I must’ve been three when I first climbed onto a tiny stool and stood beside my aarthimma [that’s what I called my grandmother] flipping dosais on a hot tawa. I remember being slow, careful, and utterly mesmerized. Even though I didn’t cook a full meal until 11th standard, that memory stayed with me. The real beginning happened the day I called and asked my grandmother, “How do I make morkozhambu?” [it was when mom was recovering from a surgery and I was in charge of the kitchen]. She taught me how to make it, the simplest dish, yet one that felt like a doorway into something bigger.
From there, she led me through dish after dish — vethakuzhambu, avial, porichakuzhambu, kootu, pitla. Even today, she’s the first person I call when a recipe confuses me or when I need reassurance mid-cooking. Her kitchen came with its own quiet rules, passed down not through lectures but through everyday practice:
- Never add asafoetida to dishes with onion or radish.
- Coconut-based dishes always had coconut oil [tempering or add-on like in case of avial]
- When making sambar or rasam, the tempering goes in first before the tamarind or vegetables. [it does alter the taste if you temper at the end]
- A touch of ghee makes upma, pongal, and avial complete & better.[ghee makes everything better]
- A pinch of sugar stretches the filter coffee decoction just right [when making dicoction in a traditional filter].
- Certain days call for specific dishes — raw banana on Amavasai, adai after Karthigai, and agathikeerai after ekadasi [ esp if you have fasted on that day & eaten light] so on.
What I love most is how open they [my grandparents] were to new flavours. After their last trip to the US in the late ’90s, they came back talking about pesto and Subway sandwiches, and soon we were experimenting in our own kitchen. It felt joyous to serve them something new I’d cooked.
Over time, I’ve realised many of us learned to cook the same way: by simply watching our grandmothers or mothers cook — the chopping, the sauteing, the intuition. The things that seemed complicated became simple once we observed them closely.
Here are the biggest lessons I’ve absorbed from her, the ones I carry into my kitchen every day:
- Cook by intuition, not strict measurement. Let your eyes, nose, and hands guide you. I literally dont know measures when it comes to Indian cooking [it is always a pinch of this or a splash of that] .
- Make things from scratch whenever possible. Freshly ground masalas, homemade batter — they make all the difference.
- Don’t taste [constantly] while cooking. Trust the smell, trust the process. Infact, gramma would gauge and tell what was needed just by the aroma that wafted from the kitchen. I am not that good, but I have managed to cook without tasting [South Indian food].
- Never rush. Food needs time, patience, and the right amoung of heat.
- Be open to experimentation. Use what you have, improvise & trust your judgement.
- A little butter or ghee can transform a dish. It’s richness, not indulgence, when done right.
- Cook a little extra. You never know who might drop in. [she believed in always having enough food for 2 people at any point of time]
- Choose oils intentionally. Coconut oil for coconut dishes, sesame oil for dosas, refined oil for appalams.
- Know that delicious cooking doesn’t need onion or garlic. It’s about technique, not shortcuts. Oh yes! having lived with her for a decade, I can cook any dish without onion or garlic and know it will taste good~
Dishes i’ve cooked over the years
Cooking, for me, is still a deeply emotional act.
Another thing about me is kitchen is one space where am quite conventional, dont need fancy gadgets/equipment.
Kitchen is also a memory, culture, warmth — all simmering together. Every time I cook something my grandmother taught me, it feels like I’m honouring a part of her.
Even though I no longer live with her, or even in Chennai, we talk almost daily. More of a check in and a round up of how the day went and if they had any visitors, or if I did something different. It also involves sharing the daily menu [she would talk about what the cook made, how good/bad/terrible it was and we’d swap stories of previous cooks and fun around food]. She loves hearing me share new recipes or dishes I made, based on local ingredients [ Pune and now Bangalore], or even stuff I made based on cook books [ for the cookbook clubs]- I’ve shared recipes that they’ve tried recreating. The one dish she feels am best at is Pasta, and so whenever I visit, I make a version of it for them. And in between visits, there would be the occasional “can you order dinner for us, we want pasta, the same ones you had ordered last time- which was delicious” 🙂
So tell me:
What did your grandmother teach you about food or what stories do you have to share?
Or your mother, aunt, or anyone who shaped your sense of taste?
Because the little things — the order of tempering, the choice of oil, the dish reserved for a festival — those are the inheritance we carry quietly, lovingly, into every meal we make.
Would love to hear your story.
