The hands that feed us
Hi, I'm Apoorva Sripathi, a freelance writer and artist. If you enjoyed reading this issue or think shelf offering is great in general, you can buy me a cup of coffee // sponsor my work // simply share the newsletter, and ask a friend or two (or three?!) to subscribe.
i.
Are the hands that raise us
I have been poring over the concept of hand taste or son-mat in Korean culture for weeks now, after I discovered it via Ruby Tandoh's piece on the power and the potential of hands. Both Tandoh's piece and Jiwon Woo's project that I have been quietly obsessed with, are brilliant in terms of research, and beautiful in the way they encompass the relationship between hands and the invisible magical threads they seem to weave — whether it's the hand yeast living on the surface, the preservation of cultural heritage, or the mother, who is the central figure of it all.
While Woo's project focuses on the genealogy of hand fungi, its influence on taste, and the significance of identity, history, and memories; Tandoh writes about the dependency on "our most masterful kitchen tool" even in the strangest of times. Not to reduce that thoughtful line into a punchline for a joke, but for most households, "our most masterful kitchen tool" is the woman.
Food, and by extension cooking, has always been understood as the primary responsibility for women, it has been the site for gendered oppression, and this becomes even more complicated when ethnicity, race, nationality, class, and caste are added to the mix. As an anthropologist, I have been interested in food for only three years now. But as someone whose place in a gendered hierarchy is that of a purveyor (of culture), food practices have constantly kept my identity in check. If the act of eating can be considered as a vehicle for ritual, then the act of cooking is a vehicle for the division of labour.
Earlier this year, when those of us in India were adjusting to the idea of a lockdown — but not social distancing — there were a number of pieces on how Indian men took/were forced to take to the kitchen. How they finally learned to help their wives with household chores. I saw it on Instagram too, from the brandishing of imperfect rotis to the proud declaration of #mybaeisbest and other such hashtags. It happened at home too with my father. What these articles noted, this Mint Lounge story especially, was that men (of a certain privilege, class, and caste) realised they couldn't always depend on women for their food; whether it was single men living by themselves who had cooks or married men who wanted to "help" their wives. What does it take to get Indian men to do household chores, asked this piece.
It shouldn't take much really, besides moving away from generations of patriarchal conditioning. Indians also spend more hours — 13/week — cooking than anyone else; the global average is under 6.5 hours a week. Obviously this is borne by women, who are also responsible for household and child responsibilities as well.
Hand taste is a lovely concept, of course. There is a similar concept in Tamil as well, called kai manam, which roughly translates to hand fragrance; the belief that the cooking hands impart a unique aroma to the dish. And more often than not, kai manam is attributed to the woman, a mother or a grandmother.
At first glance, kai manam or son-mat seems loaded with traditional value, and sees cooking as an act of love. But cooking is more than that — it is a cultural asset, and a source of social mobility. In a society where there is strict delineation of food (and I daresay cuisine) into high and low, pure and impure; where food and cooking follow an unwritten framework of rules and implied meanings; where the everyday practice of cooking and eating transcends from sustenance into the creation of a person, a family, and therefore a community's identity; and where women's labour has been made invisible, hand taste and hand fragrance will not have much value beyond an act of love.
It reminds me of English Vinglish, where Sridevi's (as Shashi) love for cooking is the love for her family itself. But it's also a business. As Mayukh Sen so lovingly puts it in this piece:
She sculpts boondi into small saffron spheres, cradles them in her palms, and subjects them to jacuzzis of ghee boiling on a stove. This is daily routine for Shashi, a housewife who runs a small, but booming, ladoo business from her home.
When Sridevi as Shashi cooks for her family, she is expected to do it as a wife/mother/daughter-in-law. Her domestic labour is overlooked and reduced to just an act of love. And when it comes to making ladoos for her business, her husband Satish suggests that she stop it — "Only I should eat your food. Why should others enjoy it?” As Sen says, her cooking holds no material value whether inside or outside the house. Except, I suspect, that Satish realises the amount of labour that goes into making the ladoos, and doesn't really want to acknowledge the same (or perhaps more) amount of labour that goes into making food for the family or taking care of other household chores. Because Satish, like countless others, don't want to see it as 'real' work unless it's paid for. Lola Olufemi writes about that in Feminism Interrupted; Disrupting Power — "every meal cooked by a mother or a carer [within the home] is inextricably bound up in the cycles of power and exploitation that keep our world going."
I intended to start this essay by writing about my mother's kai manam, how maybe her hand fungi is imparted on to the dosa batter she makes every week or the chapathi dough she makes every day, and how I carried those memories with (and within) me wherever I travelled to for work or study. Memories to which I constantly returned, memories that created a comforting space which I never wanted to leave. Hand fungi or not, food memories and identities are usually gendered — it's the woman, maybe as a wife or mother, who is the central figure in keeping traditions and cultures alive through marriage and food. Anthropologists, historians, chefs or writers, often have that temptation of connecting a sensory experience of food back to the mother. She is, as anthropologist Arjun Appadurai notes in his paper Gastro-politics in Hindu South Asia, involved in the early stages of nurturing bodies through food. She provides access to histories and memories.
In the film, Shashi finally gains recognition and an identity beyond a mother and wife who cooks, after she takes an English class in New York — my one line summary here doesn't really help, but she manages to speak in English much to the surprise of her husband and daughter — and we're to assume all is well after. Maybe her ladoo business is seen as worthwhile by her husband, and maybe he shares the domestic load. But what about those who don't have the privilege to take an English class in Chennai, let alone New York. Who acknowledges the work that goes into making the meal beyond just hand taste or an act of love?
ii.
in my parents' tiny kitchen,
i move briskly; from cutting board to sink
with my hands stained beet pink.
i move from sink to stove:
a stir here, and a tap there. and then,
it's back to the cutting board.
but the sink awaits.
hands are vulnerable.
so i lather-rinse-repeat and wash,
till my skin dries out.
Miscellaneous
- An apt song to represent all the sleeplessness that is going around. (This newsletter and its writer will always stan 80s Tamil songs.)
- Is Seinfeld really a show about nothing or is it a show about food? Maybe next issue will have essays about food on screen.
- This issue was very kindly edited by Susanna Lazarus — friend, journalist, and supreme baker.
I would love to hear from you — idea, shoutout, or just a chat about Shelf Offering. Reach me at seriouscheats@gmail.com.