I grew up with the ability to eat pretty much anything. After the awkward stages of puberty, my metabolism has kept me at the same height and weight for all of my adult life. No amount of cake binging or junk food changed that, and I'm grateful that my body doesn't suffer consequences for indulging. That isn't to say that I'm a glutton, but I remember having a very healthy appetite as a child, sometimes eating 5-6 meals a day including snacks. This was also offset by the sheer amount of running around we did as little kids. I was constantly active, and as I was still growing it seems like all that food got burnt as soon as it was consumed. I grew up eating mostly simple vegetarian dishes both at home and in school, which ensured a balanced diet and nutritious food as staples. There were of course unhealthy snacks on top of this, but for the most part I was getting healthy food on a regular basis.
This changed when I left for college and the subsequent years I spent working in the city. The introduction of food delivery apps meant that food could be summoned to your house with just a few taps on a phone, something younger me could only dream about. The sheer convenience of this meant that more often than not, I used to order in my meals. Not all of them were bad, but they missed that home cooked aspect of food that I grew up with. This was also part of what made me realise how unhealthy my life in the city was and how I desperately wanted to leave.
Fast forward to when I first moved to the land that I live in now. At the time the land was nothing more than a slope on the hill. I was living in a tent with no means to cook for myself. So, what I ended up doing was relying on the villagers who came to the land to work. They used to pack me extra portions of whatever they were eating in little containers that are known as tiffin dabbas colloquially.
The food was familiar to me as it was more or less what I was used to growing up. The picture above consists of tomato rice, stir fried beans and wild spinach called keerai in the local tongue. The only problem with this arrangement however was that I had to eat it cold. There were usually extra portions which meant eating the same thing for dinner. Breakfast consisted of idlis ( steamed rice cakes) and dosas ( similar to pancakes) that were bought from local village restaurants. Nevertheless, it was cooked with love and was homemade and I lived off this food for more than a year.
My dependency for food from outside changed when I got myself a small 4 Kg gas cylinder that I could carry up the hill in a backpack and a few basic cooking utensils. Our land doesn't have road access and involves a compulsory 20 minute walk from the closest motorable location. This meant grocery runs and everything that had to be brought into the farm had to be done, carried on my back. The gas cylinder was extremely useful and even with daily usage lasted me around a month before needing a refill. Getting my own groceries opened up more possibilities. I could cook what I wanted. A lot stayed the same in terms of daily cooking. Rice as a staple, cooked vegetables and some kind of curry to soak the rice in. This trinity of rice, veg, curry is something that a lot of Indian households churn out day after day and something my body has been comfortable with. The benefit of cooking myself was that I could eat food hot, I could increase or decrease portions depending on how hungry I was and I could make things that suited my taste buds.
I eventually ventured outside my daily trinity of foods to expand into making rotis, (flat bread ) pastas, salads, sandwiches, broths, even attempting pressure cooker cakes and pan pizzas. Sometimes following recipes but a lot of times also experimenting with creating my own. I often let my intuition and taste buds guide me, using cooking as a creative expression to make things that left me feel satisfied on all levels, from the tongue to the soul.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I learnt to identify the edible wild plants growing around me and started using them in dishes as garnishes. While there isn't enough regular growing of our own vegetables on the land, this is one small way that I can make my environment part of my diet. This is so satisfying in a way that I don't fully know how to describe. It feels that by adding this small touch my food became spiritually nourishing.
While I stick to a predominantly vegetarian diet of simple but nutritious food that I make myself, I do occasionally like to get something decadent just for the feeling of eating something delicious. This usually happens when I drive down to town on grocery or supply runs and drop into a local restaurant on the way.
Not all of my indulges come from restaurants however. As I've expanded my cooking skills, I make my own treats when I feel like.
I'm now in a place where I'm grateful to be able to cook tasty, nutritious and healthy food for myself. Food that I've grown up with, food that my body has adapted to, as well as food that my body craves. I think cooking is a very personal and intuitive experience for me. Inherently I think the body knows what it wants. Without getting too scientific, it's possible that when I'm craving leafy greens and spinach, my body may be low on iron and other nutrients those specific foods contain. I've learnt to listen to my body, and feed it how it would like to be fed. Everything isn't perfect however and there are occasional slumps. There are times when the effort of cooking gets to me, especially when there's so many other things to be done. In these situations I often resort to one pot meals, where I just make one giant pot of food containing staples and vegetables and just eat it through the day for all my meals. I would love to have more of a community around where people take turns cooking, sharing parts of their hearts with the food. Eventually I would love to have more home grown vegetables in my meals. I would love for most of what I eat to come directly from the land rather than a grocery store. I would love to be able to get eggs from happy chickens roaming around the land. Perhaps someday these dreams will come true. For now however my stomach, heart and soul are happy with the food I make for myself.
