Did you think you had left all those numbers and figures and geometric shapes behind you once you were done with your school Math classes?
I thought so.
Sure, I had to add long lines of figures, and subtract and multiply, while I worked in a bank in the days before computers did the “heavy” calculations, but that eventually paid off by helping me figure out the best bargains while shopping. It also helped me understand how the pennies invested could grow into respectable amounts, when to dig into savings, when to take a loan — or not resort to credit; and helped me tote up the entire extent of my meagre savings and give a firm refusal when someone suggested an outing to an expensive restaurant. Who would suspect that my rapid “Count me out” had come after adding those paltry figures in my head?
In recent years, when we have been travelling as much as possible to make up for all those decades of counting pennies, I have mentally rounded off the rupee exchange rate and multiplied by 20 or 60 or 70 (depending on which part of the world we were in and whether we were using UAE dirhams or American dollars or euros) and walked away from some of those “one-of-a-kind” items on display at showrooms or flea markets — and as a result been able to venture out elsewhere when a suitable bargain arose.
With the exception of these basic arithmetical skills — add, subtract, multiply and divide — I thought I was done with other Math problems and certainly done with all those equations, theorems, angles, circles and algebraic unknown quantities that make me go cross-eyed in concentration and scramble my brain beyond repair.
However, from what I read of trials and studies reported in the newspapers, it now seems that complicated mathematical concepts have entered the kitchen — and they have started with the simple spud.
The best way to make perfect roast potatoes, they say, lies in cutting at a certain angle, calculating surface area and some other factors — all essentially going over my head and making me determined never to try to roast anything.
They can claim to make the cook’s job easier and the end results tastier and more professional, but I’m having none of it.
As for potatoes — those same tubers that I have happily been chopping and throwing into meat curries all these years or adding to vegetables to make a little go a long way or just roasting because they taste so good, I may have to swear off them if there’s complicated Math involved.
Maybe I’ll leave those potatoes behind in the grocery store the next time I go shopping and if they insist on following me home, well, all that is going to happen to them is that they’ll be dropped into water and boiled until I “feel” they are cooked. No turning and twisting the spud this way and that to decide how to cut it to get the right angle to ensure even cooking. No fancy formula to figure out the ideal time it takes to cook a potato and therefore the amount of time needed to cook “x” number of potatoes.
Or maybe I’ll just pick up the phone and order a pizza. But, wait a minute, there’s Math involved there too. I would need to decide what size I want — and for that I would need to calculate the area of the circle to decide whether the eight-inch or the 12-inch or the 16-inch gives the best value for money.
Does this mean I have to stop eating altogether?
And if so, what complex calculations would I have to undertake to figure out when I’ll be in shape for the undertaker?
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
