Cooking For The Senses: A personal And Very Relatable Phenomenon

A Wholesome Experience of Joy, Health and Satiation

Cooking is a wonderful alchemy that combines centuries of the human experience of touch, smell, sight and taste and infuses this experience into our physical selves. It feeds the stomach, nourishes our body and enriches the soul.

A Foodbank of Emotional Memories

When I think of cooking, the first thing that comes to my mind is the smell of the kitchen.The smells and sounds of the rasoi (hearth)which always find their way into the other rooms, and so it was customary when lounging in the living room to get a whiff of heated tempered oil, inhale the sharp pungency of onion seeds, turmeric, mustard, cumin or coriander, and hear the sighs, splatters and bubbles signaling that the afternoon’s meal was on its way to the table. The effect on my appetite was instantaneous; stomach rumbling in eagerness, I would gravitate towards the source of the sensory onslaught, linger at the kitchen counter and inspect the wonders that lay inside the covered serving dishes, steaming the outside steel surfaces.

A tradition of sensible food served with love

Over the course of the day, that smell permeating the house altered subtly to reflect the change in the menu for the night’s meal; the lavishly prepared, wild and leafy aroma of a delightful vegetarian lunch packed with exotic spices all sourced locally would be replaced with a much simpler light meal for dinner or comfort food as one would say. This light meal, prepared with the simple wonders of garlic, ginger, mustard seeds, garnished with fresh coriander and dollops of ghee (clarified butter).

There was also a change in the starchy accompaniment – rice in the day time would invariably be replaced by rotis (flat round wholewheat bread, a staple in some parts of India). All this would also be accompanied by our grannies telling us about the magic of ‘ghee’ on the gut and the digestive process. While lovingly spreading some of it on our rotis and nudging us to have  more of it.

Does Moving Away from a Comfort Zone also Mean Leaving Behind Comfort Food?

When I moved out from my parental home, my own cooking journey was very different or rather absent from what I had experienced growing up – something a lot of people experience when they leave their nest.

With a full-time job to attend to, my cooking experiments were kept only for special occasions or lazy weekends or quick breakfast fixes restricted to shakes , fruits, juices, salads packed with local seeds and traditional superfoods and the like.

With my growing love for naturopathy attracted me to  raw foods or foods with minimal processing involved.I drifted  towards boiled, raw or blended meals which are nutritious and locally sourced and seasonal. I mostly stuck to  tiffin services strictly of home made food variety sourced from a neighbourhood aunty who could cater to my zero tolerance for chillies and it took care of my daily requirements for nourishment. It was adequate – but something essential had been lost, or transmuted, in the process of leaving my childhood home and its traditions. The smells and tastes, the sight and the touch around cooking seemed present, but screened off from me by a thin translucent barrier of practicality and time constraints

Food nourishes just the body or even the soul?

With the passage of time, and the changes and the house moves that followed as a single person, my sensory delights around cooking and experiencing home food has changed too – except during those festive occasions or invitations to a traditional meal by family or friends is such a delight.

Experiencing food not just as nourishment but as an experience, that nourishes the soul when enjoyed with people you love. The key ingredient is love and who all join you while you eat at the table. Most days I  sit only at the table to partake in the outcome. The rest of the days and nights are divided between home made tiffin catering to my simple ghee laced palette, reheating leftovers – and of course, scrolling through the ubiquitous Instagram cooking reels of old unearthed traditional foods. They make it seem all too easy. But traditional, seasonal and local foods are a labour of love and full of healing properties.

I long to smell, touch, see and taste these wonderful, beautifully plated morsels from up close.

Food is Love

For me cooking is more than just food put through a process of heat, it’s a labour of love. Reality is most of us are not doing this labour.

Having lost touch with our traditional foods in the current packaged food and take out culture plus  not to forget food on the go. The senses don’t get satiated and it just becomes fuel for the body rather than an experience and most times isn’t even nourishing.

Plus for singletons like me it just seems like too much work to cook for just one person.

Cooking  food and the way it’s consumed and with whom is of great importance.

When you cook with love it changes the nature and flavour of food. Till more people join my table I long for that extra dollop of not just ghee but oodles of love with each serving of our basic needs. Food and love.

Real Comfort in Food

So cook with joy, eat for the gut and not the tongue.

After all as our traditions say “You are what you eat”.  With dollops of  ghee and love at the table in the company of loved ones exchanging laughter and making memories that turn into beautiful traditions.

As I write this I get a whiff and whistle of food being cooked next door and I wonder what’s cooking, and  not just on the stove but when its consumed too, hopefully with love.

May all our dining tables always be blessed with good traditional, local and seasonal food. May the laughter of loved ones always add  more power and energy to the food.

May cooking and eating be a wholesome experience with someone to share food with and exchange love as we eat. That’s what makes it a soul nourishing experience.Now that’s comfort food and so much more.