Kitchen Confidentials

Some foodies choose to retain their own flavour in the melting pot called Mumbai. Divya Subramaniam reports on a unique project that seeks to preserve the magic of grandma’s best-kept secrets

In a city that breeds homogeneity quicker than you can say Big Mac, there still remain a few faithful devotees of food with a soul. For them, a recipe is more than just a list of steps that leads to a finished dish. It is the imprint of memory interwoven with the aroma of good eating.

Shahnaz Anand, Mita Venkatraman are amongst the several Mumbaikars contributing recipes to the ‘You Can Cook’ cookbook project. Initiated by VK Narayan, a Muscat-based blogger, the project is largely taking shape over the internet. The main coordinator and SME (Subject Matter Expert), content development, for the project is Powai-based food critic Rushina Mushaw Ghildiyal.

“The idea is to preserve recipes that are precious but dying because they have traditionally been passed down from mother to daughter over the generations and have never been chronicled,” she says. Pinky Dixit, owner of Soam restaurant, who intends to contribute a traditional Gujarati oondhiya recipe says, “If youngsters today want to cook traditional dishes, they have no cookbook to guide them. With today’s hectic lifestyle, many people do not cook traditional dishes at home. So they do not have a chance to carry forward the word of mouth tradition. Besides, this also will enable someone from another culture to prepare dishes they have not even heard of.”

The book will also attempt to capture the essence of a way of life and the memories and the emotions that go into home cooked food. These are recipes that are in danger of extinction, evergreen favourites, or recipes that are truly traditional, historical, ethnic, or classic in nature. Mita Venkataraman, Bengali by birth, Mumbaikar by chance, and foodie by choice, will be contributing a recipe of her mother’s famous shukto.

“For the perfect shukto, the karela (bitter gourd) should not be more than one fifth of the total quantity of vegetables. Unripe papaya and banana are part of the shukto, and brinjals are a must. Traditionally, we East Bengalis do not add potatoes although West Bengalis do, for which they are held in contempt by us. The most crucial spice that is used for the paste is radhuni (wild celery) that is found very rarely outside Bengal. Once again the West Bengalis invite ridicule by substituting this delicate spice with the more common mustard. My grandma used to sit on her cot and supervise over my preparing shukto, making sure that the quantity of each of the spices was perfect. The image of my grandma, her lips stained red with paan, contrasting brightly against her rosy white skin always comes to my mind with the warm smell of simmering shukto and the smell of hot ghee.” – Mita Venkatraman.

For Venkatraman, the smell of Bengali food is the aroma of nostalgia. The bitter taste of karela is a chapter of her childhood that she wants to preserve. “No one makes shukto anymore,” bemoans Venkatraman. “Very few of the younger generation even like it. To me, however, this is the essence of tradition and needs to be preserved.”

Shahnaz Anand, passionate cook and resident of Juhu, is giving a traditional recipe for an Irani dish.

“Besides freshly crushed walnuts, the most important ingredient in feshunh-jun is the pomegranate puree. In our house, this was always brought from Iran. The chicken or mutton has to be cooked till it is soft enough to melt in the mouth and the flavour of the onions and pepper must be enticing but not intrusive. In fact it was in Iran, the place from where my ancestors came, that I first tasted feshunh-jun.

A long carpet called the soufrah was laid on the floor and the family of not less than 12 or 14 people sat in a circle on it. The dish was bought out in a large vessel and placed at the centre from where everyone helped themselves. The vessel was placed in front of me first because I was the guest. I had never eaten anything like that before. When I came back to India, I told my mother to teach me how to make the perfect feshunh-jun.” — From Shahnaz Anand.

“All my friends loved my mother’s food and now all my children’s friends like mine,” says Shahnaz Anand, passionate cook and resident of Juhu. “Irani food is simply cooked with very few spices. Although some changes are inevitable when cultures mix, I prefer to cook with as much authenticity as possible. Feshunh-jun is typical Irani food. I want as many people as possible to enjoy this delicacy.”