The Last Appam

Cheena chatti gasped in surprise when the cold appam batter was poured into it, the batter was then slowly cooked to perfection till its edges were turned golden brown. Amma carefully separated the appam from chatti and continued to make the next ones. Watching all these acts were me and a bowl of piping hot vegetable stew. The aroma of coconut milk and sight of carrots, beans and potato of the stew compelled my bowels to yell for more. Amma was well aware of my needs and made a batch of appams. Achan and Aniyan emerged from their respective corners in the house, like snakes come out of their holes during first rain. They too must have been invited by the hot appams and stew. Once the hungry souls were satisfied, Amma made couple more appams for herself and left the last appam in the chatti. I knew why she does that, while she finishes the appams on her plate, she will call out and ask me to get the last appam resting at the chatti. This way she ensured that she too get to eat a piping hot appam!

Fast forwarding to today’s world where I am a working woman and living with my husband. My nights are filled with planning for next day and mornings are spend executing them meticulously, so that the machine called home can run without fail.  Once home is up and running, I will run towards office were a set of instructions are to be followed and some decisions need to be made. One of the many juggling activities managed during this ride is preparing breakfast. I had tried oats, corn flakes, milk and fruits, bread and omelet and almost all other quick breakfast options. However, realized that the traditional breakfast options are the ones which are healthy and filling and keeps us fuelled for the entire day. While my husband is served piping hot food from tawa / chatti directly, I eat the ‘Last’ piece and enjoy the moment.

Dear readers, now you must be thinking what kind of men we have at the family and may be sympathizing with me and Amma? Halt there… look at each and every family around, don’t we see that woman in the family is the one who is at the kitchen planning, preparing and feeding food for the entire family? While the world has progressed so far and Men and Women share most kinds of work and we have celebrity men chefs and cookery show male anchors, we do not see Men in their kitchen actively working for his family. It is not that men don’t do any work related to kitchen, they bring groceries, praise women for their cooking skills, sometimes clean the dishes, rarely cut the vegetables, but they have never come forward and has taken ownership to manage the entire kitchen activities. Is it our social set up or historically men used to go out for hunting and women stayed back and reared kids and cooked food?  If that is the case then wake up, today women go out for work just like men and handle all the stress out there , driving a vehicle, purchasing grocery, managing money are all done by her. Still, why men have to depend on women for home food?

I am dreaming of a day when men would throw away all their inhibitions and take up kitchen tasks, and women in the family wait at the dining table for a hot appam to be served with love. Kids will run behind dads on festive days and ask for their favorite sweets to be made. Our future generations would remember of days when their dad and mom both shared cooking and feeding the family. Well, technically the last appam would always remain, but the good thing would be it will not be always for Amma.

Translation:

Cheena Chatti:  Wok / Kadai.

Amma: Mother.

Achan: Father.

Aniyan: Younger Brother.

Tawa: Pan.