Food and sex have much in common. When we are hungry, we fantasise about grand meals, cook up a feast in our heads, mentally salivate over food not easily accessible to us, like perfectly grilled lamb chops or king prawns all pink and perfect. Just like with sexual fantasies, everyone has a favourite food fantasy and mine (I don’t know what Freud would have to say about it) is always about the simple Marwari food I grew up with: kathi daal, moong bhat, urad ki belma poori, panchmele ki sabzi.
In the middle of the night when I sleepwalk into my kitchen seeking something sweet, I’m subconsciously searching for shahi tukra—fried bread topped with saffron rabri and slivers of almond. When I go on my “say no to carbs” regime, I dream about matar ki kachori and aloo pethe ki sabzi. When the diet gets too tough, and I am about to cheat, I promise myself rewards for being good like: “A day at Mummy’s house—breakfast, lunch and dinner...the full monty!”
Last year, when I got a call from a women’s club in Calcutta, requesting me to do a cooking demo for its members, my first reaction was to say “no” but when I heard that they were also the publishers of Pak Pranali, I got all nostalgic and said yes right away...that too gratis! Pak Pranali is a series of cookbooks, first published in the ’60s, mainly for vegetarian Marwari households in Calcutta. The books are an eclectic mix of Marwari favourites, including “continental dishes”, as we liked to call them, and my first cooking experiments were inspired by them. Flick through their pages and you will know exactly what we eat, and what versatile eaters we are. My Punjabi friends, who get their cheap thrills by taking digs at us “poor vegetarian guys from the desert”, don’t believe me, but when it comes to food, we have always been a step ahead.
In the realm of junk food, nothing beats our raj kachori, literally the king of kachoris. This fried puffed ball, stuffed with potatoes, tangy chickpeas, hung yoghurt and tamarind, is the epitome of “junk”, and sheer heaven, too. Just thinking about it makes me remember the heat of the spices contrasted with the sweetness of tamarind. What I also love is the mess you create when you eat it. The thrill of plunging a fork into the kachori, and watching the yoghurt and chutneys oozing out is something else altogether.
Nothing to beat our comfort food either. It can be simple and nourishing, like dahi ki sabzi—vegetable cooked in buttermilk, tempered with heeng and curry leaves; a version of kadhi, but minus the besan. But we also nibble on suhaali, a crisp wholewheat version of the mathri, accented with ajwain. And then we have our “no onion no garlic” continental dishes such as, believe it or not, Vegetable Crusoe. This, for those of you wondering what on earth I’m talking about, is fried loaf of bread with vegetables baked in Bechamel sauce and processed cheese, topped with fried crispy potatoes. Even if it sounds disgusting, it tastes heavenly.
Community feeding A Marwari family seated at dinner in Mumbai
My absolute favourite from the Marwari repertoire is the full Marwari nasta, or breakfast. The first time I stayed at the Devigarh Resort in Udaipur, I knew I’d be coming back. Which other hotel serves my beloved nasta as authentically as this one? While my companion begged for eggs and toast, I tucked into deep-fried aloo sabudaana bada and bread poha—cubes of bread tossed with tempered curry leaves and onions—eating both her share and mine.
Nastas make me remember the time I moved to Delhi, as a child, from Calcutta. Our “maharaj” moved with us, and thanks to him, I am now quite ashamed to admit, all through my school years I ate a full, cooked breakfast at 7 am, before going to school. When I reached school, I was mercilessly teased about it. Every morning, my friends would ask: “What did you eat for breakfast?” And my innocent reply—“Aloo matar toasties and chhena tikki”—sent them into gales of laughter. It was only much later that I figured out this was a trick question and started lying to say “Toast and milk”. The irony is that in later years, it was these very school friends who kept asking when they could come home for urad ki poori, aloo methi ki sabzi and ker saangri!
Ok, let me admit it, our food is not, let’s say, umm, heart/blood pressure/ weight/health-friendly, but then as the saying goes, all the good things in life are either illegal, or fattening. I cook Italian food, I am fascinated by it, I could eat a simple pasta everyday. But the truth is I adore my Marwari food. I don’t mean the Rajasthan version (nice, in its own way, but lacking the finesse of the cuisine I am talking about) but the hip and happening Calcutta Marwari food I grew up on. I don’t eat it often because of what it does to my ever-expanding belly, but on days when I feel really low, I call up my mother and give her my lunch wishlist. After a thaliful of my favourite Marwari goodies, life seems a lot better. So what if I have to spend another hour on the treadmill the following day? I hope, one day, there will be restaurants serving the Calcutta-Marwari food I grew up with. They might get sued for causing a sudden expansion in waistlines, but at least my Punjabi friends will have to eat humble pie when our Bikaneri parottha gives Amritsari kulcha a run for its money.
(Chef Dalmia owns and runs Delhi’s popular Italian restaurant Diva.)
