All over the world, women, mothers, grandmothers, and aunts do their best to put amazing food on the table, even when the ingredients available to them might be humble. One of the prime features of such cooking is resourcefulness that comes from love towards family, so that even inexpensive ingredients are combined with creativity to cook delicious and nourishing meals.
In many parts of the world, especially in Asia and the Middle East, the women who provide families with their daily meals also tend to eyeball the quantities. They have an innate ability to recreate and improvise upon dishes and recipes handed down through generations without always resorting to scales, measures, and precise amounts. The taste might not be consistent as in a professional kitchen, but the subtle variations don’t prevent a dish from being delicious or having a signature flavour of the cook.
Little tribute is paid to these cooks. But sometimes a memory comes back, of an aroma rising into the air, bringing us running to the kitchen, a sign that our favorite food was being cooked, a sense of joy in looking forward to the meal, and the satisfaction of eating a cherished delight. These were mothers, grandmothers, or aunts, not just cooking our food; they were creating a special flavor of our lives, our childhood. This is why the food of our childhood is a flavor that never loses its special place in our hearts, and we are glad whenever we find it again.
Children all around the world grow up remembering some flavors with special fondness, even if it was just a shop-bought snack that their mother gave them to eat, while she cooked lunch, or a ready meal warmed up when there was no time to prepare food at home, or nobody could think of what to cook. We tend to forget that cooking daily is similar to a full-time job; doing it well requires inspiration and hard work. Nowadays, prepped ingredients and easy-to-prepare healthy foods have made the lives of those with the duty to cook every day much easier. In the older days, when women were tired from other chores, didn’t have time, or just ran out of inspiration, they resorted to meals requiring less prep and cooking time.
Today, we take the opportunity to pay tribute to the memory of the mother of the founder and President of Kaiser Foodline, Mansur Kaiser. She was an excellent cook, and for years, she cooked delicious meals for her extended family.
In those older times, the clay pot was used across the Indian subcontinent. These days, earthenware cooking is making a comeback. People are noting the health benefits of cooking in clay pots. It was no easy task, but she visited the bazaar daily and spent time carefully choosing the freshest ingredients. She ground her own spices, as was the practice of the day. She didn’t follow strict measures and amounts. It was intuitive. She knew the method.
Frequently, she cooked dishes that required much preparation and patience. Food simmered on low heat in the clay pot until all the flavours were combined to produce what we now call umami—when the sum of the parts creates something more than the parts. When she was out of inspiration, which was rare, she made a simple dish of white basmati rice and lentils, incidentally one of the favourites of everyone in the family.
She loved to cook. She was fond of cooking for people and found joy in food. She loved to eat street food and snacks, and often bought samosa or naan bread with ghee on the way home from shopping as a treat.
We don’t recognise the work of women who cook every day enough. Yet they continue great culinary traditions everywhere in the world and contribute with their unique creative touch, crafting new flavours and inspiring coming generations to invent new ways of enjoying centuries-old foods.
Very often, it is these flavors of our childhood that motivate us to find innovative ways of bringing quality food to people while preserving culinary heritage, to relish and share the joy of good food; and this is the inspiration behind Mansur Kasier’s constant work to maintain the quality of Kaiser Foodline products, proudly acknowledging and continuing the legacy of food cooked with care and love.
