Food, feelings and friendships

I am not a foodie!! But I am very emotional about food. Food to me is more than its taste .. it is an expression of love, affection, friendship and more....!!! 

Recently, a friend came home for lunch. I am not a great cook. At my best, my cooking can only be what true foodies would describe as 'average".! But he  was very appreciative about what I had dished out and kept raving about it right through the meal. I was a bit surprised because I know he is not the sort to praise someone just like that. Thinking back, I realize that what had probably touched him was not the taste of the food but the fact that I had taken the trouble to cook an elaborate meal for him. And that made me feel very emotional... because I realized that he valued my hospitality! 

With all the cookery shows showing us what great cooking is all about, we seem to have forgotten the value of simple home cooked food and the feelings behind that meal on our plate - that of the person who cooked  it  and the person who is eating.it.  

Food plays a big role in  bonding people!  No wonder we talk about the need for families to eat together. And not just families, we also talk about friends eating together, colleagues at office sharing a lunch table and food from their lunch boxes.

Nothing moves me more than someone telling me that they "cooked " something for me. When I was a teenager in Calcutta, our neighbor Mrs Chakraborty would sometimes get up early in the morning and cook Bengali delicacies like  "potol poshto"/ "Sooji"/ "Alu Dam" etc  for me to carry in my lunch box. She had no kids of her own and generally followed a more relaxed schedule around the kitchen.  So when she changed that just so she could make something special for me to carry with me to school made me feel very loved. She was ofcourse a great cook but even if she wasn't  I think I would have loved the food simply because she had taken the trouble to make it for me. 

Sharing food is  probably the best way to get know someone. In every place I have worked I have enjoyed eating with my colleagues, tasting their food and sharing what I have cooked with them.  A colleague in the office one day sat next to me at the lunch table and pushing his lunch box towards me said "I know, you will like this". "This" was upma made of rice - what we Tam Brahms call "Arisi Upma"!It is not made or served outside in restaraunts . So I was very touched that this man, with whom I do not have very close day today interactions decided to share a near extinct dish with me! It was a great meal as we discussed how, many of us from our generation no longer know how to make it! I think I got to know him better after that lunch. 

But just as food bonds people, food also excludes people. The entire caste system in India is all about excluding people around food and water. You do not eat food cooked by certain people or drink water from their homes!! I think it is one of the most horrible way of keeping  rejecting someone! My work often takes me to villages where caste is a harsh reality. I see poor  people who  want to offer me their hospitality but are hesitant about giving me something to eat or drink.  I usually ask them for a glass of water to drink and when I do that I often see them getting confused. They wonder whether they should offer it to me because they belong to what are called the "untouchable" castes. But when I drink the water they bring to me, I know I have established a rapport ! Food  or water in this case, helps build a relationship  like none other! 

It disturbs me a lot when I read these days about people being discriminated around the food they eat. "One man's food is another man's poison" goes the saying... So who are we to decide what is food and what is poison? What we eat is our choice and we have no right to impose our choice on another. No food is inferior or superior to another - and I do not mean this in the nutritional sense !!! I cannot imagine why we form value judgements about food. We have every right to refuse certain foods but I cannot understand why we have to prevent a person who is used to earing that food from eating it?

When I was travelling in rural  Bihar I came across an extremely poor community called the "Musahars" . Loosely translated it means "someone who eats rats".  I was pained to hear that they were so poor that they had to eat rats. But I also wonder if by feeling that way am I not making a value judgement in terms of what is acceptable food? This is a dilemma that I have often struggled with. 

On a more personal level, I am at a loss when a close friend who always has lots  of left over food in her fridge packs some for me to take home with me everytime I visit her. I do not know if I should feel annoyed at being treated like a dustbin or touched that she has packed something for me so that I do not have to cook the next day. And then I think, don't I do the same for my domestic help? If I can pack left over food from my fridge for someone why should I feel offended when someone does that with me?

As someone who has been working on Nutrition for a year now, I realize food is beyond balanced diets. It is about relationships, culture and tradition - some of the later being  not very pleasant. 

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