I used to get angry at my wife while we were dating when every 3rd hour, she would ask what I had for lunch or breakfast or snacks. It was like the weather talk with acquaintances when you ran out of topics. 

The talk about food and people’s obsession with clicking the photo of dessert puzzled me for decades until her uncle visited us this weekend. 

Almost 80% of our conversation was around food, the texture, the color, the preparation technique, and the memory associated with the time they had their favorite dish. 

I used to run out of such topics. 

My memory around food were about the numbers earmarked for us three brothers and mamma’s strict guideline of meeting them. 

3 dosa. 

3 appam and elaborate account of not wasting food. 

She warned us through some cockamamie logic that each time we wasted food, a kid in Africa suffered. This was repeated each time I didn’t like a curry or a particular preparation. Eventually, I stopped exploring.

Wasting food was too much of a risk. 

My grandmother, who lived with us, had a different approach. 

For her, numbers are just numbers to ignore. 

When I said I would eat only 2 dosas, she would use a special preparation technique and make half-inch dosas that are 10 times thicker than the norm. 

Poor woman wanted us to eat. 

When we were assigned fixed glasses, she would fill them to the brim to make us drink more juice or milk.  

Her balancing act of carrying the glass to the table was an akin to a circus act. But I felt loved. 

Each week when I felt homesick and visited my hometown, she would be ready with my favorite dishes - a potato dish, a beef roast, lentils, and Red Cowpeas. 

I didn’t have to say anything. I knew she loved me. 

Yesterday when I took my kids to meet their grandmother, she gave them one chocolate biscuit and went and sat in front of the TV for her 6:30 series. It hit me hard that the talk about food I avoided the most was to escape my own dissonance that perhaps love from my parents is transactional. 

It is tough to come to terms with this reality. 

Our hormone-driven pursuits as pre-teens led us to a month-long detention at our grandparents’ house. 

We tasted authentic fish curry, beef roast, and the magic of preparing food with the least ingredients. I still remember a grand aunt making an omelet in 3 minutes with shredded coconut and the smallest dip of oil. 

I have never tasted an egg that good. 

I was also disillusioned when my grandmother would send us monthly accounts of our favorite chickens – where they roamed around. We had named each of them the last summer. But when we visited her, she would dispassionately murder them without showing us. 

The symbiotic relationship between animals and humans came alive in villages. 

Food was not a status show for social media posts. It was integral to their existence. 

They had to reconcile with love and sacrifice – every day. 

Last week, my wife prodded me to finish the last piece of a beef roast. 

She reminded me, “the buffalo died for you. At least show some respect.”

I understood what she meant. 

Food talk is not mundane talks about trivial things but a non-political, non-controversial conversation about the good times and a reflection of people who loved us.  

Next time when my wife asks about food and whether I like her curries and special achar, I will listen and acknowledge that “I notice her love, and I love her for caring.”