Freedom through food: Bourdain, Garlic and I
June, 2020
The final weeks of June have always been a period of profound gloom.
Come July, I turn a year older. This little fact has managed to put me in a funk for the last couple of years.
Social media has been a proven distraction from my sour mood for quite some time now. Aimlessly scrolling through my Instagram feed one evening, I was made aware of Bourdain Day or what could have been the late writer-chef-rockstar’s 63rd birthday. Double-tapping my way out of the app, I decided to combat my yearly blues by devoting my time to diving headfirst into a mammoth task: watching No Reservations as an homage to his influence in my life. What started as an escape from the dull hues of reality soon became the starting point of a journey of self-realization that I didn’t know I needed.
Cooped up in my little space, watching good ol’ Tony walk the dim alleys of a French city, cigarette in hand, the hems of his trench coat in tow was like watching a scene from a very old, deeply buried childhood memory. This is the Anthony I remember. A distinct thread of thought took birth in a dark corner of my mind…one that nagged me while I tried to sleep and seeped into my coffee the next morning.
Nostalgia is a potent catalyst to reflective thought.
I grew up thinking of food in terms of the gender roles that my young mind associated with cooking. As a closeted queer person and baby feminist, it occurred to me that if I ever wanted to escape the shackles of binary that lay waiting — ready to bind me any moment now — I had to steer clear of this strange place that was the kitchen and any chore associated with it. With this in mind, I took a sort of deranged pride in telling any person that would listen how unlucky I was with food and how I could never cook a meal for myself, let alone another person. This confession was true but only to a certain extent. The knowledge made me uneasy.
By the time I turned 18, I had two secrets. One was the fact that I was very, very queer. This I kept from my family.
The other was I loved food and this? This I kept from the world. I came to be known as whatever the opposite of someone that loved food was. An anti-foodie. A non-gastronome. How do I tell them that I was secretly fascinated by everything the culinary world had to offer?
Accepting this forbidden love required a lot of unlearning. I took it upon myself to try and understand the complex art of cooking and while at it, navigate through my own feelings and reasons for keeping something that I so dearly loved at an arm’s distance.
Almost every person remembers the exact moment it started. For me, it started with garlic.
The simple act of peeling one, slicing it, chopping it, smashing it (but NEVER putting it through a garlic press, lest I piss Tony off) was therapeutic. I loved the sounds and smells and TASTES of the kitchen with a passion. Diced onions sizzling away in the pan managed to put me in a trance every single time.
Fast forward a few weeks later, it’s been hours upon hours of making stock, batter and nut milk and burning a few unfortunate pancakes — I wouldn’t have it any other way. In my kitchen, I am God. Creating an almost cosmic amalgam of what used to be a few individual ingredients is what magic is supposed to be.
If my younger self saw what became of them in the future, they would see what was missing.
So here is an open letter to every other person, young and old, that is struggling with the same things that I once did: food does not know bias. Food is what connects you with the rest of the world. It is anything but gendered.
These days, I camp in my tiny kitchen weeping over a beautiful red cabbage that I picked up during my weekly grocery run. A plate of hot pancakes sit next to me — a success this time around. The coffee is brewing in here too. Oof, rocket fuel. This is freedom.
Next July, as I turn another year older, I will have let go of one more of my childhood demons and maybe then growing older will not daunt me as much. Maybe, I would have gained freedom through food.
