As a chef I always sit back and wonder much in awe about how people like my mother conjured up those recipes for the tastiest food that made its way to our dining table when we were kids. I mean, this was at a time when there was no social media with its easy-to-follow recipes on YouTube, etc. The exact portions, the right seasoning – these were all mastered and perfected at home without any professional training – that’s what I call a true culinary genius.
I am a chef today but when I was growing up I was never forced to go inside the kitchen, where the magic happened, and cook. At the Lobo household our daily staple meal would be a very traditional fish curry with rice and a vegetable dish. This is not unusual given that we hail from the coastal city of Mangalore in India. The food at home was made traditional – as in, my mum believed the secret to retaining the traditional essence was to make everything by hand. So, in our kitchen everything was handmade – the masala was ground; the coconut was also ground by hand. Our weekend special would be biryani and mum’s biryani would give any famed Hyderabadi chef a run for their money. My personal favorite would be my mum’s chicken roce curry paired with shevios (steamed rice noodles) which she made on special occasions – Christmas or Easter.
It’s only later in life, whilst living away from home, and surviving on Maggie instant noodles and the like, that I came to appreciate my mums home cooked food. We all know tucking into childhood favorites can reconnect us with the people and places we shared them with. For me, my mum’s home cooked food takes me straight back to our kitchen, which was a busy, noisy place where family, friends and neighbors were always welcome for a meal and guaranteed lively conversation.
According to me, home-cooking generally is very synonymous with a family gathering. The beauty of home-cooking is that ability to share love through your cooking and the appreciation, the compliments, the smiles, the requests for more is all home-cooking is all about.
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