Cooking Blues: A Gourmet's Lamentation
By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
23 March 2026
Jo sil par surkh mirchein piis kar saalan pakaatii thiin
Sahar se shaam tak masruuf lekin muskuraatii thiin
(Grinding red chillies on a mortar they would cook a curry
Busy from dawn till dusk, they'd be busy but always smiling)
From a nazm, Woh Kaisi Auraten Thiin (Who were those women) by Asna Badr
Chai bhi jin se dhang se nahin banti
Ummeed hai un se chapli kabaab ki
'Nashtar' Nishapuri
(Who can't even prepare a decent cuppa / Alas, I expect toothsome chapli kabaab from her)
Chapli kabaab is a Pashtun-style minced kabaab made from ground beef, mutton or chicken with various spices in the shape of a patty. The chapli kabaab originated from the city of Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan and is today found across South Asia.
Recently, a man in Punjab filed a case and asked for divorce on the grounds of his wife's inefficient cooking. That he didn't get it is of no consequence. The point is: Bad cooking can drive a man crazy. China is the only civilized society, where bad cooking is a valid ground for divorce. We should adopt that here too. "The way to reach a man's heart is through his stomach." This old maxim has great truth in it. A wife doesn't have to be a culinary expert or a cordon bleu chef, but she must have a reasonable knowledge of cooking, at least how to cook passable daal-rice. Feminists may find a gender bias here and say that it's unfair to expect one's wife to be a good cook. Well, there's no discrimination here. But good cooking is always expected of a wife or a woman.
Even in European countries, where every individual is independent, a wife's culinary expertise is much emphasised and appreciated. Ernest Hemingway was never happy with his first wife, who was a lousy cook. Paul Newman's first girlfriend couldn't even make simple tomato soup, which Newman liked very much. He left her within a few months and narrated this to his official biographer as a reason to part with her. Cooking is an art and despite men being great chefs, there's nothing like ghar ka khaana, which can only be prepared by a woman. Men cannot put that emotional thing into it. They're too matter-of-fact, whereas women are emotional beings. That's the reason why everyone longs for maa ke haath ka khana (food prepared by mother). Call it an Oedipus Complex, psychologists say that every man unwittingly tends to equate his beloved or would-be wife with his mother. What he values most is his mother's cooking. So, it's natural that he looks for the same attribute/s in his prospective bride. In a south Indian community, a boy asks the girl whether she can prepare traditional 'Rasam.' If the girl says 'yes,' a barrage of questions will be hurled at her and soon the meeting will turn into a cooking session with a number of ingredients and innovative ways of preparing 'Rasam' cropping up.
Not just in India, a girl's cooking skills are stressed everywhere. There's a Scottish saying that, " A woman who can't cook is like a beautiful but unreadable book." It has been found that man's longing for good food also makes him vulnerable to marry! He expects his wife to cook delicious food for him as most of the men are gourmets, rather gourmands. But this expectation may often backfire like in the case of the poor Punjabi bloke, who filed for divorce because of his wife's awful cooking. It's a classic manifestation of the popular Urdu adage: Gaye thay roza chhudane, namaaz gale pad gayee.
Finally, instead of wasting time, matching horoscopes, checking on caste etc. during marriage negotiations, the ability of a woman to cook should seal the matter. All else will come secondary.
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A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/cooking-blues-gourmet-lamentation/d/139362
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