Cooking

I will admit that I’m not the best cook. I’ve probably got a 50/50 chance of a new recipe turning out decent. I know that it is very traditional for Punjabi girls to know how to cook, but I guess I spent my time studying instead of baking and got behind on that. Maybe not everyone has to learn how, but I think a knowledge of life skills like cooking are very helpful regardless of gender. My dad is an excellent chef and enjoys cooking alongside my mom anytime we have company over. 

I think perhaps there is a resistance nowadays to saying girls need to know how to cook. There are other values that are also extremely important. Being able to make a good cha for my in-laws isn’t as important as me having spiritual knowledge and other attributes. We don’t want to reduce women to “just” being in the kitchen, or the primary and sole purpose to just be that. At the same time, women traditionally have played that role in the generations before us, and played it well. Cooking is a really nice thing for the family. When we cook for ourselves and our families, we also know we are providing healthier options than eating out. We are providing nutrition, healing, an certain environment, like we talked about in the previous post on food. Cooking provides a service to the community as well. When we volunteer in the langar, we help to fulfill all of the objectives of the langar. It reminds me of role models like Mata Khivi Ji. Being in the kitchen is not a “just” being in the kitchen, just like being a mother is not “just” being a mother. It is a really important role that someone does fulfill for the family. We shouldn’t resist the traditional just because its traditional and we think being modern should be different. The traditional holds some very important treasures in it as well. Like I mentioned above, probably everyone can benefit from learning how to cook because it’s a life skill. If one partner is sick, or one member of the family cannot do it for some reason, then another can step up. It’s part of dividing household responsibilities. If you are going to have kids, knowing how and what to feed your children is all a part of raising them. Maybe you will enjoy cooking alongside your partner, parents, or in-laws. 

I got out my old recipe book from when I was living alone and started building off of it. I won’t become a gifted chef all of a sudden but I figured with a 50% success rate, out of 50 recipes at least I will have 25 new ones that work well. 

Langar pictures: