My son Samar was once asked by his teacher: Can your mother cook? The young fellow, only 10 years old then, gallantly replied: “Of course, she can.” That evening, when he told me what he had said, I was shamed into buying my first cookbook. I’ve since graduated to a collection of cookbooks—some, like the Mangalore Ladies Club Cookbook, well-worn and battered, others still in their cellophane wrapping. What I haven’t been able to lay my hands on, however, is an honest-to-goodness book that explains, in simple language, the recipes that Ammi, my mother-in-law, or Badi Ammi, a venerable relative in Farrukhabad (the central UP district from which my husband’s family hails), have handed down from generation to generation. The heavy-on-the-oil but mouthwatering mutton korma, the distinctly spiced peeli murgi, the delicately flavoured yakhni, the tangy tamatar gosht. The fluffy naan (distinctly different from the Punjabi variety), the sweetish sheermal and the enormous maanda (a roti thicker than a roomali and two feet in diameter!)
Uttar Pradesh, my sasuraal and in essence my karmabhoomi, is a much-maligned state. Sadly, one hears more of the Rampuri chhuri than the legendary Rampuri cuisine. Somewhere along the way to McDonald’s and Pizza Hut and Cafe Coffee Day, it has been forgotten that UP is a foodie’s paradise, from the petha of Agra and the pedas of Mathura and Hardoi, to the sem ke beej and dalmauth of Farrukhabad and the gajak of Meerut. Not to mention the amrood (guava) of Kaimganj and the dussehri mango of Malihabad, the tunde kebab of Lucknow and the mouthwatering kakori rolled in roomali roti. Thank heavens, though, there’s still a Badi Ammi alive and cooking in every UP village.
In the towns and kasbahs where tentwallahs have entered the business of catering, the food is served on king-size melamine plates but at a village wedding you’ll still be served food on a traditional pattal leaf plate, and water or tea from a freshly-baked earthenware kulhad. Accept an invitation to such a wedding and prepare to rip apart the diet chart.
You are invited, let’s say, to a traditional Muslim wedding. Strictly purdah system. Men in one enclosure, women in another. Conversation is not at a premium. Food is. As you sit down, the first course appears: a ‘donga’ filled with mutton or chicken (depending on the family’s wealth; mutton is obviously more expensive.) Depend on it, you’ll have to wade through several inches of oil before you get a piece of flesh. The kaju, kishmish and zafran may be negotiable—depending on what the family can afford—but excess oil is not! After korma, accompanied by maanda roti, in quick succession come biriyani and zarda, a zafran-flavoured sweet pulao laced with cashewnuts and crystallised cherries.
The repast at a traditional Hindu wedding is very different, but in its way, just as predictable, and delicious. Kachoris and ghee-laced pooris with two or three seasonal vegetables—often an aloo ki tari and a simple matar-paneer. Dessert is usually a gulab jamun or khoye ki barfi. Interestingly, there is very little difference between the fare at a joyous wedding and a sombre tehrvi (memorial service for the departed), except that the sabzi, at the latter, is invariably kaddu (pumpkin) and the sweet, boondi ka laddoo.
Poori republic Fried with fervour, devoured even more fervently
The two cultures, Hindu and Muslim, merge in the seasonal fruit platter served at the end—always with chaat masala sprinkled on it, with a heavy hand. Would you believe I was once served strawberries laced with this masala at a farm lunch?
Yes, UP has its quirks, and they can both amuse you, and confuse you. For years, I had been hearing of, and wanting to taste the famous rasgullas of Mohammadabad, a small hamlet in Farrukhabad. One day, it turned out that the melt-in-the-mouth gulab jamuns I had been eating for the past 10 years were these very rasgullas of Mohammadabad! Why insist on calling a gulab jamun a rasgulla, I wondered, perplexed. After all, 20 km away in Farrukhabad, the gulab jamun is brown/black and the rasgulla the traditional white. But you just don’t argue with a UPwallah. Especially not in the ‘badlands’ where life is often valued at the cost of a bottle of illicit liquor! Who’d dare question the owner of a quaint mithai shop in Kanpur called Thaggu Ke Laddoo, which sports a prominent sign saying: “Aisa koi saga nahin jisko hamne thaga nahin (There is no one we have not cheated)!” And guess what the proud owner of a mango farm near Meerut, who experimented with unusual grafts to produce a strange, almost kerosene-flavoured variety, called his creation? “Haram Zada”!
As a Mangalorean Christian, I came to UP with my distinct food traditions. Lots of fish and prawns. Plenty of coconut, in both sweets and in curries. Food heavy on chillies, low on oil. What a contrast that was to my husband’s Muslim Pathan family cuisine: Prawns unheard-of, fish only eaten fried. Coconut never tasted. Food low on chillies, very high on oil. Dal thick and heavy, unlike our watery Mangalorean saar.
What can I say, after a quarter century of marriage, except: 25 years ago, I was 44 kg and couldn’t find my waist. Today I’m all waist and my age is a heavily guarded secret. But, thanks to the fear of diabetes and growing cholesterol consciousness, we have reached a happy compromise at home, between our cuisines. The daily dal is not too thick, nor too watery; the fish is fried as well as curried; my Mangalorean brinjal pickle is always on the table, along with a low-oil version of Ammi’s Kaimganj Yakhni. There is less mutton and more chicken on the table. And everyone’s agreed to go easy on the sugar.
(The author is a former MLA from Kaimganj in UP’s Farrukhabad district, which is also her politician-husband Salman Khurshid’s ancestral town.)
