“When we eat, we should be conscious that we are giving our food to that presence in us, it must be a sacred offering in a temple and the sense of mere physical need or self-gratification must pass away from us”. Sri Aurobindo
Cooking in Bharata is termed Paaka Sastra that is a blend of both art and science and there are volumes written about it.

Memories of childhood brings to mind my mother humming happy songs and chanting in the kitchen. I remember when the first time we got a gas stove top her complaint was about how do you put rangoli and do puja to this thing? She said Agni was the energy that cooked food and we had to honour him, and all the groceries are gifts from Bhumi Devi so they are worship worthy too, a sense of gratefulness is a must she said, then she went on to explain to me, who had lots of questions that cooking had to always be done cheerfully because the state of mind of the cook would affect those who ate.

In the Indian ethos of times gone-by cooking was considered a divine ritual and continues to be so by many. Sharing and serving food has been an inherent tradition.
Every civilization has its own unique cuisine and cooking styles, and so does India. Cooking in India was based on Ayurvedic principles that emphasizes dietary regimen for health. Ayurveda has studied the effects of food on the body and mind in great detail thus making traditional cooking medicinal and healing in nature.

The ancients in India knew of its potential for inexhaustible creativity, and inspired, by some delicious concoction, created by many a chef, sang of its virtues and its pleasures. Nala and Bhima’s culinary expertise are known even today thousands of years later. There is a Sanskrit work on cooking ascribed to Nala, titled, Nala’s “Paaka Darpana.”

Kshemakuthuhalam, is an important sixteenth century text in Sanskrit by Kshema Sarma, a poet scholar in the court of King Vikramasena of Ujjain in central India, the book even outlines the qualities of a good cook.

“Cooks should be well qualified in the sciences, capable of preparing savoury dishes, clean and faithful to their work. Cooks should be righteous, friendly, rightful inheritors of their profession, adorned with turbans and given to cleanliness. The chef should possess the qualities of a physician and should be aware of the people they are cooking for.

Being in a position to cook and serve food is akin to Annapoorna the Goddess. Cooking can be meditative, calming and healing too. If one immerses oneself in the activity one can feel the vegetables and the fire and every other ingredient communicate, instinctively without tasting one will know what could be added to enhance the taste.

When we consider the wonderful mechanism of the human body, and its manifold requirements, and how wonderfully Nature has designed our being, we can well be amazed at the ignorance of cooking as an art and a science and one that has to be intensely and carefully learnt and practiced upon.

Who would permit the building of a bridge by a cowherd? Who would be a passenger on a flight manned by a bus- driver?
Yet how many who cook have a depth of knowledge about cooking? How many know the effect of the foods we eat on our bodies or why certain vegetables and fruit are seasonal, or that some foods should accompany some others? Yet it is this very knowledge that makes cooking an art and a science.

Why should we not demand of the person who cooks this knowledge for they hold our well-being in their hands. And it is safe to say that if we had well educated, cooks, there would not be so many diseases and this mounting need for so many doctors and hospitals would not be there.
Food is the nourisher, the building blocks of the body and health. “Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”

Cooking is a daily necessity, it would pay to be proficient, efficient and give it the place it deserves that of a VVVVVIIIIPPPPP.