Memories of Food
Four patrams (stainless steel vessels) laid out on the small kitchen counter. Boiled white rice, the fat kind. Home made curds, always fresh, never sour. A vegetable, cooked with a light touch. And a simple tomato chutney, made that morning. Roughly chopped tomatoes cooked down till semi dry, tempered with ghee and curry patta, mustard seeds, coriander powder and asoefoetida. This was lunch through a large part of my rocky adolescence. I’d head straight to a friend’s home after school or college. We were four or five of us who hung out together. We were going through a lot in our lives. Suicide, stroke, dead parents, bankruptcy. Teenage angst, always short on funds, intense romances. For all that, we were mostly a happy crew. Our host friend’s mother is a formidable lady of great beauty, elegance and intelligence. She counselled, mentored, held our hands. And she made this lunch for us every day. We ate it all, polishing off the chutney. We ate without really thinking about the food, the love and care the cook quietly showed us. I guess we took it for granted. Lunch was lunch – as familiar and comforting as each other’s company, the teasing and arguments, the eating and laughter. Recently, I sent the recipe for that tomato chutney to one of our group. He has migrated to a far off country and misses home. We were reminiscing about our years at our friend’s home and inevitably, Aunty’s tomato chutney came up. Though our gang is scattered all over the world now, the taste of that chutney still binds us together. Love, grief, anger, redemption, joy – all these emotions flavoured that chutney.
Studying in Pune, we post graduate students had rented small flats. The utilities were basic, we usually ate monotonous, tasteless food ordered in tiffin carriers, supplemented by the local vada pav and egg bhurji in our college canteen. But one Sunday morning in winter stands out in my memory. One of our number, a Rajasthani girl, decided to make Dal Bhatti Choorma for us. She had only a little gas burner which came with its own portable gas cylinder. She was hampered by a lack of equipment and space. Her secret weapons? The magic in her hands and her beloved mum’s home made ghee and recipe. Dal Bhatti Choorma is a complex dish. There is the sweet sour thin dal. The Choorma is a ghee laden fried wheat dumpling, hard and misshapen. It is crumbled over the dal, chopped onion and coriander leaves are sprinkled over and another dollop of the ghee completes the alchemy. Our friend had gracious hospitality in her genes. She fed us hungry girls so lovingly that morning. Even twenty five years later, I remember the taste of that ghee and the laughter that warmed us all on that chilly afternoon.
An elderly lady comes to my aunt’s home every day to cook. She has seen me grow up. In fact, she was in the kitchen the day two year old me, super excited about the lunch of aamras rotli, rocked the chair backwards into the fridge and ended up with six stitches and a scar on my chin. Last year, my youngest cousin suddenly passed away. The evening after his funeral, shellshocked and exhausted, we sat down to a simple dinner of sweet sour bittergourd, aam ras, potato bhaji and parathas. The old lady brought hot parathas to the table, silently offering comfort in the best way possible. She fed me until I begged, no more, then she laid a hand on my shoulder and said, now, go to sleep. And I surprised myself by falling quickly into a deep rest.
Most of our food memories have our mothers or grandmothers playing the starring role. Mine do too. But these are as precious to me as my mom’s chicken curry or my grandmom’s pickles. At low points in my life, that tomato chutney or the dal choorma or those hot parathas have offered a special sort of comfort and understanding. These simple meals come with the solace that food made with love alone can bring.