Theloopylululog

What’s the most underrated life skill?

I don’t plan to go all philosophical, spiritual, esoteric on you and spew something that can be found in any self-help book.

According to me, the most underrated skill that is perhaps on its way out in the trending scale is cooking.

I don’t mean the mumbo jumbo peddled on social media in the name of innovation; doling out recipes with ingredients that have no business of going to bed in a pot or a pan together.

I mean the basic, old school style of cooking food at home and eating home cooked meals day in and day out and not feel like I am probably getting a free pass into the hallowed grounds of the Museum of Natural History while still alive and kicking!

Somehow, cooking and eating home cooked meals have gone out of fashion!

Somehow, outsourcing our gut health and gut microbiome to food that is filled with spurious ingredients whose source is unknown makes us the one with the main character energy.

Endlessly discussing what to order, where to order, how to order, who’s paying and how, seems to eat into the precious time most of us are already feeling the pinch of.

Ordering in, taking thousands of pictures of the food, posting them, reviewing the now gone cold food and checking for the senseless likes while playing with food that has definitely died on the plate waiting for some tender love care from us– when did we stop giving food the respect it deserves?

Every single day, many unknown men and women enter my building at all hours of the day. They all have one thing in common — the same red T-shirt screaming the names of the food delivery apps. All in a hurry staring into their phones. Each one trying to deliver within the stipulated time.

The packages exchange hands and then begins the same old drama with the phone hogging all attention while the food that caused all this drama is relegated to be still while the world goes on with its mindless chatter.

I am not some ancient critter busy here trying to diss the next gen. I know that everyone of us is involved in what I would call crime against nature. So much energy and time is spent on creating produce for us. Why don’t we honour it enough by cooking for ourselves?

Cooking isn’t that hard. It certainly is time-efficient. Not to mention all the health benefits of eating nutritious food that is cut, cleaned, cooked and eaten at home. It teaches budgeting, time efficiency and builds financial health too.

Most importantly, it gives you freedom from having to depend on someone else for a basic essential human need.

Agreed, cooking is an art. But one doesn’t need to be an expert chef to appreciate its value and benefits.

There is something so meditative, so sacred about cooking for oneself. Relishing it in the mismatched cutlery that our homes so proudly flaunt is a prayer in itself. Even God cannot bother arguing about it.

I remember the time my brother was flying to the USA to continue his studies. Each one of us at home had a loan against our name to make it happen. He couldn’t afford to waste even a single dime on unnecessary luxuries and that meant no eating out.

Despite being a complete novice to cooking, some of the most important things he carried with him were a small pressure cooker and some basic pots and pans. And a small book with hand written recipes of everyday food like upma, pongal, dal, rasam and rice.

The skill sustained him through some of the toughest times he ever faced in his young life. Today that old sepia toned book still holds a special space amongst his prized possessions.

I won’t harp on where we entirely lost the plot going from a people that flaunted its cooking skills to a people that learned to flaunt its skillful photography of food. We are all well aware of it and guilty as charged.

I just hope the growing burden of lifestyle diseases on the generations behind me and after me are duly noted and done something about. Soon.

Reverting to simple food, cooked at home with love and care is the panacea for health problems we have created for ourselves in the name of progressing with the times.

Something so essential for life is so damn underrated. Unbelievable, no?