Unlearned to Cook

I can't even recall making a cup of tea while in Dhaka. My relationship with the kitchen was limited to finding a jar of cookies or pickles from the cupboard. This very relationship changed soon after I set foot in the USA, where I learned to cook for the first time in life.


I am just a cook, not a good cook, let alone a great one. I cook to survive. In the US, I learned to cook mostly fried veggies, lentils, egg curry and tuna kebab. While hubby happily experimented with cooking ingredients, I happily appreciated his culinary skills as I ate his beef and fish curries, biriyani, chotpoti and much more.


Nevertheless, I cooked almost everyday, prepared what I could, and never dared to embark on a large culinary project. Then it all changed with the arrival of the woman who brought me to this world.


Now, I have more or less gone back to my Dhaka days. I literally have not cooked in three months. I happily handed over the responsibility of cooking to my mother. Now, my own responsibility is limited to dragging my body to the dining table after the food is served. I have not enjoyed so much comfort during the last three years of my stay in America. I am so pampered that nowadays I rarely do the dishes after a meal is over.


I can also eat things that I have not eaten in the last couple of years. The list includes small fish cooked with tomatoes, onions and cilantro, large fish cooked with green peas and tomatoes in a thick gravy, deshi-style roast chicken, deshi-style pudding with caramel top and so on.


It looks like I have unlearned to cook. I deem it will now be difficult for me to even prepare a decent bowl of lentils. I am frightened to imagine what might happen when she goes back to Dhaka. Oh well, I guess I won't have a choice but to re-learn to cook!


'God could not be everywhere, so He created mothers' -- Yiddish proverb.


By Wara Karim
The Daily Star
Date of publication: February 28, 2012