WHAT’S THE SECRET OF GRANDMA'S COOKING?
Other than cooking and spinning stories to
mesmerize the grandchildren, Indian grandmas are well known for their cooking.
The key to a delicious lip-smacking dish is the spices that go into making a
dish flavourful and tasty. All of us who have grown up in the 70s and 80s will
vouch for the tasty delicacies cooked by our grandmothers. So, what was their
secret to such impeccable taste and aroma? The lavish spread of daily food or
delicacies for special occasions would stand out each time and leave us craving
for more.
It is said that cooking is more an outpour of
love and passion as an ingredient than anything else. This adage holds to date.
However, the skill involved in the whole process is all about the minutest
detail that is taken care of right from the stage of menu planning. I have
witnessed this time and again during childhood.
Grandma would first sit down to chop the
vegetables or any other raw materials required for the dish on the day. The
blade that cut those vegetables was attached to a wooden plank that would hold
it upright. She would hold the vegetable and chop it up within seconds with
great precision. Her hands worked in a well-synchronized rhythm. To my
surprise, all the pieces would be of the same size! As grandma grew old, the
elders in the house insisted that the chopping task be handed over to the
domestic help. There too, I was witness to the keen observations that she made.
Firstly, the domestic help would be clearly
instructed on the preparations for the cooking. Grandma would almost supervise
her work as a hawk guards its prey. The justification she gave was that unless
the vegetables were finely chopped with care, the food would not be tasty. After
all these years, I realize how true this basic fact about Indian cooking is. Unless
all the vegetables are sized uniformly, the overall cooking time may vary. It
may leave a few bigger pieces undercooked.
Secondly, grandma would insist on the use of spices that are grounded and pounded by hand rather than the grinder we conveniently use these days. She would go to any length to argue that the hand grinding of the spices released their aroma and taste unmatched by a grinder. As soon as she would taste a dish, she would magically come to know how the masalas were done! She justified the use of a sil batta, a huge stone slab uniformly chiselled to create tiny grooves. The spices grounded on this slab intermittently sprinkled with water gave them an in-between texture that was neither too smooth, watery nor rough. At the same time giving out that perfect aroma. She would insist that some particular spices when done on a grinder would become too bitter as the outer covering would also get mixed in the mechanical grinder. I have tasted the difference between dishes done with hand-ground masalas and also with the mixer grinder masalas. There is a vast aromatic difference in both the varieties with more marks on the dish with hand-grounded masalas.
Alas, the time has passed and changed
everything around us for good. Today, the ladies of a household juggle work and
home with exceptional time management skills. Even the cooks who make a living
out of cooking prefer to use a food processor or mixer-grinder. It is not
prudent to stick to the methods prescribed by grandmas of yesteryears when it
comes to cooking. Everything is about time management. Fast-paced life has its
demands. But the taste and aroma of dishes cooked by grandma linger in the
subconscious mind forever.