Salaam olden days: Walking down food memory lane

Food memories are flavoured nostalgia for some while plain dal-roti fare for others.

A man makes lassi on HC Sen Marg near Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi. He can pour lassi back and forth without looking | Photo Credit: Flickr/ Alan Morgan

Sitting in lush Coonoor and making my way through a crispy fried mackerel, I suddenly thought of a dusty town called Pataudi in Haryana. A friend is very fond of narrating a joke—if one may call it that—about a group of villagers in Pataudi. The village men were talking about the best meal they had had. Then, an elderly man spoke up. “The best meal is a hot paratha, eaten with onions,” he said. “Ha,” said another villager, the most prosperous of the lot, no doubt. “Have you ever eaten it?” No, the aged villager replied. “But I saw a policeman eat it at the thana in Pataudi one day.”

It got me thinking. We had been discussing food memories, and it suddenly struck me that these memories are indeed as disparate as our class-driven and urban-rural divided society. The feeling persisted when I returned to Delhi.

As the city gift-wrapped itself in festive colours for Diwali, a friend recalled how Diwali always brought back happy memories of her ancestral home. Of how she would sit on a small moorha in the kitchen, watching her grandmother mould laddus.

I do not have any such memories. When I see the red and orange cellophane-wrapped boxes of sweets piled up in heaps in local shops, I recall the halwai in our village in western Uttar Pradesh. On Diwali or on other special occasions, he would come home with a platter of balushahi—a fried maida sweet dipped in syrup—and laddus prepared with roasted dal. Diwali was a tame affair in this part of Uttar Pradesh, where festivals were low-key because of the strong influence of the Arya Samaj.

Village meals were simple affairs, and these were not memories that one would hold on to. Lunch consisted of roti, dal, and sabzi; dinner consisted of roti, dal, and sabzi. There was, of course, ghee, which was added to the dal in large dollops, making the meal palatable. In the summer months, chhanch (buttermilk) was served in giant-sized glasses. And frothy milk was to be had at any time.

Happy interludes

Food memories, clearly, are flavoured nostalgia for some and plain dal-roti fare for others. I am part of the second lot, for unlike many foodies, I did not have grandmothers who lovingly prepared delicacies for their grandchildren: my paternal grandmother was happier keeping a stern eye on field workers and I hardly ever met my Bengali dida (maternal grandmother). But, thankfully, there was Bundu Mian, my father’s friend, who would occasionally visit us and then grill the most delectable kababs I had ever had. He bequeathed the recipe to my otherwise kitchen-shy mother, and I inherited it from her. I tried it out after my mother was gone, but it didn’t taste quite the same.

My largely ghee-urad-dal-roti childhood had some happy interludes too. I remember my first Chinese meal in Kolkata at an eatery that is still going strong, and dousing my noodles with tomato ketchup, much to the horror of the servers. I recall digging into a mutton chop at a now long-dead restaurant called The Tea House in New Delhi, sitting amidst a group of adults who dreamt of changing the world.

The good part about food memories, however, is that they can always evolve. And memories work well when you create them yourself. Someone wise once said we are what we eat. A part of me, therefore, is still urad ki dal, while another part lives happily with the beef sandwiches I ate as a callow youth in our neighbour Kitty Aunty’s house.

A shop in the Chandni Chowk area. | Photo Credit: S. Subramanium

That was also when I discovered the marvels of Chandni Chowk and Jama Masjid. I would walk down to these parts of Old Delhi, a trek that was measured by the three-and-a-half cigarettes I smoked one way. And all these decades later, I can still get lost in the flavours of nihari, a dish of meat shanks cooked overnight, or haleem, which is broken wheat and meat cooked together. Some days I would line up at the Old Delhi shack at the crack of dawn, warmed by delicious aromas as I waited for the degchi lid of the nihari to be opened. Sometimes, in the evenings, I would stop at the roadside and watch a kababchi grill seekh kababs, glistening with fat, and skewered to a rod, or have a plate of biryani, suspiciously yellow and red but delicious nevertheless.

