Learning how to cook
I think the origin story for how I learned how to cook is an exceptionally 21st bougie tale. My father was away having an affair with the neighbour from our second house on Texel, my sister was in Italy following a course on how to speak Latin, my brother was whining about me not buying ham and cheese for his toasties, and my mum was bedridden because she was recovering from plastic surgery. I was nineteen, had just finished my first year of art school in Glasgow, and was back home for the summer.
It all started in Glasgow My mum helped me move in my student flat. She bought me some pans, knives, cutting boards, towels, a pillow, and then I was left to fend for myself. When I started living on my own, I was quite incapable of taking care of anything - I didn't know how to cook, I didn't know how to do laundry, I barely knew how to do the dishes because we had always had a dishwasher. But thankfully, ✨the internet✨ was there to save me. Through trial and error, google, and the wisdom of others I would slowly become an adult. Sometimes I would make a huge mess in the shared kitchen, but people wouldn't suspect me but the air-headed jock who lived in the same hallway. As long as I didn't set anything on fire, I would be fine.
I quickly became vegan after moving to Glasgow. I had already been vegetarian since I was twelve, because I felt sad for the animals, so it only made sense to take the "next step." I think it was probably easier for me to become vegan because I didn't know how to cook. You're kind of forced to learn how to cook if you're vegan, as you have to question everything you eat. You can't just eat anything willy-nilly from the shops - it's not necessarily "easier" to cook everything you eat, but it's your only choice if you don't want to be limited by the three vegan options they have in the whole supermarket. I had to discover how to do everything. Cooking pasta was just as foreign to me as a making a curry, but slowly I learned what united and differentiated them. How to cut onions, garlic, and other vegetables, the importance of setting a timer and the appropriate amount of salt and spices.
Sometimes things go wrong. This is how I learned how to eat spicy food. I had already made this particular recipe for a jambalaya before with a friend, and I decided to make it again by myself. The recipe called for six mini-peppers. While English doesn't have different words for spicy and non-spicy peppers, in Dutch a pepper is always spicy, while not-spicy peppers are called paprika's. So I read "six mini-peppers," assumed they were talking about the spicy variant, and used six small spicy peppers, as well as a jalapeño-pepper (because that's what the recipe called for.) I had no frame of reference, I was just trying to follow the rules. Tears rolled down my face as I finished it. Delicious and destructive. To quote Nietzsche, who probably never cut an onion, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.
Cooking in Glasgow was different from cooking back home. My mum, a saint, was already used to cooking me a separate vegetarian meal. She was happy to accommodate my veganism, but she didn't really know what to do with it. So I tried to help, but student-cooking carries different expectations than family-cooking. I would cook a curry for the family and my brother act like it was gruel. Ew, vegetables with spices. He claimed that he would raise his hypothetical future kids vegan, but now he wanted to eat ham, eggs and cheese. Another hurdle is the fact that my mum's a great cook. Whatever I was cooking was inferior to her years of honed craft, and it would simply take some time for me to catch up with her.
That first summer back from Glasgow was weird. I remember my parents telling me before I came back to the Netherlands that they were temporarily "separated" so my dad would be "away." I didn't really understand, but I knew my parents marriage wasn't good, so I also wasn't surprised.
My mum had an operation at the start of the summer. Voluntarily, but not without consequences. It was an invasive procedure so at first she just had to rest, lie in bed all day and do nothing. Her friend, our neighbour, took care of her the first few when she could do absolutely nothing. My aunt came by and we went to the supermarket to stock some groceries, and we bought all the wrong things. Neither of us knew what was "normal" for my family, so she got way too much meat and butter while I just nodded along. I wasn't going to eat it, that much was clear, so it didn't really consider it my problem. I still don't know what a normal amount of ham is. My poor mom, still recovering from the operation, not wanting to be ungrateful for the help, was exasperated.
When my mum felt a little better, we decided to go to our second house on Texel. I haven't been there in at least seven years, but I don't really miss it. I always thought the air felt oppressive. However, that was probably the best summer I had there. My mum, her friend and I were there for a month and all I remember is that we made a lot of food and got drunk all of the time. My mum's friend had brought her dog, and we would go on walks along the dyke, sea on one side, sheep on the other. We made falafel, but we didn't have a masher, so I had to crush all of the chickpeas with a fork.
Although this was one of the most formative summers of life, this is all that I can recall. I wanted to write, "we talked about everything and nothing" but I don't know, I can only infer from the fact that we drank a lot that we must have talked about something. I no longer have the mental memories, but I carry the experiences from that summer in other ways. I listened to my mum and sharpened my "cooking intuition." I got to experiment under the loving eye of the master. I learned that I could not only take care of myself, but also of others. My mum had always been there for me, and now the roles were reversed and I had to take care of her.
I come from a family of romantics, emotional and neurotic. Looking back at that summer, my brother told my mum that "it overwhelmed him" which is why he pulled back and didn't do anything. My sister, who during this period was in Italy learning a dead language with some priests, said that she pitied me. I was carrying a large burden: I wasn't only helping my mum recover from her surgery, I also had to support her through my father's abandonment. I simply don't recall anymore, so this is speculation, but there must have been a lot of crying. I didn't know at the time that my dad was having affair; there are moments where I look back and cringe at my naivety. My mum wasn't supposed to tell me about his affair, but she would ask questions about my father that puzzled me, while my father would simply disappear without a moment's notice. Nothing made sense. That summer was chaos, maybe that's why I don't remember it anymore. It didn't fit any pattern, but it was the turning point.
One time I was in the car with my whole family, and my mum exclaimed: "look, Coos, a black sheep!"
I think my sister pitied me because I was essentially doing this "alone," in the sense that no one in the family was supporting me. However, looking back at the experience, I realise I wasn't alone. My mum was there, albeit in a slightly debilitated state, as well as her friends and family who cared for me because she cared for them. It's not a simple transaction, an eye for an eye, a soup for a soup. No-one asked me to take care of my mum, but to me, it was the only imaginable option. I'm grateful for the experience. I don't think either of my siblings will ever be a better chef than me.
I love cooking. I still think it's strange to serve the food that I've cooked to other people. I feel like I'm feeding them a part of myself. A dish will carry memories even if I've never made it before. Memories which cannot be put into words: techniques, the senses, feelings. It's a vulnerable experience: obviously I want people to enjoy what I give them, but what if the risotto tastes a little sad? Can the others taste the solitude I have felt gently stirring the pot by myself in my kitchen kingdom? Or are they simply grateful that I've taken care of them?
