Food For Thought

I spend a lot of my time these days, just surfing the internet and I find that I am greatly interested and attracted to topics on decluttering! In fact, I seem to have taken a fancy to organizing and organizers and then I remembered my big to-do box and that surely could do with a lot of organizing!

Files, diaries, books, magazines, notes, chits of paper with articles written and marked for later use! It had to be sorted now, else it never would get done. So today, I decided to go after it! And what a Pandora’s box it was…..recipes, more recipes and still more and more recipes! Along with a lot of articles on exercises, paper-hobbies, embroidery, knitting, sewing, gardening and tips on how to manage one’s home.  So one last time, I travelled back, down memory lane, to recollect, remember and relish those moments before reassigning them to the dustbin forever!!

Let me first acknowledge those who inspired and motivated me to take up the arts. My sister-in-law, Padma, helped me to cut and sew the first set of frocks I made for my daughters, Varsha and Megha. I remain eternally grateful to them for carrying off my creations so well, that I did earn a formidable reputation within my small circle. Uma Tripathy, my colleague in Kadma Girls School, introduced me to embroidery, which I have pursued, on and off, rather, off and on! I owe my interest in knitting to my dear friend Raji. She would knit while in school, with so much ease, that I felt it was within my grasp. I had neglected it so long and have just picked it up. 

Gardening…how I wish we had had a camera those days! The days when we had a garden! My husband was a keen gardener and we would grow seasonal flowers and vegetables. Today, each one of us has a camera, but no garden to boast of! The exercise Section, I just tore it up! I had hoped some day, I would work out! But I found a true teacher in Bala, a most unlikely guru, who inspired me to take up yoga and I hope, in a few months from today, I can do justice to Baba Ramdev. Articles on hobbies, like card making and painting…well, I think, I just grew out of those! Well, I tore them up too!  

I started my collection of recipes right after school. The very first entries are from my first year in college, with a recipe, egg-doubles penned by my friend and classmate, Alka Sinha. She could rustle up a meal with ease, where as I was just a one-dish-specialist. At that time, I could only offer a cup of tea or roll out plain rotis! And how I wished to make and enjoy the variety of dishes Alka used to bring to college! And as I turned the pages, I found several other recipes, some of which I had cooked successfully and most of which, I had preserved for a later date.

Now, I know….tomorrow never comes! So try out the dishes today!

The next set of entries brought home the fact that we are one foodie family! With marriage and children, I continued to collect those recipes and made a big hit of some of them. My children loved to scribble in my diary and of course they helped me out, by copying some of the recipes into it. Soon after I tried them out, they would post their comments, so when I turned to my book the next time, I knew which ones to avoid!

My family has its roots in Palakkad, in Kerala and food cooked at home was typical Palakkad food. My father was born in Jamshedpur and I was a third generation in Bihar, yet where food was concerned, we stuck to our fare. My grandfather was an authoritarian, and forcefully enforced his views on food and eating habits and I am grateful to him for that. As a result, I enjoy eating most vegetables and savor all seasonal fruits, though I fear, I too stick to the familiar and am wary of venturing into the unfamiliar!

We grew up in a small but mixed neighborhood in Kadma. We had Punjabis and Biharis, Bengalis and Telegus as neighbours and during festive days, we used to exchange traditional food and thus I got hooked on to tastes and to cuisines other than my own.  After marriage, I got to eat goodies prepared by my mother-in-law, who was an excellent cook. But I only adopted the everyday cooking and never really developed a taste for the typical Tamil fare!

So, as a newly wed, there was Nando, our friends cook, who taught me the rudiments of cooking. I had a maid come in to help me and Asha’s mother, as she liked to be called, taught me to make stuffed parathas. My neighbor, Indu’s mother taught me to make a variety of subjis to be had with roti, typical bihari stuff, hot and spicy, which my elder daughter loved to eat!.

Food has been a pleasurable presence in my life. For my husband, Ramani, food was good only if it was hot and spicy. He enjoyed all kinds of food and encouraged me to try out new recipes but was very critical of what I made. So if it turned out good, I would repeat it, and if he did not like it, I would forget that I ever made such a dish. He would guess the ingredients from the taste, in fact he is a great taste- master and took it upon himself to ‘pass’ the food cooked at home, before it was served to the guests.

Varsha, my elder daughter took after her father and enjoyed all kinds of food, especially from outside. To my consternation, she would gloss over the dosa and chutney from the school canteen dosa-wala and ask me to prepare chutney like that, which I not only loathed, but considered unhealthy. She also liked to experiment with food and taste and while in Delhi, introduced me to shavarma and momos.

Megha, the younger one, believes in eating right, ie healthy. Food content was more important for her than taste. She took most of her peers by surprise when she declared that hostel food was actually palatable and never really made any demands except enjoying whole heartedly, the simpe dal-subji- roti, which she did not mind eating everyday! These days, she has developed a taste for French and Moroccan cuisine!

On my first visit abroad my daughters introduced me to some more foreign cuisine. Some I relished some I did not. In London, I preferred ordering Indian food as it was readily available, the only exception being in Scotland, where I really enjoyed the vegetarian Haggis and soup. Then, in Washington D.C., I got to taste lasagna and pasta, prepared lovingly by my son-in-law. Must say that I also got hooked on to pizza and Mexican burrito, which has become my daughter’s staple diet!!

By the time I got married, I had had enough of Palakaad food and have never made it since then. But these days, I recollect fondly, the food my mother used to cook - molaghutal, molahushiyam, mango moar kutan, chakkavarati, vendakai pulli pachadi, and hope I can make and relish them some day. My grandmother was a great cook, innovative, she liked to experiment. My only regret is that I did not learn from her.

Here I must recount some food experiments which were a delight. We used to have a weekly food plan and we would eagerly wait for the goodies to unfold! I learnt to make all kinds of fast food, and added my special bit, to make it healthier.  On Fridays and week ends, we used to have a special menu- Indian noodles, egg curries, pulao, and on Sundays – it had to be Poori with chole! My family enjoyed  crispy lotus stem and we used to make and preserve it for a year, like a small scale industry.

Two food flops come to my mind. One was when a young lady engineer from my husband’s office invited all four of us to dinner. She had just picked up some rudimentary cooking skills and was eager to show them off. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a very sad attempt, and after nibbling through it, we rushed to a popular food stall to have egg rolls! Another recent experience comes to mind; At a Mexican restaurant in Washington DC, we ordered rice with hot chilies! That was one plate we were unable to eat! We had underestimated the power of the Mexican Chilies!  

In Jamshedpur, there were several Food Plazas, eateries where we could relish street food -  Chaat and pani poori, Egg rolls and egg devils, Singada and Chops, Jhaal moodi and the new taste flooding the market, Chinese! After we moved to Nagpur, we went out to eat more often as the children had grown older. Sizzler, Paav Bhaji and Chinese Chow Mein were our favourites! Although Chennai has much to offer, what tasted best were dosas and idlis, and these we used to have at home. So eating out lost most of its charm! And that is when and where my recipe collection reappeared in my life.

So, while surfing the net, I had easier access to a variety of recipes, and the first hit I scored was with Tarala Dalal’s Potato-Pumpkin subji. So then, I decided to discard all the recipes I had collected over the years! Now I could hoard up more of them on my computer! I must tell you that I already have 2 folders of recipes! (even they need some sorting). They have been divided into sub folders and sub-sub folders and are burgeoning by the hour! But they remain safely invisible! So I have decided to accord my collection a graceful exit! With these thoughts, I wish my old box farewell!