Fashionable Free Advice

Flavoured and Fragrant

I open the fridge.

Plan a meal for the next day

With whatever is in the vegetable tray.

I peer again at the confusion inside.

Remind myself to eat the leftovers.

They will not match the main meal for the Bengali

It will be like wearing an old rubia blouse with a starched saree.

Printed cotton blouses are in vogue now

But in food they remain old fashioned.

Perhaps it is chic to say traditional.

The Bengali is very particular

He eats in courses

Like the French

Very proud of his contribution to literature, liberty and laissez faire - Cholche Cholbe

( Too many men & women smokers in both places)

We like a little tang in our food

Tamarind is a staple in the Kannadiga- Tamilian kitchen

The Bengali will screw up his nose and say TOK!!

He balances Tok and Mishti

Fights off the Bitter with a spoonful of ghee

We balance the Salt and Spice - Uppu- Khaara

And drown in Buttermilk Majjige - Mor

So how do I eat?

I squeeze a juicy slice of Gondhoraj Lebu¹ into Shukto²

The bitterness sharpened by a tartness

Makes it tastier.

A foot in each kitchen is also how one makes it work and wholesomely so

.We learn to adapt

By compulsion or choice

One transforms over time

Like the Kashmiri cook

Who made Yakhni³ with Lauki and Nadru⁴ for me.

I said that the recipe is Kashmiri MorKuzhambu/Majjigehuli⁵

My sister groaned.

“The beginning of appropriation” she said

I said I would make it with goat meat for the good doctor once back home

I was too satiated to debate her point.

This is also what stops me from speaking aloud

Fine rice on my plate, satin sheets cool my skin

A Kanjivaram collection to drape over my curves

I am one of the many, not of the few

Familiar faces, favourite,fermented foods keep me in the fold.

Let me offer you free advice

Do not mix the flavours

It is not fashionable anymore

It is best to live within the lane

Love too, not too far away.

Time is scarce.

Seek peace.

Draw your lines

Before others draw it for you.

And hunker down at home

And reinterpret Rabindranath

Some bearded men are acceptable

Still.

1. Gondhoraj Lebu - A fragrant lime variety particularly favoured by the Bengalis

2. Shukto - A Bengali mixed vegetable with bitter gourd in a mild mustard sauce eaten at the start of a meal. Bitters are an important part of a traditional Bengali meal, cleansing the palate and releasing gastric juices to help digest all that follows.

3. Yakhni in Kashmiri Wazwan is a very mildly flavoured curd based broth traditionally with mutton

4. Lotus stem

5. MajjigeHuli, MorKuzhambu - A curd based curry with vegetables made in Karnataka & Tamilnadu with similar spices.