat, women don’t even have time to take a breath, pancakes, refills, dishes, and tea.
Isa, the ex-wife of my dissertation advisor, was a feminist and couldn’t stand the food culture. Although she went to her in-law’s house for dinner because the guests could come to the table and eat together, she couldn’t sit still. Eating slices of hot cakes, whether it was Dosa from South India or Roti from North India, she felt that what she swallowed was not food, but centuries of oppression on women. So…they also got divorced.
Most of the modern Indian women I know who are pursuing freedom and liberation have an inexplicable rejection of the kitchen and cooking. The body seems to understand that the kitchen is the prison, cooking is the discipline, and freedom starts from staying away from the kitchen.
My Indian friends love coming to my house for dinner, whether I cook Indian or Taiwanese food, they say it’s delicious. So people often say, “Tell me a few simple recipes!” At first, I would carefully think about how to write a recipe so that it would be easy and easy to operate. These modern women are willing to go into the kitchen to cook, but no matter what recipe I put How easy it is to make, everyone will give up at most once. Later, I also figured out that it wasn’t the recipe that was the problem, but the body’s refusal. It is not so easy to get rid of the constraints of the centuries. When I meet someone who wants a recipe in the future, I will always say, “It’s better to have a recipe for cooking. Your body needs to do it and be willing to work.”
The joy of cooking
In fact, the dishes I make are not at all comparable to the cooking of their mothers at home. I am a rough cook. I cut vegetables neatly, seasoned and casual. The same dish tastes different every time. What people love is the one-of-a-kind free kitchen in my house and the ease with which everyone can enjoy a good meal together.
Gradually, Sonayu became a famous little cook in the circle of friends.
One day, a friend came to hear that Anumitra Ghosh, one of the top 20 famous chefs in India, happened to be invited to Delhi for a wedding banquet and wanted to come to my house for dinner. Overly panicked, I declined because of the inconvenience at home that day, and made an appointment with the famous chef at another friend’s house instead. Anumita is queer, and Edible Archives, a restaurant she and her girlfriend run in Goa, is frequented by celebrities and famous writers. I also follow their Facebook and IG a lot. Anumita has studied arts in Thailand and Japan, and her food blends Indian, East and Southeast Asian styles. Specializing in local ingredients, especially India’s diverse rice grains. Although her food is not grandstanding, it is not too high or low.
She had just woken up when I arrived. He sat lazily on the sofa with eyes wide open. She was as short and stout as Ganesha, with the solid arms of a cook and the calves of a martial artist. It is said that she dismembered 82kg of fish and 45kg of chicken a day when she was a teacher in Thailand. She started to startle me, her voice was very delicate and soft, I couldn’t tell whether it was like a woman or a baby, more like a delicate doll.
We chatted all afternoon, about food, cooking, ingredients, and cooking for others. Her cuisine pursues creation, but creation must have a foundation. She said, “I believe that the cuisine of eastern India is connected with Southeast Asia and East Asia, and many grammars are similar.” Grammar, yes, Grammar, is the source of creation, She said, “Cooking is all about mastering that grammar. If you can’t master it, it means you won’t know anything.”
When chatting, she seemed to be able to taste the food in her heart through words and imagination, her eyes were half-closed, and she said, “Come on, come on, come to Goa to find us, we don’t do anything all day. , just chatting, meditating, thinking, what to do, go to the kitchen and do it. This is the best vacation!”
I was extremely happy. It turned out that in India, it was possible to find a “woman” who achieved “freedom” in cooking.
Cook what you like, don’t give up
I shared with Anumita: “During the lockdown period, I lived alone, and I really enjoyed cooking and eating alone. Before going to bed every night, when I was half-dreaming and half-awake, I was thinking about what to eat. If I actually did it, it would be a ‘dream come true’. Otherwise, Cooking those repetitive Chinese dishes for friends is also a little boring.” She said, “When cooking for others, you must not think about what other people like, you must not do this, you will become a housewife. You have to think about what you want to do.”
