Culinary Cadences: Studying the Semantics of Cooking in Thursday Special

The ubiquitous and nutritive aspects of food are oft overrated and inflated to defend its demand, but only with a persistent and strange revulsion towards the preparatory processes behind it. Cooking invariably gets sidelined in the mainstream narratives and discourses which always ensure to magnify and elaborate on the pleasures of eating. They evidence a conspicuous disregard of the act of cooking and the hands that cooked. This paper is an attempt to study the culinary semantics articulated in Varun Tandon’s award-winning short film Thursday Special. It seeks to read beyond the literal act of cooking, plunge into the textured narrative of the film, and interpret the rhythms, gestures, ingredients, and emotions that magnify its culinary space. The study investigates how cooking extends beyond mere representation, and becomes a constitutional component that drives and defines the film. It attempts to interpret cooking as a text that articulates a narrative rhythm which constitutes the cadence of life itself. The paper adopts a qualitative methodology grounded in food studies frameworks, drawing largely on the theories of David Sutton and Lisa M Heldke, for its analysis of the film.