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October 23, 2006
Under pressure!
I have a phobia about pressure cookers and totally refuse to have one. This paranoia stems back to my childhood when my mother screamed and ran as steaming vegetable soup flew around the kitchen at the speed of light and I dived under the dining table equally as fast, writes Zahrah Nasir
Once upon an evening, just as the stars began to twinkle in the velvet mountain sky above Bhurban and a gentle breeze played harmonious music on the wind chimes decorating a tree in the front garden, an extremely loud ‘hiss’ sent me running outside in panic.
Was the gas cylinder in the kitchen about to explode? Or had the most humongous snake imaginable slithered into the roof space and was making its presence heard? Whatever it was, I was out of the house, quaking on the lawn before you could say ‘boo!’ The problem was that, the hissing had become louder and ominously closer than ever and not only myself but our five dogs were all petrified.
“The neighbours have an about-to-explode gas cylinder” I yelled back inside to my husband who was wondering what all the fuss was about. “Put out your cigarette. Quick.”
I had visions of our little world going bang any second and, then, sniffing the air and following my nose across to the wall which separates us from our neighbours, I suddenly realised what the hissing was.
Olive Oil, my nickname for her, was happily fussing around her latest acquisition….a brand-new pressure cooker glinting evilly in the light of the open fire, fuelled by buffalo dung, which the damn thing was balanced over.
It hissed again. A piercing shriek of a hiss which had me racing back indoors well out of flying food range. Having seen more than one pressure cooker deposit its boiling contents on ceilings, walls, doors, windows and who ever happened to be in range, I was not taking any chances, even going as far as firmly closing all of our previously open windows.
Obviously, it goes without saying, I have a phobia about pressure cookers and totally refuse to have one over the doorstep but, now, in the security of my own home, I am being tortured, at least twice a day by the stuff nightmares and horror movies are made of…..hiss, hiss, hisssssss!!!
This paranoia stems back to my childhood to be honest when my mother screamed and ran as steaming vegetable soup flew around the kitchen at the speed of light and I dived under the dining table equally as fast. Luckily no one was hurt, other than my father’s temper when he arrived home from work to re-admire the walls he had so recently painted.
My mother, brave woman that she is, made more soup, scrubbed the walls, the ceiling, the curtains, and the carpet and continued to use her pressure cooker with a determination I just can’t bring myself to match. No way Jose!
Realistically, and being of an ‘environmentally friendly’ nature, I am perfectly well aware that these horrendous things save lots of gas, electricity, firewood, even buffalo dung if that’s the fuel you happen to use. Common sense – I do have a modicum of this believe it or not – keeps demanding that I do something, anything, about rising fuel costs but I draw the line at a cooking utensil which hisses back at me.
I have tried a solar oven, not very successful at all to be frank, particularly during summer monsoons and winter snow; I have messed around with ‘hot-boxes’ filled with ‘boosa’, the idea being that you start your cooking in the ordinary oven and then transfer the dangerously hot, wrapped in a towel, casserole dish into a wooden box lined with this chopped straw, bury it in the stuff, close the top and leave your meal to slow cook for as long as it takes but this is rarely successful either.
The plug-in electronic cooking contraptions can’t be relied on as our electricity supply is erratic, along with the voltage and, despite voltage stabilisers on every electronic devise in the house, the microwave oven melted, the freezer compressor blows now and then and we have just had to invest in yet another fridge.
The gas cooker – we need to buy expensive cylinders for it – is fine in the summer and we cook on a wood burning stove in winter, using exorbitantly expensive, honestly purchased wood which first heats you up when you have to saw or chop it, heats you again as you haul it into the house, heats the room when it is freezing outside and cooks very efficiently too. Okay! so do pressure cookers and Olive Oil has been proudly demonstrating this fact to every other inhabitant of our particular mountainside. She has even gone as far as moving her outdoor kitchen, previously out of sight at the side on her house, onto a flat roof overlooking the apology for a road, seemingly to ensure that everyone who just happens to pass by can admire the hissing ‘mod con’ at work.
Perhaps she found it lonely doing her cooking on her own and relocated so that she can chat with passers-by, even after dark when I really don’t know how she can see to fiddle with the temperamental ‘hisser’ at all but, whatever her reasons, she has created a roaring trade for whoever it is that is selling these things locally.
Her shrieking hisser has been in residence for about two months now, without any explosions that I am aware of. Our neighbour on the other side couldn’t resist the lure and purchased one a month ago; last week, the residents of the house below us followed suit. I assume along with the usual wedding ‘must have’ paraphernalia in vogue here, shiny new pressure cookers are suddenly top of the list.
Now, as the sun begins its sleepy evening decent and the birds have their last melodic chirp, I potter around in my garden, teeth on edge, ready to dive for cover, as pressure cookers hiss to life.
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