The Way to Man’s heart goes through his stomach but starts from his eyes!!

There are two types of people in this world, one who live to eat and others who eat to live. I fall in second category, I never cared about food. Anything which had proper salt as was available to me I ate. But I got married to someone who falls in a different category altogether. My husband is a foodie, who loves his food. He is someone who doesn’t believe in quantity but in quality of food.

After marriage the first and the biggest change happened in me was the improvement in my culinary skills. For his love for food, I stared reading food blogs and subscribed to many food channels to learn new recopies but I failed to get perfect 10 from him every time. I made his favourite breakfast Aloo poha, by following the same recipe which I learn from his mom. It tasted almost same, but he was not impressed. I made his favourite Daal tadka by following exactly same recipe from master chef Sanjeev Kapoor. It tasted good to me but he was not impressed. I went through tones of videos and made delicious Dum Biryani, he ate full plate but still did not praise my food. I was heartbroken and decided to give-up on cooking. I poured my heart to him and said I will not cook anymore, and he should better hire a cook. That was when he told me that he loves my cooking, my food tastes good and the effort put to learn all the dishes is something he adores but what my cooking lacks is the presentation skill.

I argued “Presentation skill?? I need to prepare a PPT for my food or what?”

He hugged me and said “Honey! As you see the cloth first and when you like the print on it then only you touch it and decided on buying it. Same way, when one sees the food it should be appealing, and then only one feels that desire to eat it.”

“What food should look appealing?” I jerked my shoulders

He came close to me and said “just close your eyes and imagine you have 2 plates of Aloo poha in front of you. One is just a plate full of pale Aloo poha and the other one is a steaming hot plate full of bright yellow Aloo poha, which is nicely garnished with fresh coriander leaves and deep fried green chillies with a piece of lemon on side. Which one will you pick?”

I opened my eyes “obviously the second one.” I said excitingly.

“You see, you tasted the food with your eyes and selected which one is worth getting tasted by your tongue.” he was smiling like a proud parent.

I got my most important lessen of cooking that day from my husband. I was already feeling hungry after talking of food and so I prepared Dum biryani that day. I served the steaming hot spicy Dum briyani nicely garnished with deep fried onion slices and mint leafs in a beautiful serving bowl. I served chilled Raita in a glass bowl with coriander leaves dressing on it and a plate full of nicely cut cucumber, onions and tomatoes followed it. My husband loved the way the food was presented and I felt proud of my cooking.

There on, I always try to present my food in an interesting and appealing way then just putting it as it is on table. Nice crockery is as important for a dish to look appealing as right amount of salt and spices for a dish to taste good. As the old saying goes that the way to man’s heart starts from his stomach, however for the modern cosmopolitan man the way to his heart goes through his stomach but it always starts from his eyes ;)

P.S. - This post is written for the My Beautiful Food contest organized by Indiblogger and Borosil.