Eat, think, love

I have cooked all kinds of food for all types of eaters and because it’s a choice and not a compulsion, feeding others - fortunately - has remained an act of love.

Last month, I participated in a one-person performance by Dalit theatre artist Sri Vamsi Matta titled Come Eat with Me interwoven with caste politics and food memories, and narrated through a series of experiences that referenced Indian mythology, current affairs and personal histories, ending in a communal meal that he had cooked for his 30-odd audience members at the lovely Museum of Goa.

As part of his act, Vamsi asked the audience to respond to two questions, which I am now posing here:

What is your earliest memory of food?

While I can’t pinpoint a single memory, I find that any early memories I have are happy associations with food - sitting down with my friends at school and opening the lunch dabba, the earliest notion of a community meal; Sunday special French fries made at home by my mother; and the rare fancy restaurant outing initiated by my father which meant that I could eat chicken without my grandparents coming to know. 

Food has always been a love language in my family. My mother is a great cook and, more importantly, an enthusiastic cook, the type who loves it when people make demands of her - the type of cook I am not (that my husband is). If I had had a kid like me who complained about eating the same food every day or demanded what was then ‘exotic’ North Indian food like pulao or chhole, I would most definitely have smacked her.

Every few months my mother (now aged 74) makes and sends a set of home-made powders, snacks and sweets to her daughters, extended family, other acquaintances, some of my friends, a process that involves weeks of WhatsApp messages about our timings, quantities and specific preferences (mixture for my sister, seedai for me), even though the order is almost entirely the same every time.

My mother rarely cooks herself now but the making of these food items is supervised with a hawk’s eye and attention to detail that any top chef would be proud of. As I have gotten more health conscious, I keep my house clear of snacks most of the time, but when those cartons filled with food arrive, I eat all my memories and emotions bowl by bowl. 

Do you remember a time you were fed by a stranger?

When posed this question, one of the audience members described how she once stood in front of a seafood stall in a market, puzzled by clams which she had never seen before, wondering how they tasted. The vendor, a complete stranger, asked her to come back the next day, and when she did, presented her with a bowl of cooked clams, creating a core memory and many subsequent years of enjoyable eating.

I am an unfussy and curious eater - meaning, I will eat karela at anyone’s home and like it, and I will also try something unusual and preferably local when I travel. It has allowed me to have some extraordinary experiences: discovering the delicious simplicity of a Naga meal of pork and dal, slurping down oysters on various seashores with the taste of the beach in them, knowing that a deep-fried paneer paratha is the best way to warm up on a cold winter morning on a highway in U.P.

For someone who has now spent more of my life outside of where I grew up (Madras) and away from the boundaries of that cuisine (vegetarian), being open and adventurous with food has been a way to cross barriers of religion, culture, class and caste. And some of my most unforgettable memories and experiences have happened because strangers have fed me.

Eating my way through Goa’s fish thalis is one of my life’s greatest achievements

The politics of food

I have always boasted that Tamil sambar (if I’m being specific, the one you get in my home in Madras) - is the best one around. Every South Indian is likely to say the same but no, no, I have always insisted, Tamilians really know how to make sambar - thick with dal, aromatic with plenty of curry leaves, cooked only with certain vegetables like pumpkin, bhindi, please, never potato, yuck brinjal, onions weren’t allowed; not red and watery like the one you get in Udipi restaurants, not full of ‘ugly vegetables’…

And then I read this poem, that Vamsi shared as part of his act:

Sambar by Daniel Sukumar

Middle-class sambar doesn’t lie.
On most days
It is thicker than fresh blood,
But when daal or petrol
gets costlier than
the extra tuition fees
it gets watery
like the evening tea,
my parents drink.
Sambar is more inclusive than
all your activism combined.
It takes in all the cheap vegetables
that mom bargained for a little longer.
From radish to the rare ladies finger,
they all find their home
in a pot of hot, fresh Sambar.
If you have to thank someone
for the ingenuity of sambar
thank povert not just the necessity.
My mom balances the consistency
of sambar like Jesus
balancing the holy trinity.
If dhal went up in price,
the sambar would have
potatoes partially dissolved
for consistency.
Like my caste
when I write this poem in English.

When the price of tomatoes
begins to bleed our pockets,
mom would use tamarind
to show for the sour.
When the country began
to import onions,
our sambar had lesser onions
that were cut a little thinner
to make it seem like
there was enough
for a family of five.
At times she cut it so thin
that she had to cut herself.
I wonder if she added her fingertips
as a substitute for the onions,
she didn’t get to put in the sambar.
The privilege of the caste
is not in the meat of a cow,
but in an onionless sambar.
The privilege of class
is not in the absence of a bargain
but in the pain
of the balancing act of sambar.

Growing up I was lucky to eat what I believed was the perfect sambar, and privileged enough to not have to know any different. I started cooking myself when I first moved out of home and was craving tomato rasam, the ultimate comfort food in my book. Since then I have cooked all kinds of food for all types of eaters and because it’s a choice and not a compulsion, feeding others - fortunately - has remained an act of love. Even as I write this, I am thinking about a dinner I am hosting tomorrow for a few friends - discussing the menu, arguing about what items to cook, listing ingredients, gauging quantities, planning cooking duties, are as much a part of the routine and enjoyment as the event of meeting people.

Vamsi Matta’s performance - a storytelling style that engaged us in the manner of dastangoi or, if you’re lucky, your grandparents - was moving. The meal - that a bunch of mostly strangers served ourselves from large vessels placed on the floor, meeting and chatting over those pots and plates, eating a classic, wholesome combo of chicken curry, parippu and rice (Vamsi’s family recipes) - was sublime.