Women and cooking – An eternal saga

 

Women and cooking – An eternal saga

 

 

Drenched in sweat, I emerged from the kitchen after a long-drawn cooking session. The whirling fan did little to provide me some respite. Only when I sat in front of the AC, did the cold draft from it fan my face and made me heave a sigh of relief! This is a daily routine for women, not just once or twice but thrice a day, and I am no exception to it.

Summers in India can get onto one’s nerves and who knows it better than the quintessential Indian woman! She spends hours in the front of the cooktop in the sweltering heat with no fan support, as if the fan is turned on, the flame dances and increases the cooking time further, thus leaving her with no choice but to uncomplainingly sweat it out!  It is a quiet unsaid rule in almost all households in India, that the woman of the house is responsible for the cooking. For the homemakers, the kitchen defines their lives and for the officegoers too there is no escaping.

I enjoy cooking, more than the regular food, I like experimenting with various dishes even though it means spending several hours in the kitchen. Well for some, it is indeed fun, but for most women, it is just a mundane task, which they go through reluctantly, each day of their life, for as long as they physically can. There are certain mornings when even I do not want to leave bed to prepare breakfast and certain evenings when the setting sun lures me to stay in the balcony and enjoy the view along with the cool breeze but then thought of the waiting and expectant hungry faces of my family, pushes me towards the kitchen. I can well imagine how it must be for other women who detest cooking!

Cooking is therapeutic for me. It brings a kind of peace and calm over me but what annoys me is the amount of time it takes for me to dish up interesting meals. Since cooking is a good time for thoughts to cloud my mind, a curious question popped up today. I wondered how many hours an average Indian woman spends in the kitchen. This led me to look up the internet and the results were astounding!

As per the reports, an average Indian woman spends around 14 hours a week in the kitchen which is the highest in the entire world. This of course is the average as when I look at myself, I spend about 4-5 hours a day, adding up to 28-35 hours a week!!!!!!!!! Phew!!!! Another study revealed, women spend up to 18 years of their entire life in the kitchen. Isn’t that quite a number!

With advancing time, more and more husbands are helping their wives in the kitchen, but the numbers are far from impressive. A kitchen is still considered a woman’s domain, no matter if she brings in the money too. She can hire a cook with the money she earns but even then, deciding the menu, stocking provision, supervising the cook, and serving food to the family, is still her job. The children will invariably go to their mother if they are hungry. She is the nurturer, and that role has stuck to her even if she no longer desires to don that hat!

I know so many women who do not enjoy cooking at all. They are fantastic in their professional life but terrible on the cooking front. In fact, I know several housewives who detest cooking but are forced into doing so because of societal pressure. Why should a woman be made to feel guilty if she does not like to cook? She might be good at some other thing, but cooking might not be her forte so why should she be scorned at?

Thankfully, knowing how to cook is not a pre-requisite for a prospective bride anymore. People are slowly becoming comfortable with the fact that a girl might not be knowing how to cook. In fact, some girls clarify at the very beginning of a relationship that they will never take up cooking and they stick to their guns. More and more people are accepting the fact that it is not a given that every woman must cook.

While I agree that it is not important for a woman to cook yet in my opinion, not just a woman but even men must know how to cook. Whether they choose to cook on daily basis or not is totally their choice but being able to cook imparts liberty to an individual. You are not at the mercy of someone else for food.

Covid has certainly taught this one more lesson to people apart from several others. Having a cook coming to your place is not feasible, not every food outlet practices hygiene so ordering food becomes difficult. That is the time when one can put one’s cooking skills to good use and enjoy wholesome meals without compromising safety and hygiene.

Having sailed often on ships, even though I initially enjoy getting ready made meals of the greatest variety yet after a month or so, I start craving one meal cooked by myself once a week at least. The satisfaction one gets on eating a self-cooked meal is beyond imagination!

Eventually I have realized that cooking should not be forced upon anyone. It should be a voluntary act. Not every woman has the knack for cooking, but every woman and man should know basic cooking. It will still be a very long time before people start treating cooking as a gender-neutral activity, until then, those who realize it must contribute equally and make kitchen a happier place by cooking together rather than leaving the woman of the house alone in the kitchen to cook as part of a mundane routine.