No Recipe Required

Immigrant Kitchens As Temples of Memory and Mutual Care

“Even the simplest food tastes of history, when it is made with remembering.”

Food-love is a core, joyful ethos in Indian families. It transcends distance across time and oceans. It negotiates care when words fall short. It’s knowing someone enough to remember exactly how they like their chai, or which child won’t eat leftover khichdi unless it’s been pan-fried the next day with yogurt on the side (you know who you are). And of course, it’s a “light dinner” with only six items, two chutneys, and a backup dessert just in case. In short, it’s love, made edible.

I’ve been reflecting (and living in) that chaos beneath the surface of “just dinner”. In a world that asks us to be efficient and individual, I offer this meditation on the unspoken love and labor of ancestral kitchens and how we experience and reimagine that legacy.

A Simple Dinner Party? Never Heard Of It.

A month ago, I opened my phone to 106 unread messages in a family group chat. The thread had been started to plan the menu for a dinner party my aunt was hosting the following week. I laughed, sighed, and scrolled to the bottom, hoping someone had summarized it all. No luck. I’d have to read every message. Somewhere around message 47, it hit me: this wasn’t just a logistical scramble. It was a communal algorithm that seeded dozens of offers, counter-offers and substitutions. In many South Asian families, this is what planning a simple family gathering looks like. And while the whole process can look chaotic, it’s actually a deep, practiced choreography of collective care: calibrating who’s tired, who might be overcommitting, who’s best at making that one dish everyone loves and even who isn’t.

I called one of my bhabhis (Gujarati word for sister-in-law) to ask what I should bring. As I waited for her to pick up, I felt frustrated. Why couldn’t one person just take charge and assign dishes? Why all the swirl of suggestions and backtracking? (To be fair, most of the women on the chat felt the same way, but not participating in the public ecosystem is not an option).

My bhabhi quickly walked me through who was making what and who had swapped items. We finally decided that I would take the shaak (vegetables) off her plate. What I hadn’t realized was that I’d unknowingly triggered another cycle of redistribution. Not out of chaos, but out of compassion. One woman calls another: “You’ve got physical therapy this week - don’t do the rotli. I’ll handle it.” Another call: “Everyone loves your chutneys. Can you do those, and I’ll switch with you?” A text: “You’re busy with work. Skip the appetizer. I’ve got it.”

I’ve begun to realize that this orchestration is about presence and remembering who’s going through what and adjusting your labor accordingly. And yet, even in its most generous form, there is an uncomfortable truth we can’t ignore: that while this is a radical language of mutual care, the labor is not equally shared.

Magic, Muscle and the Mothers That Make It Look Easy

Most of the time, it's women who hold the kitchen. Not because men can’t cook, but because many generations of South Asian households trained them not to. Colonial legacies, caste expectations, and patriarchal family structures have all reinforced a domestic economy where women’s unpaid labor is expected, even revered, while men’s contributions are framed as optional, exceptional, or praiseworthy.

Historically, kitchen labor in South Asia (and in many cultures) is a complex social role. Women were raised to embody seva (selfless service), express love through domestic tasks and keep the household running with quiet efficiency and minimal acknowledgment. In many Gujarati households, for example, a daughter-in-law cooking every meal without complaint was a form of moral virtue; a sign she had been "brought up well." This unequal division is both cultural and emotional. Women carry the cooking, yes. But, they also carry the mental load of food-love: remembering who’s allergic to what, who prefers less chili, who doesn’t like certain dishes. It’s the invisible work of holding people while feeding them.

And still, two things can be true at the same time. The kitchen can be a site of deep, soulful joy and quiet, gendered exhaustion. Cooking can be an act of love and an expectation placed on women without recognition. Communal meals can bring people together and invisibly lean on the emotional labor of the same few women. Even when no one intends harm, these dynamics are embedded in us, generation after generation. Unlearning them takes time. Noticing. Naming. So when I watch people moving around the kitchen like dancers with no script, I am filled with awe and an ache. Because I know how much of it rests on unspoken expectations. And yet, I also know how much of it rests on love.

Traditions, Tenderly Reimagined

Modern society demands require shared labor. Yet, we often default to inherited expectations, where women carry the invisible weight of planning meals, packing lunches, and making sure the kitchen (and household) runs. These assumptions persist not because they work, but because they’re familiar. But they don’t reflect the reality most of us are living anymore. Let’s retire the superwoman myth!

Small changes are slowly reshaping the collective ecosystem of food and care in our communities. And like all real revolutions, they rarely announce themselves. Instead, they unfold in kitchens, text threads, and holiday gatherings, gently nudging us toward a more shared way of living. When men actively take part in planning and preparing meals or expect their daily routine to include being in the kitchen, it no longer feels radical. When mothers teach sons that cooking and caregiving are not gendered expectations, but human practices, they plant seeds for equity without using words. When children grow up watching both parents sauté, chop, and plate food with joy, not because it's expected, gender assumptions begin to unravel before they can take root. These moments, though subtle, ripple outward.

