Too many cooks

…start a riot


“How come almost all the great chefs of the world are men?” I asked, the other day, at a party, as I browsed through a book on food concocted by world famous chefs and found only 4 women among 80 chefs. It was an innocent question, not intended to start a riot. But it did. I should have known that I was playing with highly dangerous material. For the rest of the evening, sparks flew, voices were raised, threats were issued and doors were banged – unnecessarily hard, in that way that makes bits of plaster fall off like gentle rain.
Firstly, the minute I had recklessly spilt this ‘Hazchem and Highly Inflammable’ question on the ground, there was an attempt by all 14 men and 17 women to answer it - very loudly and all at the same time. We had just finished several extremely competitive round of Pictionary. There had been a lot of shouting then, but a lot of laughter too. Our neighbours had indulgently tolerated the sounds of people having a good time. But now, it sounded like a huge brawl in which humans and hyenas were involved. The watchman came up and asked us a little tentatively what the problem was…and that the kaka-kaku next door wanted to know if we had a trapped animal in the house. Poor fellow, he didn’t know what he was stepping into. Keya (my friend with the voice that sounds, when she’s agitated, like someone is moving furniture around) jumped at him, arms akimbo, and yelled challengingly: “I’ll tell you what’s wrong – all you men are pompous and dumb.” The watchman hastily said – theek hai, theek hai, and beat a hasty retreat.
Through the shouting and mocking and ‘what rubbish’ and ‘ha ha ha’ and ‘ya, RIGHT’ kind of phrases that whizzed around in the air after I had stupidly asked that question of mine, I could sift the following theories (note, absolutely none of these are my views; they are the opinions of a representative bunch – including the watchman and bai at some stage):

v Men make better chefs because they don’t have to answer the phone, pay the doodhwala, check homework and plan the next day’s dabba while they conjure up their fancy-pancy gourmet food.
v Men make better chefs only when they are supported by a background team of cleaners, cutters, ingredient buyers, assemblers, clearer-ups and possibly cheer leaders too. Get them to work without heavy-duty equipment and assistance and without someone telling them just how terrific they are...and you’ll see, they just won’t be able to even fry an egg.
v Men go with cheese, cream, mushrooms, herbs that are flown in, white wine, asparagus, king prawns that cost Rs 1000 a kilo, and other ingredients which feature only in books with names like Larousse Gastronomique …so of course anything they make tastes wonderful. Why wouldn’t it? On top of it, they simply won’t be hurried. Get them to rustle up something quick and tasty with whatever there is in the kitchen at the moment – and watch them sweat. Women can produce actual food out of two tired chillies, a worried looking onion, and ageing channa atta – in 2 minutes flat.
v Anyone who wears dazzling white clothes while cooking and finishes without a single stain on his clothes, is just pretend-cooking. And lighting a match to your food and everyone clapping at the blue flame doesn’t make you a great cook.

And another bunch of theories that I could discern through the hungama:

v Women rarely make world-famous chefs because they wear fussy clothes and talk too much on the phone and shout instructions to kids while they cook.
v Women bang pots and pans and mutter under their breaths when they cook. This makes the food feel bad.
v Women try to save time, labour and money while cooking – no wonder they are unimaginative cooks. If an expensive or difficult-to-find ingredient is called for, like, say truffle oil, they simply bypass it, and use the oil left over from yesterday’s bhajia frying.
v Women ignore international cookbooks and try out recipes that they find in free booklets that come with their cookers and which appear at the back of masala packets.
v Women shake the gas-cylinder to use up the last bit of fuel, instead of simply switching to a new cylinder. This proves that they have no panache, no sense of style and occasion. And that’s why they don’t make gourmet cooks.

There were many more theories that were put forth, very loudly and simultaneously, some of them delivered with faces inches away from each other, and no, not in any kind of romantic closeness. They involved intensely personal allegations and claims, from which flew out phrases like “your mother’s cooking” and “poor hand-eye co-ordination” and “that ancient oven” and “paya my foot” and “simmer overnight? Ha!” and “all the wrong knives”…and many other more juicy phrases. Once people began to talk about knives, I got really nervous. I quickly served dessert and sent everyone off – to battle it out in their own homes.