Coming from a deeply middle class family, cooking and feeding was the only sign of affection between mothers and their children! If your mother made you your favourite sugar paratha, you were the loved one! You were the apple of her eye and you were perfect! The same mother could punish you by feeding you tendli or gourd and you just had to swallow it with the hope that tomorrow will be a better day!
Now, in this regard, my grandmother was the perfect example of loving by feeding! And when she fed, she really fed! You would lie in a food induced coma for a few hours and before you could recover from that meal, you would hear her call you to taste the next dish she prepared! She was a self taught cook who prided in her knowledge of all things culinary. She was a trend setter in some ways because she was baking nankatais and cakes way before they became “traditional”! She hosted some of the best meals for large groups of people! She learnt how to make pasta and pizzas way before the Indian palate had really tasted them. In her last years, she would look up recipes on YouTube and instruct her cook to make those dishes! A true culinary genius!
Then came my mother who really wasn’t that interested in cooking! She cooked because that was expected of her and in some cases because she had two children, a husband and a dog to feed! Left to herself, she would rather take care of her plants, or talk endlessly to whoever was around, watch copious amounts of TV and just eat whatever is served! She looked for shortcuts in her cooking and would convince us that Maggi and chips are great sources of energy for growing children! She lucked out, rather we lucked out, because she managed to delegate this chore to her cooks! And she has some of the best cooks we have ever seen! They made us the dishes that she imagined in her mind!
So with this background, let me introduce this noisy new entrant to middle class homes in the early 70’s and by the 80’s was a household essential only next to running tap water! Sumeet Mixer Grinder as they were called, was a game changer in our homes! It revolutionised cooking and meal preparations to the extent no one imagined it could. I am sure the makers must have thought, let’s create a machine that can grind the spices and batters and help women get off their grinding stones! But no! What they created, changed the middle class’ social standing! Suddenly we were getting milkshakes to drink (banana and mango being the staple!), we were getting different varieties of chutneys (coming from a south Indian family, the humble coconut chutney was the staple). Now we were getting to eat peanut chutney, tomato chutney, pudina chutney, garlic chutney and more! Suddenly we were getting “surprise” cakes because the butter churning was happening in minutes! The idly batter now lasted an entire week! Wait, let me explain. My mother would grind the idly batter first but she would grind a quantity that could easily feed a sub Saharan family for a week! So, we would get piping hot idlies on day 1. It would be accompanied by a chutney. Day 2 the batter would be used to make more idlies but this time, the idlies would be cut up and transformed to idly upma, with lots of seasoning and onions and tomatoes! Day 3 the same batter would become dosas. Day 4 it will become ragi dosa! Just add ragi flour to the batter! Day 5 we would all start protesting if we saw any other version of the batter and so the menu would be switched up to upma or chapathi. Day 7 the mixie would roar back to life and the cycle would start afresh!
A simple contraption that would wake up an entire neighbourhood when it was turned on, changed lifestyles so dramatically. Women had more time to experiment with new dishes, some went ahead and got a better education, others developed newer hobbies, some others went out to work and earn a living and some others used the machine to start home grown businesses! This little invention brought about a (silent) revolution in Indian homes. Gave women so much power and so much control over their little fiefdoms. A machine that gave way to women not having to sweat in gloomy kitchens anymore. Their work was halved and their physical labour was cut significantly. Women proudly covered their mixies in hand embroidered covers and later when the plastic covers came, they lovingly cleaned and covered their machines every single day!
Today, as I write this, I think of all the trad wives who have ditched their modern machinery to go back to the laborious and time consuming mortar and pestles and declare that these bring the flavours back to the cooking. My grandmother in heaven is definitely rolling her eyes and tut-tutting that these girls have no sense! She was a strong advocate for technology and embraced every single gadget with a curiosity and a sense of adventure! She saw the world evolve from Ceylon radio to Twitter (X). She learned and grew her knowledge from these technologies. But to both my mother and my grandmother, ask them to go back to grinding on the stone grinder and they will throw a hussy fit and chase you down the road! They couldn’t be bothered if the flavour of garlic retained its original flavour in the mixie or not! They wanted to cook to show their affection but they also wanted to move on with their day!
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