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Give us this day our daily bread
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Whether it is gourmet fare from a plush kitchen or a matter of daily grind by the roadside, the life of a chef is not easy, says SHILPA SEBASTIAN ROMELES.
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Life's quite a toss for both five star chefs and roadside idliwallahs.
REMEMBER SHARUKH as a five-star chef in Duplicate, who not only creates wonders with veggies and pulses, but also sings and dances in the kitchen with leggy girls at the drop of a chef's cap? This image leaves one wondering what happens in a real kitchen with real chefs who cook real food.
If you are a woman, you must be all too familiar with the hazards of the kitchen. We tend to not just burn our fingers (literally!), but also constantly dread disasters like pasty rice, salty curry, or oily sabzi. So, how is it that what chefs turn out is always perfect? Do the chefs really enjoy cooking? Do they, like us plebs, go to the market, buy vegetables, clean, wash, and cook? Or is everything laid out on a platter for them to do some mix `n' match and work magic, be it Continental or Oriental?
Curious to know the behind-the-scenes story, I set out to meet cooks of varied hues.
Abhijit Saha, Executive Chef, Park.Hotel, and P. Ramachandran, Chief Executive Chef, Grand Ashok, both work for five star hotels. While Saha is young and aspiring, Ramachandran is content and nostalgic.
So what actually does a chef do?
Explains a confident Saha, who was rated by Outlook as one of the top 10 chefs: "The chef is the one who runs the entire show, right from buying the ingredients to managing (the kitchen). There is always scope for creativity, as each dish has to be presented in an innovative way. We have to be quick and make sure that the quality, quantity, and even the temperature of the food is right. It is a competitive world and you can't rest on your laurels. I set standards which have to be followed."
Adds Ramachandran, winner of the Rotary Vocational Award: "Besides cooking, my designation demands that I design the kitchen and choose the suitable equipment."
But doesn't standing in front of the blazing fire for hours trigger anger or frustration? Are there any broken glasses and plates at the end of the day? "A chef has to be cool come what may. Kitchen is a place for teamwork. And one has to keep encouraging the youngsters to perform better," says Saha, while his counterpart believes in letting it all out once in a while "to get things going perfectly". At work they are perfectionists, who look into every minute detail. But at home, things just can't be so "perfect". Do they end up taking charge of the knives and ladles at home too?
Though they "enjoy cooking", they avoid entering the kitchen at home. "I love my wife's cooking," says Ramachandran. Saha has a smart reply: " I motivate my wife to cook for me, otherwise I will end up doing it all at home too!" He is quick to add that he takes a few tips on cooking from his wife.
What are their work hours like? "There are absolutely no timings in our profession. Sometimes we even miss out on our weekends," says the courteous Ramachandran, who has put in nearly two decades at the Grand Ashok. "The worst thing is that there is no time for any family or social life. I leave home when my kids are fast asleep and by the time I reach home, they are again fast asleep." He started his career with the Indian Tourism Development Corporation and has "grown up with it".
Have there been big accidents in the kitchen? "Accidents always happen," says Ramachandran. In fact, his career began with a major one. "It was one of my first orders. I got so tense that I spilled a boiling pan of oil all over my body." Chefs too, he assures me, are haunted by the problem of excess salt. "But we have our magical secrets that always save us!"
They may travel abroad and have the cream of the society eating out of their plates, but what about major embarrassments such as finding a strand of hair or stones in food? "Once there was this person, a relative of a well-known publisher. He was celebrating a special event. He found hair and jute threads from the food we served. Being a five star hotel, which is usually quiet, I was screamed at and the entire hall stopped eating and gaped at me. It was one of the most embarrassing moments in my life," recalls Saha.
VIP visits are harrowing. That is when everything, right from the basic ingredients, is sent to the food lab for testing. Saha was amused the first time it happened but is quite used to it now.
Away from the posh restaurants, you just can't miss the Chinesewalas or the idliwalas who work from hole-in-the-wall kitchenettes. These men admit it was circumstances that forced them to take to cooking. For them, cooking is not the path to fame, but something that earns them their daily bread. In between tossing and turning the ingredients in the large sooty pan, Rajesh Kumar shares his experience as a cook.
Attired in a black grimy shirt, working in one of the bylanes off Commercial Street, various scars and cuts on his hands are testimony to his long hours. His face is red, standing amid the smoke. This North Indian is called by the very Kannada word, bhattaru (cook), at his work place. "I make all kinds of North Indian food. No, we do not taste the food that goes out. And any item that has excess salt is waste. We do not have the time to rectify it." Unlike his five-star counterparts, he does not have the privilege of a well-appointed kitchen or assistants. He is grateful if his work provides him a day's meal.
His colleague, J.K. Dinesh Kumar, says that he is a South Indian food expert. "I can make sambar, rice, idli, dosa, and so many other `speed' items," he beams. "I don't cook at home. I am the breadwinner and my wife has to manage the house and cook for me. That's the rule."
The curious thing is that none of the professional cooks, five-star or otherwise, want their children to follow their footsteps.
"It is a tough profession, and we do not want our children to suffer the way we do." Whether seen as art flowing from a plush kitchen or is simply a daily grind by the roadside, whoever said cooking is easy!
Photos: Sampath Kumar G.P.
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