And the beauty is, these changes don’t erase our culture. They evolve it. They allow love to continue flowing through food, but with more equity, intention, and sustainability. Because care looks like showing up with a full plate, and asking who else got to sit down and enjoy the meal.

Six Courses of Memory In-Between

In the midst of all these personal reckonings about food, gender, and gathering, I found myself in Brooklyn, witnessing a new kind of magic. My best friend invited me to The Sewing Tin, a South Asian supper club that felt like both a portal and a homecoming. Founded by chefs Akhil Upad and Aditya Mishra, two South Asian artists and culinary storytellers, the name is a nod to the The Royal Dansk cookie tin, a relic in every desi household. Curiously, it never contains cookies. But, there is always thread, needles, and buttons!

My friend works for the company that owns Royal Dansk (Ferrero). When her team came across this supper club, she was transported back to her own childhood, where her mother’s food and gatherings created community and instilled belonging (for all of us). Inspired, she immediately came up with a creative collaboration to promote the supper club and its homage to our lineage.

What moved me most wasn’t just the beauty or creativity of the food, though that was stunning. It was the care embedded in every one of the six courses (my personal favorite was the paan creme brulee - what a delight). The way the chefs introduced each dish with a backstory, its inspiration from home and how they reimagined it, was a trip down our own memory lane. They created space for those of us who live in-between: the impulse to remember, to remix, to keep something sacred while making it our own. These chefs reminded us that we’re both inheriting and re-authoring traditions. And while we’re busy reshaping what it means to feed one another today, what unfolds in our kitchens is only possible because of the blueprints left behind. Imperfect, yes, but filled with intention. We still carry the rhythm of the hands that came before us.

Held In The Hands That Fed Us

When I visit my 80-year-old aunt in Vadodara (city in Gujarat), she still makes chundo for me (a bright, tangy mango pickle that serves as an accompaniment to a full Gujarati meal). She knows I love it her way. My other 80-year-old aunt prepares cabbage shaak (vegetables) as the very first meal when I arrive because she remembers it's my favorite. For decades, they’ve tracked what I love, what I avoid, what makes me feel at home, even when my home is thousands of miles away. This food holds the child I was, and the children I’m raising.

Today, Indian spices are sold at Whole Foods, Patel Brothers carries ready-made samosas and South Asian recipes trend in the New York Times and Instagram. But, in the 70s, South Asian immigrants landed in a world where cumin, curry leaves and bitter gourd weren’t easily found in grocery store aisles. Many lived in places where the nearest Indian store was hours away (if one even existed). Growing up in rural Indiana, my parents made the weekly trek to Chicago to get Indian groceries and the latest Bollywood videocassette. Recipes were reinterpreted and shared by word of mouth or hand-written letters. Our families substituted ingredients and grew spices on windowsills. Traveling back from trips to India, an entire 32kg suitcase was full of food, snacks and spices you couldn't get in the U.S.

South Asian households across America found ways to recreate entire kitchens with a sense of cultural and familiar continuity. The smell of frying mustard seeds was the first alarm clock of my childhood. The loud whistles of the pressure cooker woke me up on weekends. My aunt’s chicken biryani and chaas (buttermilk) is something we cleared the calendar to eat (and fought over who got leftovers). The Indian-style, veggie-packed lasagna we grew up eating is now a traditional favorite Thanksgiving dinner in New Jersey. The fruit-topped, homemade cheesecakes with the best crust were gone within minutes of being served. My dad’s renowned Gujarati daal (lentils), rich with ginger, suran (a kind of yam) and jaggery is remembered fondly in both India and the U.S. These dishes are spells that transport me, and so many others, back to a time and place where we are known.

This Is How We Say Welcome Home

None of these foods aren’t chosen at random. They are curated with care. That food-love told you that you were part of something bigger than yourself. A family. A story. A culture where you don’t just say I love you; you wrap it in foil and send it home in Tupperware or receive a box in the mail with your favorite foods.

As a first-generation daughter and mother, whose husband immigrated from India as a young adult, our home and the food we serve in it is shaped by both inheritance and intention. My husband is an extraordinary cook, which defies the old story that only women feed the family. It’s a spiritual and grounding act for him. When our kids come home, they are greeted with both hugs and pav bhaji bubbling on the stove. The first question we ask is not “What’s easy?” It’s “What will bring them joy?” The food says: You are known and wanted here.

Our children have visited homes where food is portioned neatly and where food doesn’t stop coming until you unbutton your pants and promise you’ll never eat again (side tip: wear elastic for all gatherings). Either way, I want them to know that it isn't just about the food. It’s about how we experience intimacy, belonging and love in its purest forms.

Can We Just Chill on the Chutneys?

Honestly? This isn’t easy to sustain. The kind of gathering many of us grew up with - that starts days in advance, with whispers of menus and side calls to check in on one another’s energy levels - feels nearly impossible sometimes. It doesn’t always align with the hours in a day and the “just tell me what to bring@ approach. I often roll my eyes at the “extra-ness” of it all. Why do we need eight dishes for a dinner? Why do we still make fresh rotli when Patel Brothers sells pre--prepared ones? Why must we discuss the menu for days, shop at three different stores, and prepare enough food to feed a small army?