Old city memories

I would occasionally stop by for a khasta kachori—fried right there in bubbling hot oil in a huge kadhai. Winter mornings would often mean a glass of thick milk with a plump jalebi dunked in it. Breakfast also meant bedmi aloo—puris stuffed with dal, served with a runny potato dish—and nagori halwa—a small fried disc of flour stuffed with sweet semolina halwa.

It was during those early sojourns that I came across basas (literally, an abode). They flourished in Delhi once, but now are almost all gone though their legacies remain. When Delhi became the country’s capital, traders and others moved to the city for business. Many of the business people came from Rajasthan and were vegetarians. These basas were set up for them, and offered simple dishes such as dal and sabzi, cooked without onions or garlic, but with large helpings of ghee.

The street food of Chandni Chowk grew as the traders set up shop. Many of the shopkeepers would not sit down for a meal but would hail a passing hawker, who carried in his khomcha (bamboo carrier) chaat papri, or sweet-and-sour dahi vada in a big earthenware pot. Kulleys were especially popular. These were boiled potatoes with a scooped-out centre, stuffed with mashed potatoes, tomatoes, peas, and so on.

A scene from the famous ‘‘Paranthe Wali Gali’‘ in Chandni Chowk. | Photo Credit: S. Subramanium

A lot of my old city memories revolve around two of my food mentors, Guru Santosh and Salimbhai, alas both gone now. Firm friends, they grew up in Old Delhi, knew every nook and corner of their neighbourhoods, and introduced me to the master chefs: Ustad Bhurey, whose biryani was to die for; Moinuddin, the maker of the best kababs you could get in the city; Bundu, famous for his haleem, and Kallu, for his nihari. Like all proud foodies, my venerable friends always believed that nothing could beat their neighbourhood kababchi or kachori-maker and would laugh scornfully at anybody who claimed otherwise.

Those food encounters came with interesting stories too. When I met Bade Mian, the much-admired kheer-maker of Lal Quan, I learnt that the house where milk thickened in a huge cauldron was where Madhubala was born. Or, take Gali Qasim Jaan. People knew of it because Mirza Ghalib lived there once—but also because it housed Madina, the famous nihari-maker. I had taken a friend there once and informed the chef that my friend was from Kolkata and knew his food. On hearing this, the ustad nonchalantly added two large slabs of butter to the nihari. It was his salaam to Kolkata.

Food memories can be sad, and they can be nostalgic and uplifting. I think that when we make our own album of memories, we should try and ensure that it includes the food we did not have when we were growing up.

And that reminds me of Subhadra, the cook in the employ of a dear friend, and a special lunch that this friend had prepared for us. In the middle of Delhi’s scorching summer, she organised a panta bhaat meal. Panta bhaat is a Bengali dish, but it has its counterparts across India. In most parts of rice-eating rural India, leftover rice is placed in a pot of water and left to ferment. The next day, this panta bhaat is eaten with a piece of lime squeezed over it and some chillies and salt.

Our friend’s lunch, on the other hand, was elaborate. Some leaves of a lime called Gondhoraj had been added to the broth, giving it a heavenly fragrance. On the side were various kinds of dishes, from small crispy fried fish and fried spinach leaves to potato fritters and roasted garlic. We loved it all.

But one of the guests found Subhadra laughing away in the kitchen. “Panta bhaat is what we poor people eat in the villages, with greens plucked from the land near the ponds. And here you are, all you sahibs, coming together just to eat this poor man’s meal,” she said, chuckling deeply.

One man’s food memory, indeed, is another person’s greens, plucked from the side of a pond.

Rahul Verma lives in Delhi, cooks for friends and family, and writes about food.

The Crux

• Food memories are as disparate as our class-driven and urban-rural divided society.
• When we make our own album of memories, we should try and ensure that it includes the food we did not have when we were growing up.