DINE OUT

There was a time when teenage girls were taught cooking at home. The teachers were their mothers and grand-mothers. They were generally experts in cooking vegetarian or non-vegetarian food. In this way they used to pass on the traditional cooking of delicious foods to the female members of the family. In fact, it happened in my family too. When marriage was fixed way back in 1972, the bride’s mother and sister-in-laws in the family taught her how to cook vegetarian and non-vegetarian foods. When I got married my wife used to cook a variety of delicious foods including fish curry and fries.

 On the contrary, girls highly educated nowadays like to eat delicious foods without knowing how to prepare them. Parents also do not like to disturb their educated daughters by teaching cooking. Instead, people generally employ house-maids for various house works including cooking. Couples who work may not have time to do cooking. So they depend on house-maids or canteens and restaurants for their food.

In fact, it was in 2017, when I visited my son’s family at Singapore, I found a large number of restaurants at every department stores and big malls. I used to watch the people who eat the tasty hot foods such as noodles, fishes, chicken and the like with their whole family members. They enjoy eating out almost every day avoiding cooking at home. I thought it’s economical. So the traditional cooking at home by mothers and grandmas is slowly disappearing.

In India also the custom of cooking at home is gradually coming down. Initially ‘eating out’ every week-end was a fashion to taste the delicacy of the city’s renowned restaurants. Later on people bought the breakfast and lunch early in the morning for their school going children. The facilities are available at every colony and apartment complex. The working couples grab their breakfasts and lunch from the office canteens or nearby restaurants. In the evening they buy their dinner mostly idly, dosa or chappati with appropriate side-dishes. Generally they do not enjoy their dinner because all of them including their children concentrate in their smart phones or i-pads while eating.

Most people who lost the taste of food won’t worry about the place from where they buy the food. Foods are sold at big restaurants, medium ones, fast-food out-lets, on-line suppliers like Zomato, Sawggy etc. Street vendors too sell foods from 6 pm to 10 pm. The quality of food is good if the cost is high. Cheap foods are available at street corners all along the main roads. Some say that they are unhygienic. Still thousands and thousands of street vendors sell foods all over the urban areas of India. Many men and women are involved in the business. Good number of urban customers is happy to quench their hunger by simply buying the foodstuff available near to their dwellings. It seems that in Bengaluru itself there are more than 17,000 vendors. Of course, some of them are vegetable and fish vendors. However, we do find large number of push carts after the sunset all along the roads of important locations. These vendors are supervised by the city corporations. However Police harassment for money and food is a regular feature the vendors face.

In fact, we are moving towards a civilization of simple life of eating ready-made foods rather than our good old home foods. People say that those home foods are going to come again in big restaurants as special foods in future. Dining out and sleeping in home have become the fashions today. This change – good or bad – is followed by many urban people. - NARA