My Many Kitchens..and Cooking - A Culinary Autobiography

My Many Kitchens ..and Cooking

-         A Culinary Autobiography

As a lad if I was told

Nostradamus had prophesied in quatrain

“A boy from a City of Joy in the East,

Who knows not his waist from his yeast

From nought, one day shall cook a feast

When with silver streaks his temples are seized”

I would have guffawed.

I had no inkling there cometh an age of Man

That witnesses a late bloom

Of hitherto fictitious epicurean flair;

Of a continually changing conversation

With cooking and the kitchen.

The first kitchen is mama’s breast

In between mewling and puking.

Food on tap, processed and packaged

Offering maximum nourishment.

Mine is not to reason why

Mine is but to consume ‘n cry

Like a Humvee guzzling gallons for every mile

Going nowhere, of course.

Advancing from the alimentary eternity of infancy

Early childhood is a binary

Of being teased or, tortured by tastes.

I prefer the kitchen floor savouring the flavours

Of chapati and dal  la Jaunpur by Shyam Lal

To the high table, laden with his insipid mince ‘n potato mash

Much to the consternation of my mother

And embarrassment of my cook.

The kitchen appears to shrink

As this ever-hungry whining school boy grows.

The relentless raids forever foraging the fridge

Dredging casseroles for everything from biryani to tetrazzini

Pilfering payesh and profiteroles

With the pestilential certitude of a rodent.

Who cared a toss about calories?!

Now the youth…

Somewhere between a lover sighing like a furnace

And a soldier seeking the bubble reputation

Deserts home…

The aromas of the kitchen left behind

Linger in the mind; that oasis of perpetual plenty

Singeing the stomach memory when most ravenous.

Alas! The pitiful pantry is a sorry substitute.

For the penniless student,

Expended in futile attempts to avoid starvation

With egg splattered all over the microwave

And the smokin’ rice burnt to black

That nearly triggered the fire alarm

While I dozed off.

A Mars bar and pouch of milk saves this life.

Meandering through bachelorhood

The Brahmacharya kitchen is freed of fixed geography.

Travelling everywhere the taste buds traipse.

From adda infinitum at tea stalls

Over chai ‘n samosas or, vada pavs

Traversing Bengal to Bhatinda via Ambur to Avadh.  

Thayir sadam to tandoori kababs,

Panta bhat to Puliyogare and Pollichathu

Mughlai parathas to maddur vadas

Tucking it away towards equatorial prosperity

At dhabas, Irani cafes and military hotels.

I still remain clueless about cooking…

Why bother how it all comes together…it  tastes good!

Once married and Grihastha…

I'm incarcerated by Cupid in the gulag of the kitchen

For what seems a life sentence without parole

Cutting vegetables, cleaning fish and washing dishes

For delectable food rations, which I daren't criticize...or else!

 The hum do hamaare do kitchen

Can now afford a cook!

A gastronomic fairy godmother accoutred in apron

Dishing out delicacies from Mangalore to Mandalay

At the flick of my finger.

The prodigious proficiency of prolific cooks under one roof

Crushes my culinary curiosity, fostering a feeling of inferiority

With it, the impetus to learn.

In the tide of turbulent times, 

The kitchen takes a curious turn

Now an operation managed by a single parent, for sportsmen

Combining carb load with proteins ‘n fibre intake-

Optimum nutrition for performance engineering.

Am I talking food or, fuelling Ferraris for Formula One?

Through the back door…  

Dietary interest makes a surreptitious entry

When power packed subways for school

Rockets my ego into the scrumptious stratosphere

Nought cuisine to haute cuisine -

Chef Zero to Michelin star in an instant!

From the comforts of my kitchen

I’m now the gastronaut sequestered in solitude

In perennial orbit…

With an astronomic vista on molecular gastronomy

Combing the continents for challenging cuisines

From Jambalaya to jalfrezi, khichdi to Kho

Ragi mudde to risottos, ceviche to sushi.

Never neglecting the diverse dals and rotis.

On the long road to Vanaprastha

Ere I shift into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon

It is revealed to me 

That food is the music of love

And I must play on but not in excess of it

Lest the appetite sicken and so die.

Seduced by the sensuality of spices,

The headiness of herbs, the fragrance of fruits

Inebriating the senses

I’m composing my complex background score

Orchestrating the heavy metal of pots ‘n pans

Accompanied by the operatic pressure cooker

Sometimes high hat, most often pan flute

With the chromatic riffs of the blender

Counterpoint to the pounding of the mortar and pestle.

That ends this strange eventful history.

Before I’m banished to mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything

I shall eventually emerge triumphant

From my challenges with the chapati!

 ©2020 Ranjan Kamath