Women, Cooking, Art, Patriarchy & Me

I started cooking this year, I learnt it in the time of need and as a women who needs to know it as a skill to “fit in” (such a dangerous term) I love cooking like I love democracy – It’s inefficient, but you would rather not live without it.

 

I grew up reading novels where women stood in the Kitchen waiting for something to happen to them. Literature taught me to associate cooking in a kitchen with either Martyrdom or Art. Neither worked for me – Martyrdom filled me with rage for all the women before me and Art made it too self-indulgent created to draw us there. It felt like hypocrisy and the duality killed me. Most days my mind would end in fatigue that just wanted Maggie or Khichdi. Reading filled my head with theories about freedom and desire – but none of them taught me what to do to fill my stomach.

 

I Learnt cooking from watching my mother. I prefer her out of kitchen or over a call so that would give me an illusion of freedom and that “it’s under my control” First time I followed her instructions and quantities without arguing – it gave the results. It was opposite of everything I had felt until now. I still add sugar and Salt with spoons – "measured." My mother doesn’t - I think she believes it’s her chemistry. I think it’s the illusion – doesn’t work for both of us.

 

Men are mostly fascinated by a woman's "kitchen energy." They often claim they love women who cook. They don't. They love being fed by someone who looks like their mother. It allows them to feel evolved without washing a single dish. They say things like, "You look so natural here," which is ironic because you're usually trying not to stab them with the knife you're holding. They sit there and offering moral support while you cook and they "taste."

 

Sometimes I think about hosting a dinner for every man who ever said he "loves intelligent women." I would serve them lentils without salt and talk about Virginia Woolf & Simon de Beauvoir until they left. They’ll say "You didn't have to go through the trouble." Of course I did. It's the one of way to be admired by men and resented by myself in the same evening.

 

Cooking, I've noticed, attracts the same kind of obsession as reading. Both start as pleasure and end as proof. You're the kind of woman who sautés to music and reads in bed. You're an aphrodisiac with a grocery list. The fantasy of every man who once said "you're not like other girls," and the warning for every woman who knows better and knows that it’s an insult. Cooking has become the female version of investing. It's confusing, it's risky, but I'll do it anyway for validation.

 

The worst part of being a woman who reads is how easily people confuse knowledge for peace. They assume awareness cures misery. It doesn't. Awareness makes you miserable with context. You start understanding your oppression in real time while chopping vegetables. I used to romanticize women who "found themselves" in kitchens. They wrote essays about reclaiming space, selfhood, lineage. Then I realized most of them had book deals and someone else washing their pans. The IRONY was too loud to be romantized or admired.

 

The older I get, the more I respect women who say, "Let's Order It." Those are the real visionaries. They've skipped the illusion of control and gone straight to peace. I believe they are practical.

 

I've been told I overthink things. I do. That's what happens when you grow up being told thinking too much is unattractive. You start overcompensating with action. You chop faster. You stir harder. You fill the silence before someone fills it for you. Sometimes I imagine writing a cookbook for women who overthink everything. Each recipe would begin with a question and end with silence.

 

"How much salt is too much?"

"How long do you keep trying?" 

"How do you know when it's done?"

No answers, only instructions. Stir until something softens. Taste before you serve. Cry, then eat.

 

At this point, I no longer know if I like cooking or I’m tricked and just pretending to like it. It's hard to tell the difference between them. What I know is that the kitchen keeps me tethered to the ordinary. The books remind me I'm not special. Together, they form a loop of modest ambition.

 

Eat. Think. Repeat. It's how I'm surviving the day without joining a cult.

 

My friends say I'm cynical. I believe I'm practical, because cynicism is unpaid optimism. I've read enough novels to know how hope ends!!