After we decided to focus on families who live apart with huge time and spatial differences, we wanted to know more about how they strengthen family bonding through the cooking experience — which is including all activities around family food such as grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning. To observe what they do and how they feel about, we conducted two mini workshops with not only a mother and daughter living apart in different countries, but also a couple living together to understand the differences in the two conditions.
In the first part of the workshop, the couple cooking together in the same space and the daughter cooking a dish through instructions over Skype from her mother. We looked at how they communicated each other, how they collaborate, and the environment. In the second part, each group had futuring exercise of their ideal cooking experience environment.
Although were conducted through the lens of cooking, the findings we gained from it speak to the entire cooking experience.
A couple: Cooking Together in the Same Space
Jeffry and Debby are a newlywed couple. Back in Taiwan, they didn’t cook. After moving in here 7 months ago, they usually cook for themselves. Jeffry is good at western style dishes, whereas Debby’s specialty is in Chinese and Asian dishes.
We asked them to make an usual dinner of them together and observed what they did and how they did it in the cooking environment.
Part 1. Observation
- Conversation was continuously going on in the course of the cooking. They talked about ingredients and how to cook and discussed about how much salt they should put and how long they should fire the dishes. They sometimes had small talks around daily life too.
- They talked more when they were waiting for something such as a pan getting heated, which needed less attention. On the other hand, when something was on fire.
- When they discussed about the seasoning and firing, they looked, tasted, and smelled the dishes together.
- Leadership over the cooking experience is up to the type of dishes of the meal and each other’s expertise; in the observation, Debby took control and Jeffry kept checking the procedure with her since they cook Chinese dishes.
- Although they told us they don’t cook together much because of the small kitchen, they were a great team. They had well-divided roles and collaborated very coordinately and smoothly.
- They used timer to measure the time for cooking rice.
- Jeffry moved around the small kitchen because of the linear layout of kitchen furnitures.
- The cooking was full of multi senses: sounds of water from the faucet, frying sound, pan sound, colorful ingredients, and smell of the food.
Part 2. Futuring the Ideal Cooking Experience
- They wanted Sofa and special fridge for liquors — Their ideal kitchen is a social space where they can hang out with friends while they are cooking and show off good foods.
- Jeffry wanted a transparent refrigerator so that they don’t forget and miss an ingredient in the corner of the fridge.
- Basically, they envisioned a fancy, efficient, and convenient kitchen space; Multiple stoves for cooking several dishes at the same time, boiling hot water tap for making tea, and automatic dish washer connected to the sink.
A mom and a Daughter: Cooking Together over Skype
Ashlesha is not really into cooking. She prefers to help her roommates cook by cleaning up. She, however, cooks when she misses her mother’s dishes and wants to share them with others. Cooking for others makes her feel great but put pressure when she feels like not being prepared. But she said that she enjoys cooking if there is no such pressure and constraints like limited time and hunger. Whenever she cooks, she always calls her mom, Shubhangi, to ask her recipe and to have a chat.
We prompted her to make her mother’s dish she’s never made before through Skype call and observed the same things as we did with the couple.
Part 1. Observation
- It was early morning in India when she called to her mom at 9:30 pm here.
- Measuring the right amount of ingredient was difficult. The sizes of tomato and eggplant of US were different from those of India. Describing the size was hard. This led misproportion of ingredients and different taste.
- Wait! Wait! Wait! She kept saying “wait” and asked the instructions multiple times even though she asked overall recipe and process before she started cooking because it was hard to remember all instructions at once.
- She kept checked color of the food with her mother to make sure that she was in the right track.
- Her mom realized that she forgot to mention chilly powder when she saw color of food.
- Her mother said her to boil the stew until potato would be crushable, but it was hard for her to know the exact point so she kept asking and showing the potato.
- Her mother asked her to taste and describe the taste to figure out what was needed.
- She felt it was hard to hold her phone on one hand and to cook with the other hand at the same time.
- She couldn’t clean up or put the things back because she was too busy in cooking and chatting.
- She forgot to turn off the other stove which was not needed anymore because she was occupied with talking with her mom.
- They caught up their daily life a lot, especially she was waiting the stew getting fully cooked.
- Her father wanted to take part in the conversation so added some comments on the recipe — he knew how to cook the dish as well. But he was barely on the screen.
Part 2. Futuring the Ideal Cooking Experience
- Her ideal kitchen should have a music player and bring her to her favorite places such as a beautiful beach. She told that it would make the cooking experience more enjoyable.
- She wanted to invite her parents to her ideal kitchen through a wall-mounted huge screen instead of the small-handheld screen of her phone.
- The ideal kitchen would be smart. It would automatically record and show her mother’s recipe on screen. It would be able to even show the simulation of the recipe with exact same pot and things she would be using.
