The Lost Culinary Arts

Hey, who doesn't enjoy a home-cooked meal. Those who still have mum's who cook for them for dinner, you are so very blessed... Coming home after school to be welcomed by the deliciously enticing aroma of your favourite dish or a warm meal cooked with love as the secret ingredient. What bliss!!! For those who are unfortunate like me, whose parents are busy at work and dinners are but take-aways, then I guess... What a great dream it will be to come home one day to see that table filled with heavenly delight right? When you were very young, I'm sure one would definitely have home cooked meals almost everyday. And just what makes these foods so special? Is it because they taste great and TOTALLY awesome? Is it because these home cooked dishes are different from those sold outside? They are unavailable outside? They are to your unique taste buds?


Whatever the reason... I think everyone has to agree that these home cooked meals have this unique, one-of-a-kind home-flavour and a warmth that radiates and serves to warm not only our hungry mouths but also our beating hearts. Yet, don't you think it's a sad thing if I told you that this home-flavour is going to be lost soon. I expect this culinary arts to be totally gone by the time our generation become parents. I'm not talking baking a cake, or cookies, or even muffins... Those are but the influence of the western cultures, an impact of Americanisation. What I am talking about is the art to prepare those foods that are so unique to your own traditions and passed down from generations from grandmother to mother. Somehow having these foods, and reading what I wrote, don't you not feel this connection to the family tree... A taste so close, so very close to what was once ages ago when life was so simple and meals were prepared by wives who would wait patiently each day for the husband to come home, and the whole family digs in... ... The old times... ... Reminiscence...


Ask yourself, ask everybody in your class or your friends... And you would soon realise that HEY!!! No one knows how to prepare these dishes... It's as if all we know is making that oh so convenient maggie mee. It's a terror and so disturbing to know that a large proportion of teens nowadays don't even know how to fry a perfect sunshine egg or fry those frozen foods... ... For that I feel so hurt and upset. Can't you all see that the future would be so cold without them. Perhaps this is not our fault entirely, because in the past generations, studies was not really that hectic and demanding. Today, studies are driven by this mad adrenaline rush fueled by human greeds, and desires and the need to rapidly expand development. While our parents were given the opportunities to learn the culinary arts we teenagers of this generation hardly get a chance. Which is really so sad. Recipes passed down the generations, LOST in the hands of our generation.


When you grow up and start a family... Are you still going to work and make each meal a takeaway at a nearby foodcourt? What about the children? While we are ever so blessed to have tasted this home-flavour, they shall never will. I really just can't imagine me as a dad and seeing my children come home to takeaway food day in and day out. That warmth I find in home cooked food are but so distinctively HOME... HOW can we deprive them from this? The oh so scared culinary arts of our families. Curry, herbal chicken soup, steam egg with meat, steamed fish, stir-fried vegetables... So simple, but so rare in the future... I just can't bear to see a family in the future where no parent knows how to cook, and every single meal is a takeaway... I mean... CAN YOU!!??


I think we should start learning how to cook. And when I say cook I mean the dishes of your family and not western foods like spaghetti or steak etc... I am talking about those simple yet unique dishes like fried rice that are HOME to us all. A part of us that reminds us of our heritage and family ties. That unbreakable bonds forged not of the physical form but of the heart... These are truely the bonds that will form the pillars of your emotional support... ... A light in the dark... ... So you may get out of the dark...


I have learnt to make dishes from my mother, but even though I know quite a few, I still have a lot to learn from my mother. At the very least I have a slight peace at heart knowing that the home cooked traditions of my family may yet be fully lost. I shall continue to learn from my mother and maybe my grandmother too one day? I dunno, but I guess that will have to wait until I have the time like after A levels? Teens nowadays have no time but study time honestly... So reflect upon the home cooked meals you have and wonder... Your future family... Their food... And... ... ... ...