The earliest childhood memory I have about cooking is from when my mother would sit aside in the kitchen and pass on the responsibility to me. As per the customs in India at that time, she could not cook when she had her period, and being the eldest child in the family, I was the chosen one to bear this responsibility. This is how my cooking started. My mother would tell me what to do and I followed her direction. Light the fire (yes, we cooked on coal, firewood, and at times on kerosene stove in those days), clean the rice, cut vegetables, cook the rice, curry, and soup, etc. Before I could realize, my childhood was soon over and I proceeded to high-school, college, and university – loosing touch with cooking. I spent very little time at home and was away for long periods of time. I was busy acquiring knowledge through fire-hose, while food was provided at the hostels of the Central University of Hyderabad (we had a very good mess), and Indian Institute of Science, where the mess and food was par excellence, outstanding. No wonder that many IISc graduates do not know how to cook (no offence!).
Then came the time to venture into the brave new world of explorers and wanderers and I became a part of it in the October of 1986. I left my mother and sisters, my place of birth and education and stepping into adulthood, I took a flight to Austin, TX at the age of 26. University of Texas at Austin was my life for the next three years. My arrival was exciting and so was the warm welcome from labmates and some relatives and friends from India. But very soon, I was by myself, in my studio apartment (at a monthly rent of $125!) and the work load was pretty heavy. I worked until midnight almost every night. Understandably, my diet basically became restricted to peanut butter and jelly (PBJ) sandwich, baked potato with broccoli, pizza and Chinese veggie bowl. By the way, I was raised as a vegetarian, and chose to remain a vegetarian – a decision that I am very proud of, even today. Though the latter three compensated for my growing apathy towards PBJ, after the first 6 months I could neither see, smell, nor eat PBJ. It took me a decade to buy peanut butter again. This was the crisis that motivated me to start cooking.
I was recipe-poor, and all I had were the memories of helping my mother during my childhood. So, I conjured each of those memories and started experimenting. I didn’t have a car and used to share a ride with a friend in his old Volkswagen Bus to shop for groceries. My experiments with cooking in the early days were pretty much a disaster every single time. But I didn’t have any other choice. I couldn’t even look at pizza. The only outside food that I cherished was the Chinese veggie rice bowl from a very small Chinese fast food place across Guadalupe St. at the University. In fact, this was the only reason that I took a liking to Chinese cuisine. So, over the next two years or so, I slowly improved my cooking of Indian and Chinese vegetarian dishes.
One thing I realized fairly quickly was that cooking was not just about food, it brought a sense of freedom for me that, for the first time, I was not dependent on anyone for my basic need. I was also happy and proud to have broken the stereotype that cooking is a woman’s job and men are present to just eat and critique the food. Notable so, some of the best cooks in Indian history are men (and they are also the best critics) – Nalabheemapakam is supposed to be the best. Bhima, one of the five brothers of Pandavas is known as the best cook. Above and beyond all those, when cooking becomes a passion and a hobby that you look forward to and experiment with, it provides excellent compensation to your mind and body that engage in other intellectual/scientific/physical activities. This is how cooking became an integral part of my life.
I still remember how my grandmother used to make “guttivankai kura” (full eggplant curry). She made it so it was the best and so, I started trying. I remember avial, sweet banana chutney/curd served with fruit rice at the A-mess at IISc., and I started experimenting, sometimes more successful than others.
It was the time I met a student from Germany (total meat eater) and we started dating. We used to invite many friends and colleagues to our apartment and cooked for them. Thus, my cooking skills began to expand.
In 1990 we moved to Germany and started our family in 1992. One of my conditions to get into serious relationship with my German girlfriend was: No meat or seafood at home – storage, eating, cooking, or bringing in. She was infatuated and agreed – a decision we hold even today. My wife eats meat outside, but we maintain veg*an lifestyle at home. This has survived the test for over 15 years in Germany as well as in the US. Since then, I am the cook at home most of the times, except for vegetarian German dishes that my wife makes. During the time in Germany and subsequent move to the US in 2000, my cooking slowly expanded from Indian, German, Italian and Chinese to Thai, Mexican and Mediterranean. I enjoy inviting friends over and cooking for them.
One very important value that I try to uphold during cooking or eating food is to not waste food. I know how farmers work hard to produce the food we eat. I know how many humans and animals are deprived of food across the world. So, if I see someone serving food in excess and leaving their plate only half eaten, I would like to have “nothing to do with that person”. If you are a meat eater, this is even more important, because, an animal was killed for you to live. Above and beyond all these, conscious eating is critical. Be conscious about the source of your food, where it is coming from and how? Because, if you eat, it becomes a part of your body and mind. If you abuse your source of food, you abuse your body as well and your mind follows that abuse. You become physically and mentally a sick person. So, be conscious of the source of your food, respect the life that was sacrificed (plant or animal) and try to do minimal harm/damage to life for you to exist. Within this framework, you can still be an excellent cook and delight yourself and your friends and family with good food.
Murthy Gudipati
La Canada Flintridge, CA
About the Author: Murthy S. Gudipati (aka G. S. Murthy at IISc) is a Principal Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the evolution of organic matter and ice in the Universe, particularly the outer solar system, comets, and the potential origin(s) of life on Earth. He worked at the University of Texas at Austin, at the University of Cologne, Germany, University of Maryland, College Park, and at NASA Ames before joining JPL/Caltech in 2007. Murthy obtained M.Sc. at the Central University of Hyderabad (1981), Ph.D. from the Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science (1987), and Habilitation (similar to tenure) at the University of Cologne (1998). He stayed in almost all the Men’s Hostel Blocks, dined at all the three A-C Messes, ran a half-marathon, and developed life-long friendships during his 1981-1986 stay at one of the most beautiful campuses in the world – the IISc. His PhD research was recognized with “Guha Medal – Best Thesis Award”. Murthy is one of the founding members of the IIScAANA.
Born and raised in in Southern India, Murthy lived in interior villages to mega cities in three continents. He at times walked over four miles each way to attend upper primary schools from his village. This experience bonded him with nature and animals immensely. Murthy likes Nature and National Parks and he has organized several hiking and camping trips for IIScAANA. Murthy’s passion is to bring knowledge, information, and education to the next generation humans to enable the future civilizations to treat themselves and the Nature with respect. Murthy’s pursuit of Science is balanced by his interest in World Music, Nature, Vegetarian Cooking, and Philosophy.
Edited by: Anshu Malhotra
This work by ClubSciWri is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
