An Gastronomical Adventure

So I have come to consider myself a chef, a gourmet of sorts who is also an expert with pots and pans. To those of you who would want to challenge me on this, let me tell you that I have been leading a bachelor’s life for close to four years (duh, one reason to disbelieve you, I hear you say) away from home (but close to eateries you bet, I hear you muse) and most importantly, being meddlesome with the stove, dhals and vegetables (or uppu, pappu, chintapandu as they say in Telugu). Besides satiating my hunger, I have learnt to luxuriate my taste buds and once in a while, thrust the hitherto unidentified yet alluring tastes to my unsuspecting friends. Ok, luxuriate is too big a term; let’s say that I have learnt to at least quell the tongue’s misgivings. And of course, although no boors, all the friends who sample my dishes are bachelors and thus belong to a creed that is known for having been deprived of quality food for long periods of time (very select patrons, you see).

Anyways, this post isn’t about getting myself a place in The Taj kitchens; rest assured, you wouldn’t be subjected to list of my creations and an elucidation as to why I must be considered a culinary genius (you see, I don’t want to lose you, the lone reader of my blog), rather this post would throw some light on the path that I tread to quell the taste-bud rebellion, the big hits (rather few, I guess) and near misses (some of them, the misses, were by more than a mile) of my foray into the world of gastronomy.

My adventure with pot and pans, or more precisely baking powder and ovens, started in my 11th class. Prior to that, although I had been involved in the hostel kitchen to a small extent, I never got my hands dirtied, so to say. A small perspective before I proceed – the hostels that I had the privilege of staying in throughout my life were all run on the principle of self reliance; you had the students take care of the various aspects of the hostel management. Thus a set of boys took care of hostel maintenance, a few others of the audio-visual systems in the hostel, another set the stores etc. I had the privilege of working as a part of the hostel mess management group throughout my student career – that is from my 9th class through my graduation, post graduation and MBA. And the length of association sure gave me myriad opportunities to learn from personal experience, or in other words goof up big time.

My first major learning experience (I would prefer to view every blunder as a lesson) was in my 11th class. It all started on a bright morning maybe a week before Diwali. With half yearly exams done and being high on both energy and idleness quotients, our seniors decided that the time was apt to try out a recently acquired skill, that of baking a cake. It was the first time any of us were trying, the previous endevour by our super seniors resulting in chunks of charred maida, late night baking induced sleep being the culprit. Learning from the experience of the said super seniors, it was planned that we do the baking in the evening and serve the cake hot for dinner, after having rested the whole day. Things seemed fine and everything was going as clockwork. Measurement of quantities of stuff to be mixed together were done with scientific precision, every excess gram added being hotly debated. The final concoction was then poured into the baking trays and the baking started.

Those of you who have an idea of cake making process / have a background in science / have some imagination would be able to recognize the fact that cake gets its puffiness due to release of carbon-di-oxide by baking soda during the baking process. No single tray in the baking history would have got that much attention as the first tray that we baked that day; a set of six eager eyes waiting in anticipation. Minutes went by and there was no perceptible rise in the level of the cake being baked. After 40 minutes of tense pacing, we agreed that with the exception of turning to a charred block, all that could have happened to the tray of cake mix had happened.

Tray after tray and the story remained the same. End of 3 hrs and we had enough “cake” for 300 boys who would categorize it as anything but cake. Desperation kicked in and we decided that icing may make it a tad better. Imagine a sight of six guys covered in maida top to toe running around the streets in search of butter; shopkeepers would have concluded that we had got unhinged. A frantic session of beating the butter and icing sugar together ensued and we started icing the cake in the trays itself. Have you ever placed butter on a hot surface? Even if you haven’t, it wouldn’t need an IQ of 400 to realize that butter would melt. Yet there we were asking ourselves why the icing didn’t stay, why the cake didn’t rise, why the hell we ever thought of baking… The end of day and it was not just the brain (from the shock) and ears (that was some vocabulary that we encountered) that got numb, the feedback from long suffering friends made cushions a must for more than hour.

(The Gastronomical Sojourn during the 3 years of my under graduation would be in the next part)