Because all those 100 steps and conversations that weave the fabric of our ancestral gathering ethos? They take time, emotional bandwidth and presence. Staying afloat in a culture that glorifies productivity over pause leaves very little space for the slowness, generosity, and intentionality that this kind of food-love demands. Though, so many of my elder aunties are like Elle Woods - “What, like it’s hard”? Totally different essay for later.

We’re Still Gathering. Just Differently.

All that to say, the spirit of care is still alive. It just wears leggings and carries a Costco membership now.

One of my best friends in Michigan has the house with a pool. So naturally, everyone ends up at her place, especially in the summer. Her home is a seasonal space of joy and memory-making. No doubt, it’s exhausting. She works full-time, raises three girls, is a committed partner, an attentive friend, and a caregiver to an aging parent. Her plate is always full. But, never too full to gather.

She may not have the capacity to join every flurry of group texts about menus or spend hours prepping from scratch. It’s more potluck-based now, or she’ll order food to make it simple. But she doesn’t see that as a loss. In fact, she’s done something profound. She’s preserved the spirit of hospitality and abundance - the invitation that says, you’re always welcome here - while also allowing for ease and efficiency. There are always enough snacks for the kids. A variety of drinks for the adults. A dish or two that reflects her preferences. The playlist is good, friends are catching up, and kids are making core memories on floaties and pool slides.

She’s not just throwing a party. She’s tending to lineage. She’s teaching her daughters, and every kid that walks through her door, what it looks like to create belonging. That love doesn’t have to look like a ten-item thali. Sometimes, it’s juice boxes, store-bought fruit trays, and Goldfish crackers. Or letting people show up exactly as they are, and still making space for them at the table.

To me, this is what it looks like to merge and hold two worlds at once, reconciling the soul of one culture with the speed and evolution of another. And in that tension, we’re learning not just what to preserve, but how to reshape it in ways that still feel like home. We hold in us a deep desire not just to feed, but to delight. To ask, with every bite: Did you feel loved? Did you feel seen? Because, ultimately, we want people to enter our homes and feel enveloped by a way of life. Welcomed and woven in. Included and cherished.

Across Oceans, Still Fed

Gathering and food transcend borders. In 2013, the year I lost my father, I couldn’t bring myself to celebrate the holidays. Everything festive felt like a betrayal of my sorrow. So I did what many of us do in the fog of fresh grief: I ran. At the time, I worked for an international non-profit and I volunteered to travel to our Nigeria office over Diwali. The logic was simple. If I was far enough from home, I could skip the reminders, the house without him, the food no longer made by his hands.

But I forgot that food-love is not bound by nation or culture. It lives wherever people choose to tend to one another. In Abuja, I was met with something I didn’t expect: a surprise Diwali dinner hosted by my colleagues, none of whom were Indian. They had catered Indian food, decorated our Country Director’s house by lining diyas (candles) on walkways and stairways and hired a DJ who spun Bollywood and Nigerian music that filled the night air with joy. Over a hundred people gathered not just to eat, but to honor what I had lost, and what I still carried. I remember standing there stunned, my eyes unable to hold back my tears, the scent of cardamom mingling with suya spice, thinking: this is what it means to feed the spirit and memory of someone.

That evening remains one of the most generous and tender acts anyone has ever done for me. They couldn’t take away my grief. But they didn’t let me sit in it alone. It reminded me that this language of care is a human experience. And whether we’re in Vadodara or Brooklyn or Abuja, the impulse is the same. Feed the grieving. Hold them close. Remind them they still belong.

The Real Recipe?

So, of course, there will be food. No question. It’s the medium through which affection, history, and even grief flow. And not just any food. Food that’s been thought about and dreamt up for you. Often in quantities that defy logic, but make perfect emotional sense. We make more than enough, not because we expect you to eat it all, but because you matter that much.

But here’s the truth: you don’t need to be South Asian, or an immigrant, to understand this kind of care. Many of us come from lineages where love was not spoken outright, but simmered into a pot of something warm. Where grief showed up as covered casseroles and stacks of paper plates. Where elders fed us what they wished they could say. The textures may differ, but the language is shared.

So whatever table you grew up around, you’re deciding what’s sacred and what’s simply inherited out of habit. Ask yourself what actually feeds you: is it the dish itself, the memory it holds, or just the expectation that it should matter? Gently release what feels performative (yes, the coconut can come pre-grated, and no, you’re not betraying anyone - even if they can tell). Try to meet yourself with love, not guilt. You’re reshaping culture with tenderness and intention.

Because here’s what I know now: every time I host people with too much food, or answer 106 messages, or cook something just because I know someone will smile when they see it, I am living the way I am meant to. I may not cook exactly like my elders, but I love like them. And that, I’ve learned, is the real recipe.

Because food is a declaration: I see you. I remember you. I love you.

I made this just for you.