Cooking with fire

Cooking With Fire

Two cultures, one common element

The view of the West from those of us who grew up in the East is one of a world already developed and full of progress.

What we fail to see is that old technology and even extreme poverty existed in the West well into the 1970s and beyond.

A good example is when my Sri Lankan parents visited Ireland’s West and were struck by pictures of children running around outside in the 1950s in drab clothing and no shoes. To them, having grown up during the same post-colonial times, it was unimaginable that people in the West could have been so poor. They had grown up influenced by the richness of the British Empire. To see the same poverty that is found less and less frequently in Sri Lanka in the not so recent past in the West was a surprise.

Their generation had grown up absorbed in the advancements in technology discovered by the West. During my grandmother’s lifetime, she would experience the introduction of electricity, in-house plumbing to replace well water, vaccines, radio, telephones, cars, and televisions. All of this technology was absorbed in the East.

As the late Hans Rosling pointed out in Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About The World, the speed at which the East accepts new technology and wealth is almost exponential compared to the hundreds of years it took for the West. People growing up in the East grow up with far more technological advances than people in the West realize.

Colonization combined with an upper class or wealthy ancestry set many people of Eastern descent to be well ahead of millions in the West. The children of these estate managers and businessmen would then educate themselves in Western universities and return to build and lead their countries raising the prosperity of all.

Meanwhile, in the wake of World War II in Europe, most rural areas took a long time to recover. Rural areas were hit the hardest by destructive tactics that left them with no electricity, no water, no communication (2). As Europe rebuilt, the old ways were preserved by rural communities.

As a young child, I was fascinated by my grandmother’s kitchen in Colombo. A curtain was hung over the door that blew in the breeze. Walking into the main kitchen, you enter a room painted white with a high ceiling and fan. A large heavy dining table that sat at least 8 people took up the first part of the room. Above it, a large woven cover hung via a cord and hook to be lowered to keep flies from the food.

Behind the table were 1950s style cabinetry and a clean modern stove probably dating to the 80s. At the back of the room was a deep cement sink paired with an old 1950s or 60s style washing machine. By then it was used as a centrifuge to wring water out of a couple of items of clothing at a time. Around a corner were a small room and bathroom kept by her staff.

This outer kitchen was always clean and very misleading. The real kitchen was through a small door to the right just after the dining table. This dirty pantry, as it was called, was where you would find a spotless porcelain styled sink and several tables used for food preparation. Shelves held clean pots of different sizes, their bases all covered by some level of blackening. Often times food was cooked in clay pots to enhance flavor.

Turn a corner and there it was. The cooking hood. I call it a cooking hood because I later found it looked like a fume hood from a science lab. Made of cement and brick, this was where the fire was kept. When not in use, it was swept clean of ashes and wood (dara) and kindling (dry palm leaves, newspaper) would be set up in anticipation. Extra firewood and kindling were stored under the hood.

The best food was made over fire. For this reason, well into the 90s, the cooking hood was the mode of choice until the age and fragility of my grandmother paired with the lack of experienced staff/cooks meant switching to a gas burner. The cooking hood was retired and the techniques for cooking with fire lost.

Twenty years later, I walked into the kitchen of my then boyfriend’s (now husband’s) family farm in rural Brittany. There was the white, cotton-haired grandmother tending her 1970s French wood burning stove in a kitchen of about the same era. This contraption looked like a modern stove except one side held the burning wood and a stovepipe allowed the smoke to exit through the side of the house. The best food was made with fire.

When she too became too fragile and of an age where it became dangerous, she switched to the electric stove. The family would later replace both units with a gas range.

Many people wonder how someone of Sri Lankan heritage can feel so at home with someone of French heritage. It’s simple.

We both had the grandmother who ruled the kitchen with her wood burning stove. The best food was made over fire.

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