Aditya Rai: The great lockdown of 2020 is making me do things, things I took a huge hiatus from. I finally gave in after 24 years and started practicing yoga. I have successfully sown one Basil plant and one aloe plant, and killed multiple. Finally, wiped that corner spot clean in my balcony which was starting to look like a half baked parmigiana. Next on agenda is to start writing again, after 5 years, and to keep my cat away from the keyboard. Pineapples on pizza are a sin. Sorry, that was just my cat walking over my keyboard.
My story with food has been all kinds of ordinary and mundane. I don’t have that emotional anecdotes to preach where I worked with my grandma in the kitchen, helping her cook, while she passes down age old secret recipes. Mother learned how to cook after marriage, so that subtracts the hereditary emotional investment with food connection as well. However, I have to give it to my father though; he always has been a foodie and an avid carnivore. His enthusiasm for food went to the extent where I was scolded by him at the age of 5, just because I refused to eat a Mango. How could I do such blasphemy, and say no to the king of fruits? It was called for, definitely.
As every kid ever, I wanted to become an astronaut, explore space and used to fanboi over the hubble telescope like a nerd. Then one day, at the age of nine, I was introduced to making tea. The Indian masala chai.
It was beyond my capacity to understand why I enjoyed boiling water and milk with some tea leaves. Slowly it became sort of an obsession; I was in the kitchen every evening, making tea for my family. Crushing that ginger, oof, it was fucking therapeutic. Adding that elaichi to boiling tea? Fuck yes. The thought of becoming a cook was still not there, I had no clue about the whole culinary universe.
I moved from tea over the years, to cutting onions and tomatoes meticulously, adding some lemon juice and salt, arranging it on top of a toast (read: rusk) with a few drops of ketchup and treating it as some gourmet three-michelin crostini. Even cooking maggi with some vegetables, extra black pepper became an event for me. I was over the moon whenever I was cooking, slowly crushing the dream to visit moon. Bleh, like I could.
Years passed, I binged a lot of TLC, Fox traveller and everything Anthony Bourdain. Clarity came by, my obsession with food (and chefs) kept growing, and all I wanted in life was to become a badass tattooed chef. From astronaut to halwai, how my parents used to make fun. I was sure this is all I wanted in life, to be in the kitchen. The most vivid dad joke I recall is, my father telling to go work in a canteen at NASA, best of both the worlds. I like to label myself fortunate, my parents were always supportive so don’t think of them as Gordon Ramsay in Hell’s Kitchen.
I’ll fast forward to me getting into culinary school. I will move past those three years of college as well, it’s all a bit hazy. On the contrary, that’s where I learned the most, cutting a chicken, clarifying a consomm├й, making that b├йchamel and how to take abuse in the kitchen. For all the basics and all the French terms I couldn’t pronounce, I thank my college for it. It was an eye opener, for a tea brewing kid who was just amused by chefs on TV, to what it takes in real life. I couldn’t complain, I was enjoying it, every single bit of it. To be brutally honest, the abuses and level of work demanded, was really attractive to me.
Soon after the graduation, the run for 12 hour-shifts began. I landed my first job in Delhi and the restaurant was everything I could practically dream of. The Glitz of Fine dining, meticulously plated dishes and a proper crazy mentor. I started by cleaning and prepping mushrooms for the burger into 150gm patties, to removing scales of a red snapper. And obviously, setting up every station’s mise en place because I was the noob and that’s how it works. However, this kitchen turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen to me, the whole crew being nurturing to my mentor pushing me to the limits, holding my hands and teaching me how to cook lamb the Nordic way. I clearly remember the first dish I cooked, Linguine in truffle sauce, entirely by myself, to order. I felt low-key proud, not gonna lie. I was Charlie and this was the chocolate factory, but 100 times better.
All of our crew would get assignments, to come up with new ideas and a fresh thought process.
I was told to recreate a dish I loved the most, and it was the first time, I was putting less on the plate, and trying to push my own boundaries. The result was a mediocre, but modern Aaloo-Gobhi. It was mediocre and yet I was flying high, because it was that moment I understood food is much more than things on a plate. And it was the beginning, to finding my own voice, my own thought process and my own style. That kitchen changed how I perceived food, how I looked at ingredients. I don’t want to say this, but it was empowering. I felt like I was a part of something, a tribe full of crazy creative human beings.
Writer Aditya Rai is a Chef at Tanman Ayurvedic Research Centre Restaurant “Pathyam”, Pune, Maharashtra.