A few days later, a few friends were invited to dinner at home. This time, I heeded Anumita’s advice and resolved not to make the delightful braised pork, pineapple prawn balls, and kung pao chicken so thick it was so watery that it almost turned into curry. After calming down, the “moistening cake” appeared in my heart, and I felt a sense of certainty. I’ve never made a pancake for Indians, not sure they would like it.
India can’t buy moistened pie crust, so I used my favorite South Indian sweet fermented rice pancake “appam” instead. Carrot shredded cabbage, fried chicken with garlic sprouts, shrimp fried with bean sprouts, fried bean sprouts, scrambled eggs, peanut sesame powdered sugar, coriander and Abang. This meal, from preparation, cooking to finishing, was satisfying. Surprisingly, my friends loved it very much and called it “forever unforgettable”. After tea and dinner, I remembered that the Qingming Festival was approaching, and the cake was the favorite of my grandfather before his death. I really miss my grandpa~
After that, I often said to my friends, “The exchange of food, whether it is really eating or just chatting, is the exchange of souls.”
And in the end, did Sonayu eat the dishes of famous chefs that afternoon?
Yes, Anumita said that she was too tired and gave Sonayu the “leftovers” from the previous day, bean curry with lemon and yogurt stewed fish curry, both very light and refreshing. It’s easy to make Indian food heavy, and it’s really hard to make it light and delicious. However, Anumita’s recipe has to ask readers to wait, and Sonayu will definitely learn a thing or two to teach you in the future.
Today, I’m going to provide you with the method of making “Apeng”.
Abang is a household staple in Kerala, South India. The delicious fermented rice cakes are crispy on one side and soft on the other. They taste a bit like pancakes with thin white sugar cakes. The taste is very charming and you will never forget them once you eat them. People usually eat it with local coconut milk fish or shrimp curry, and Thai coconut milk curry is also suitable. I also like eating it alone. After seeing how everyone understands the “grammar”, I thought about it.
A touch (for five persons)
1. Preparation
(1) Soak two cups of rice (raw rice) for four hours,
(2) Half a cup of cooked rice,
(3) 1/2 teaspoon dry yeast,
(4) a cup of coconut milk,
(5) 4 teaspoons of sugar.
2. Mix uncooked rice and cooked rice, add half a cup of warm water, and grind into fine rice paste with a food processor.
3. Put the yeast in a cup of warm water, add a teaspoon of sugar, and let it sit for ten minutes to activate.
4. Mix the rice paste, coconut milk, yeast and sugar, and ferment for 3-4 hours, until you can see foaming.
5. Pancakes: In South India, there is a small pan (a small round-bottomed pan with a diameter of 20 cm) specially made for Abang. If you have similar kitchen utensils at home, it is ideal. If you don’t have it, you can also try it with a round-bottomed wok at home. Heat a pan (without oil), put a scoop of rice batter in it, rotate the pan, spread it out into a circle, thin on the outside and thick on the inside, cover the lid (if you use a frying pan, it is better to find a smaller one than the frying pan lid) 20cm in diameter is ideal), turn to low heat, and use the steam of the rice cake to steam the side of the rice cake facing upwards. Open the lid, bake the bottom to crisp, drip some oil around the edges, and remove from the pan.
Read the full article: Can you find women who are free in the kitchen in India?
About the Author｜ Sonayu (a reader and writer who likes to live and make friends in India)
Subscribe to the Walk Around Newsletter and we’ll deliver:
[Members only] Go original: a good story that others have not written yet
An Evening News Every Day: A selection of daily news summaries for you
Weekly Newsletter: Good articles from around the world you may have missed
A Weekly Note: A Weekly Guide to Online Activities
【Exclusive benefits for other members】» See here
This article is reprinted from: https://sehseh.substack.com/p/fd4
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.