It was just around 12:00 noon on a Sunday afternoon, and she was doing her homework in her room with full enthusiasm. She had Math, Physics worksheets to complete and she was constantly having doubts about how to solve the mysterious problems. She would run to her brother to solve all her problems. He was her “demi-god” who knew the answers to all her questions.
Suddenly, a beautiful smell seemed to be emanating from the kitchen(or so, she thought) She knew her mom was cooking lunch and there had to be some non-vegetarian dish, since it was a Sunday. What was it? She would soon know… and she continued studying.
Finally, it was lunch time. As she sat down to eat, she was given some rice and some gravy was poured on it. She took one mouthful of it and as her mother looked at her eagerly for compliments – she exclaimed that “It tastes like spicy fish rasam,amma!! :)” All her mother’s dreams of getting good grades from her daughter went down the drain as “meen kozhumbu”(fish tangy gravy) was renamed as “spicy rasam” – which basically means that the gravy was too runny and watery!!
She had just turned 10 then, and …. as the days rolled by, every dish received critical comments.
- The one glass of milk that she had to have in the morning – could neither be too hot nor too cold. It had be the perfect temperature with the correct amount of sugar and health mixes.
- Idli was her favorite and it needed the perfect accompaniment like ‘sambar’. The sambar needed the correct amount of tanginess and taste. Unfortunately for the daughter, the mother found cooking to be a chore and one that she wanted to be done with for the day as quickly as possible! (But does that ever happen with four people in a house?!!)
- Lunch had to be tasty and the gravies that her mother made were expected to be to perfection.The mother always added a lesser amount of salt marring the dish, once too often! 🙂 And boy , was she not pleased!!
- Sending lunch to school was a different ball game altogether. The menu had to be chosen such that they were filling – yet tasty and retained their original appearance by lunch time. Normally when the lunch was packed in the morning(usually, some variety rice) it had solidified by the afternoon!! The daughter would dig her spoon right into the tiffin box – only to get a big blog of rice stuck together!! (Yuck!!)
In summary, Idli, noodles, pasta and biriyanis were her favorite foods. Dosa had to be crispy. Chappathis had to be the perfect circle shape(which the mother had never mastered! :)) Rajma chawal was ruled out as it did not have taste. Egg rice was too dry.
Now coming to biriyanis – she loved biriyanis. The biriyani should not be too sticky and they needed the perfect amount of spice! The biriyani from each restaurant was greatly analyzed. Was ‘Biriyani zone’ better or was it ‘Paradise’? She felt that meat marinated in some restaurants were better than the others. Had the mother mastered the biriyani that she wanted? The daughter thought so…(thankfully! :))
The daughter’s taste buds were in stark contrast to the mother. Where did the daughter get such smart taste buds from, she wondered? Had she inherited it from her grandfathers?
Only when she satisfies the food critic in her house, did the mother think that she will venture into food recipes… until then….it will be the technical blogs which the mother hopes she has mastered! 🙂