Can food be considered art?
With every dish made is a story told—filling the recipe book with secrets, superstitions, and satisfactions of the people you love.
Of the many family traditions indulged in during the holidays, my favourite occurs during Eid and school vacations when my grandmother rounds up all her granddaughters to make Seviyan together. I didn’t visit my family this winter, so I heard all about it instead from my youngest cousin. She relayed the event with all the enthusiasm a ten-year-old can possess, telling me with great delight that she thought it to be “like making art.” I found her comparison quite apt.
Seviyan is a traditional Indian dessert that combines wheat vermicelli with nuts, milk, and sugar. Simple to make but time-consuming, my grandmother has spent many days turning fumbling fingers into sculptor’s hands as she kneads the dough and shapes the noodles. Every swirl of the wooden spoon in the pot colours the milk with the flavours of pistachios and almonds—the way a paintbrush swirls across a canvas. This is a tradition passed down from grandmother to granddaughter down the branches and bark of my family tree.
In India and Pakistan, food is not just food. It is art, history, and centuries of stories, some that are preserved only in the spices of our curries and the stalks of our cane sugar as the tides of time and the violence of colonization have tried to erase them from our countries. The Jalebi is treated with the delicacy of spun glass, and the Ladu is pinched and rolled like the finest pottery. We have restaurants and dessert makers with businesses and recipes passed down for generations—recipes our parents swear taste the same at 50 as they did at 15.
Food itself holds a very fascinating place in cultures across the world. The purpose of any dish is to provide health and nutrition, but a dish made for someone else is cooked for the sole purpose of providing care. In that way, food is the very first language of love. In the Mediterranean, we see the Mezze—a tradition of hospitality and connection—carve its place in every served meal. In Japan, there’s the tradition of preparing and sending bento boxes off with your loved ones for the day. The food predominant in any culture is the food made again and again for the care and keeping of others. It is cooked with tender hands and hearts, plated to entice both your eye and your appetite, and shared among family and friends to bring us together. Every dish made for you by your family and friends is their love arranged meticulously on a plate and there for you to gorge on as much as you want.
And with every dish made is a story told: three green chillies because your aunt added them by accident and now it’s tradition; a spoonful of yogurt because your roommate swears it makes the whole thing taste better; an extra pinch of sugar because you know your sister likes it sweet. On and on as you grow up, you gain a recipe book filled with secrets, superstitions, and satisfactions of the people you love. So prevalent is food in our cultures and made with such dedication and passion that how can we call it anything less than art?
