Saturday, July 23, 2005

Home made food

As we are weaned away from the natural source of human nourishment, we go through the years of naturalization process of learning to eat manmade ( woman made in true sense) cuisine which gets imprinted in our minds as home made food for rest of our lives.

Whatever be the background, religion, caste, nationality most people do tend to rave about this home made food until their dying day. Men go thrpugh phases of crossing over from their mother's cooking to numerous chefs in restaurants, their own man friday and sometimes their own adventures in kitchen before finally settling down to their own wife's cooking ( in between they tend to take advantage of culinary skills of their friends' wives by showing up at the opportune moments before meals of the day) and at each stage the term home made food keeps going one notch up in its legendary status. In all this 2 phases of home made food stand out in their minds whenever they are far away from home too long ( while at home there is good old saying "ghar ki murgi daal baraabar" loosely translated to " chicken at home gets treated like lentil curry ( a daily affair)" ). First phase is of mother's cooking and second is wife's. Lucky are the ones who have good memories ( equal and more than equal proportions of) of both phases. Though sometimes second phase tends to get unfair treatment as the impressionable mind of child somehow retains fonder than actual experiences of first phase.

Women tend to get a raw deal in this whole saga of mind over the matter game. They end up fighting two ghosts at the same time, one is ostensibly in her husband's mind and other in hers as well. Memories and comparisons of both mothers' culinary milestones drive her to strive to do twice better her life long, in the process I guess children do get best of both worlds.

somehow, there are very few households which rave about father's culinary delights, leaving women to carry this human civilization's ultimate achievement forward through millenniums( what do u think homosapiens did first thing after discovering fire.... !!!)

But while analyzing why the legend lives on ..... I guess it all comes from knowing taste to the T of your target audience. Every mother and wife perfects this knowledge about her family over the years and that is what makes food an ultimate custom made experience.

there is a thought for new marketeers.... know your customers as well their mothers do...( atleast in case of the eating habits)