The kitchen is for kids

At a time when India is witnessing its largest protest by farmers, the very backbone of our nation, knowing what is on our plate and how it got there isn't just essential, it's the bare minimum we can do as citizens. The sooner we absorb this knowledge, the better. To take these facts to children, city-based authors Medha S Rajadhyaksha and Katie Bagli have penned Sugar, Spice and All Foods Nice (Inking Innovations) that will be available online this week.

The book includes stories about fruits, vegetables, spices and other ingredients told in verse

The protagonists of the books are twins Tiffy-Tu and Simbo-Lin who make the kitchen their playground and are encouraged to do so by their grandmother, who also shares titbits about each ingredient through stories told in verse. So, the twins learn about how the carrot was first grown in Persia, that cereals are the seeds of the grasses sown and picked by farmers, and that salt is a mineral. Every chapter is followed by a box with trivia about each ingredient: for instance, the connection between tomatoes and Spain's La Tomatina festival.

Both authors have always been passionate about deconstructing science and the environment. While Bagli has multiple books centred on nature to her credit, Rajadhyaksha has served as Vice Principal (Science) and head of the life sciences department at Sophia College. They began working on the book early this year but say that the book has acquired new meaning in the lockdown when families cooped up at home may be experimenting in the kitchen, and in the context of the ongoing farmers' protests.

The idea for the book was rooted in a personal memory. "When my son was about eight, he would appear for the Balvaidayanik exams, where questions would be asked related to the immediate surroundings of the child, including the kitchen - like how does a pressure cooker work, or how do you get bubbles in the water? So, we thought why not collate this information into verses for the next generation," Rajadhyaksha shares.

Katie Bagli

Having contributed hand-drawn illustrations for the title, too, Rajadhyaksha and Bagli were also able to seamlessly contribute to the verses. Each chose a chapter to work on randomly, which resulted in a 150-pager. "Not only is the kitchen a place where the child, without realising it, learns botany, they also learn chemistry and physics, among other things. It all boils down to incidental learning," Bagli says.

Medha S Rajadhyaksha

Bagli adds that, as adults, they too discovered new things along the way. "I never knew that there were 4,000 varieties of potatoes being cultivated by people in the Andean highlands (of Peru)," she says, while Rajadhyaksha shares, "The book is dedicated to farmers, those in plantations and everyone in the agro industry. We wanted to make a point that food is something we take for granted. What we buy off the shelf has really gone through a lot of labour."

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