There really is something to be said about the strength of home cooking. Almost everyone who loves to cook has at least one recipe handed down to them from a member of their family or community, and those kinds of recipes represent generations of cooking, testing, adjusting and evolving, so you know they’re killer. One of the best things about has been seeing how these generations-honed recipes fare when they go up against professional ones. I think Mark, Dan and I have each been surprised by just how these family recipes have stood up against the force of a bulletproof commercial recipe.
Their shared knowledge of food history, cultural trade influence, nutrition and food as medicine (Ayurveda), is something uniformly impressive to behold.
And of all the cuisines we’ve had the pleasure of covering, I have to say I was blown away by the general knowledge and technical prowess that our incredible Indian home cooks brought to the game. From Shruti’s rich butter chicken to Anjali’s sophisticated and spiced vegan creations in season 1, to our troop of incredible season 2 competitors; their shared knowledge of food history, cultural trade influence, nutrition and food as medicine (Ayurveda), is something uniformly impressive to behold. So, why are Indian home cooks so damn good?
Season 2 home cook Anushree has travelled and lived all over the world. Now happily living in Australia, she reflects on how Indian food culture compares to the places she’s travelled and the cultures she has encountered along the way. “Food is so important to culture in India, no matter where you come from and what religion you practice. When you go to an Indian home, you will always be offered food before anything else – it is the offering we make to God and nature, to everyone who walks through the door,” she says. “There’s a saying atithi devo bhava – it sort of translates into ‘the guest is God’. That’s why important occasions like weddings are so large – the more people you feed, the more you are honouring God through nourishing others. It’s karma,” she adds.
Home cooks battle it out with the chefs' line from Atta. Source: The Chefs' Line
Food is so important to culture in India, no matter where you come from and what religion you practice.
Punjab-born Harry Dhanjal, executive chef and owner of Melbourne modern agrees. “No matter whether you’re a boy or a girl, you learn to cook from a young age in India. It’s regarded as imperative that every child knows the basics of how to cook. For me, as it was for my brother and sister, it was so natural to be in the kitchen and be chopping something, or helping Mum in some way. It’s a central part of our culture, a dominant part of conversation… no Indian mother understands ‘I’m not hungry’!” he laughs.
Anushree agrees, explaining that because food dominates the conversation with friends and family, it becomes easy to learn how different cultures within India cook: which ingredients came from where in history and how that fits into the broader landscape of flavours.
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When spice becomes your life
So too, when it comes to food as medicine. A reasonably new theme in the western world, Indian culture has known how to heal the body through food for thousands of years. Ayurveda, which translates to ‘the science of life’, works on the assumption that the mind and body are inextricably linked, and that what we eat can heal us and help us reach our fullest potential. “We grow up knowing which spices and styles of cooking work with which ingredients to make them better digested by the body, or to make you feel better,” Anushree says.
India’s obsession with food and its cultural importance in nourishing not just the body, but community and spirituality too, goes some way to explaining why Indian home cooking is hard to beat. I mean, who’s to argue with thousands of years of food being the hottest dinner table conversation?!
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