I believe that the most important factor in a recipe is the kind of energy we cook the food with. At my mom’s home, we couldn’t enter kitchen or touch food without washing our legs and hands clean. We were taught our body would carry negative energy from outside and hence we need to clean ourselves before consuming food. Food cannot be cooked without having bath. Entrance to Kitchen would adorn a writing or sticker praising and seeking blessings from Annapurneshwari who is believed to be goddess of nourishment and abundance of food. The food cooked with love, affection and positive energy definitely tastes better and has better nourishment values. Recent studies have revealed that thoughts when concentrated on water has power to align molecules into patterns which are beneficial to humans which helps in their holistic wellbeing.
Vedas describe anna as “Parabramha”. So the food is not merely to satiate our taste buds, nor is it only a means to keep us alive, but it becomes the prana in our body, the thoughts of our mind and helps us in upkeeping physical, mental and spiritual well being. Hence food for thought literally 🙂
Coming to more materialistic aspects of food the taste now.I distinctly remember the taste of Brinjal curry my ajji used to make years ago in a small town Jhamkhandi in north Karnataka. That taste could never be recreated till today after her. There is also a distinct change in the way the food tasted during my childhood and now. What has changed in all these years, clearly the ingredients like vegetables, spices which are presently loaded with pesticides and other synthetic growth promoters. What’s ought to be natural and without any synonyms is called as “Organic” while the regular produce needs to be prefixed with “Chemical” or “toxic”, but its unfortunate that the modern economy has pushed the farmers to resort to these ways to survive.
From past 2 years I have a small balcony garden, growing vegetables like palak, tomato, brinjal, capsicum and methi to name a few. And I can definitely feel the difference the way a daal or curry tastes when we cook using the homegrown veggies versus what’s prepared using market bought veggies. To think deeper, its just not the taste but the nutrition quotient as well. What with all the toxins entering our body through every thing that we consume. Ingredients play a very key role in the way a food tastes.
Also we do wonder how a same dish tastes differently when made by different people using same ingredients. So technique or the process itself plays an important role. It really does matter at what point you add a particular ingredient and how much etc. Most of the older generations believed in “Andaaja” (approximation) but still every time the dish would e spot on in taste.
Like there are people who eat to live and others who live to eat, So are the dishes which are cooked to feed and others to be savoured.
Oota ayita 