Maa ke haath ka khazana

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MasterChef judges Vikas Khanna, Sanjeev Kapoor and Kunal Kapoor

What are your childhood memories of food? Did your mother make the world’s best dal? Did she stir up the best bhindi known to man, woman? Did she make ladoos you could die for? My childhood memories of my mother’s food are of two kinds. She loved making deserts — gajar ka halwa, Milkmaid barfi, and the World’s Best Kheer.

The kheer was always pink and it never got to spend a night in the refrigerator. Rest of my memories of “my mother’s food” are of little plastic and paper packets — she was a teacher and an obsessive reader and hated wasting her time in the kitchen. But she knew all the best dhabas in our part of town. She’d often pick up our lunch en route from school. Sometimes we would have kadi or rajma from Tilak Nagar and rotis from Chache ka Dhaba across the road. On special days she brought veg pakodas from a thelewalla and we ate them with raat ki roti.
Because I barely spent any time in the kitchen, I am fascinated by the process of cooking. For me it’s all magical — little brown muffins that ooze warm chocolate, how a naan rises in the oven, how one khichdi tastes like it’s come from AIIMS’ general ward and the other from a culinary master. That’s perhaps why I love cooking shows.
Yet, I never took to the desi ones because the firangi ones, especially Nigella Lawson’s late-night food porn and MasterChef Australia, are so much superior and cooler. The dishes, the judges, the contestants, the contests – it’s all so tantalisingly shot and presented.
The desi version of MasterChef was like a day-old masala dosa — hard edges, soggy middle. The focus was not on the contestants’ cooking skills, it was on their jeevan ka dard, zindagi ki peeda. Also, I have never considered Sanjeev Kapoor a good cook. He’s a TV celebrity who rode the wave of the publishing boom.
But MasterChef India Season 3 (Star Plus), is not bad at all. Though it has three dull, Punjabi judges — Sanjeev Kapoor, Kunal Kapoor and Vikas Khanna, each has acquired a distinct character. Sanjeev is the stern, focus-on-food-only judge, Kunal is the angry-prickly judge and Vikas is the cutie pie, a la MasterChef Australia. Also, they are going easy on the rona-dhona this time.
The contestants are still very boring individually, but together they make up a fabulous, Incredible India kitchen — housewives from Haryana, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Mumbai, a gym trainer from Delhi, a halwai from MP, a caterer from Varanasi, a banker from Ahmedabad, and a food stall owner from Ajmer. And this time the dishes too are interesting, even intense. My favourite till now is the wispy thin putreku from Andhra Pradesh.
People have food ambitions, they watch food shows to learn how to cook. I am very clear — I never want to cook. But sometimes, when I miss my mother and her food, I watch food shows and kick my diet in the groin. Unfortunately, this happens every night.