Why I Cannot Write about Food

Sometimes, things work in piquant ways, prodding to the surface matters long submerged. The past then looks very different. One day, an editor I loved working with vanished into the ether of cyberspace. After a long time of no emails, and no trail that even Google could dig up, I learnt that he was involved with something altogether different, something close to his heart: a new online directory of food—an encyclopaedia of recipes, complete with their history and details of preparation. I was happy to have found him at last, but this was a space to which I could neither contribute nor belong.

I felt a similar loss as a member of a popular Facebook group about old recipes from Bengal. I could add little to the informed, nuanced discussions about ingredients, what could be substituted for another, or even the regional variations of how a favourite food was prepared. When friends shared photos of wonderful things they had cooked, I only performed the mandatory “like” on their posts. When friends spoke of trying out different cuisines every time they visited a new place, I followed the conversation with interest, but was never a part of it. It made me feel inadequate, as if I lacked the necessary social skills. Food, in fact, had always made me feel inadequate.