 Action/Adventure: March 21, 2018 Issue [#8776] |
  Action/Adventure
This week: Cooking up Adventure in the Mistake! Edited by: THANKFUL SONALI back on Jan 4  
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These experts were discussing food.
Cuisines. Methods of cooking. Traditional V/s Modern food. Food and health.
It was an animated discussion, and it became even more animated when a member of the audience asked about ... memorable kitchen disasters! |
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Hallo, Reader!
My Dad (age 83) and I recently attended a talk about food. There were people who cook food and write about it, on the panel. They discussed why food is important - physically, socially and emotionally. They talked about how to get kids to eat 'local' and eat 'healthy'. They talked about grandma's recipes and mother's methods. One of them has written a book on the connection between food and literature, and given recipes for the dishes that favourite characters like the Famous Five or Swami cook up.
The panel turned to the audience for questions.People asked stuff about spices and about instant food, things like that. One or the other of the panelists answered, according to their expertise.
Dad raised a hand. "All of you are experts," he said. "But I'm sure you have had some disasters in the kitchen anyway. Would you be willing to share those?"
All five panelists simultaneously reached for the mic. And the discussion, already quite animated, went to the next level -- raucous.
"When I was a teenager," the authoress of a recipe book began, "I was leaving home for the first time to go to college. We had rooms in the dormitory. My mother knew I'd never entered the kitchen at home, but she thought I should be able to whip up some rice for myself if I had missed meal-time and was hungry. She bought me a little rice-cooker for one. It fitted on my bedside table and could be plugged in. She showed me the switches and temperature gauge, and told me how to set the timer."
A slight pause for effect.
"What my mother neglected to tell me," she continued, "was that one has to add water, with the rice, in order to cook it."
The panelist next to the authoress allowed the audience a couple of minutes to hiccup themselves to silence. When they were paying attention again, she launched in to her story.
"We were on this health kick. No refined sugar, no added salt, things like that. So, we used jaggery instead of sugar in some recipes. I was making dessert once -- a healthy dry-fruit cake, with all naturally sweet ingredients. I put a generous dollop of what I thought was jaggery paste. Except that it wasn't. It was soy sauce."
A groan, and another roar of laughter.
One by one, the panelists recounted their most memorable kitchen disasters. Each time, the audience reacted as one -- first with empathy, then laughter.
This got me thinking. Why do kitchen disasters bring such universal responses?
Here's what I came up with:
1. Food is universal -- wherever we are, however young or old, whatever our job, whatever we like or dislike -- we have to eat. Food is basic and universal. The need is understood by all.
2. Mistakes are universal -- everyone makes them. It's what makes us human and not mechanical. There is something endearing about a mistake, something that makes a person real. While, in the panel discussion, one or the other panelist answered other questions, everyone wanted to answer the one on 'mistakes'.
So - you combine a basic need with a basic characteristic of human beings, and you have a recipe for universal interest. The other basic needs (air and water) are more of nature's gifts, while humans may pollute them, they are obtained from nature without much human interference or modification. it is food that is more dependent on human work, and therefore, prone to human error.
3. Food is a tangible thing. While other universal human experiences may be intangible (such as falling in love) -- food is a physical thing. Thus, one has a sensory reaction to a mistake. Rice cooked without water -- recognizable mess. Salt instead of sugar ... recognizable sensory reaction.
So -- tangible universal need with universal, endearing characteristic. Immediate, widespread empathy.
I asked the WDC community to reveal their favourite kitchen disasters. Here's the response.
Thanks for listening, and
bon apetit!
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