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
