Author Sudha Menon dips into the family recipes of some of India’s most celebrated names, as well as her own, for a new book that puts the spotlight on our culinary legacy
Menon’s amma Pramila Radhakrishnan’s home-cooked meals inspired this book
Back in 2016, a few months after Pune-based author Sudha Menon’s father passed away, she took her amma, Pramila Radhakrishnan, to her sister’s place in London. Her amma, she remembers, had “gone into deep depression, grieving the loss of her companion of 50-plus years”. A holiday, she thought, would help her cope better. “[But] as the days passed, I noticed that the only time amma was happy was when she was cooking or talking about food, something she did on our long walks when we spoke about her life back in Kerala where she grew up. I decided then that if talking about food would get her out of the grey morass, I would do that. Around the same time, my mother-in-law, a passionate cook who prepared memorable CKP [Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu] food, passed away, ravaged by dementia and with her went her legacy of the food she cooked for her family for over 65 years,” shares Menon, in an email interview.
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One of her biggest regrets was that neither she, nor anyone in the family ever wrote down her mother-in-law’s recipes, because, “we just presumed she would always be around to pamper us with her food”. “I realised then that there is almost no documentation of the food that Indian families eat. Most of the recipes that have been in families have simply been passed down the generations orally, from mothers and mothers-in-law to daughters, sons, sisters, daughters-in-law. It is so important to do that because food is one of the most important aspects of our culture and identity,” she says.
Sudha Menon
Both these incidents spurred Menon to begin a unique project. She reached out to some of the most well-known faces in the world of art, sports, movies, politics and literature, to share their fondest memories of food and favourite recipes from their mother’s kitchen. The result is a new book, Recipes for Life (Penguin Random House), which is a unique compilation of the food that has made us. With recipes from the kitchens of nearly 35 celebrated personalities—Shanta Gokhale, Harsha Bhogle, Kubbra Sait, Atul Kochhar, to name a few—this book is also a treasure-trove of rich stories that remind us why food, even if not elaborate, is such an indelible part of our legacy.
Cricketer Irfan Pathan, for instance, remembers sitting with his siblings and parents and eating the humble fare his ammi could afford—fresh, hot rotis smeared with oil that they dipped into their tea, before going off to school. “[Boxer] Mary Kom’s story of growing up eating fresh, seasonal, organic food from the tiny vegetable patch behind their mud house and of fish caught from the neighbourhood pond or lake gave me a peek into the lives of people, who are very much part of our country, but we know so little about,” says Menon.
She also recounts memories of her amma’s food, in the book. “Amma, who is a fabulous cook, first learnt the rudiments of cooking from a trio of aunts. The aunts ruled the roost in our ancestral home in Malapuram. When amma got married at the age of 16, she came to Mumbai where she learnt Palakkad cooking from her mother-in-law,” she tells mid-day.
Menon’s mother’s summer rituals of making a variety of pickles—kadumanga (baby raw mango pickle), nellika (gooseberry pickle), tart lemon pickles and lemon squash from the lemons that grew in their tiny garden patch, are still fresh in her mind. “When the roses in the garden bloomed in abundance, she collected the petals, filled them up in glass jars with rock sugar and left them out in the sun till the sugar melted and the whole thing became a glorious, delicious mass. Amma would spoon this into our glasses of milk or smear them on our chappatis and her four children and husband were in bliss,” she says.
Mary Kom, Irfan Pathan, Kubbra Sait and Harsha Bhogle
Her amma’s Onam and Vishu sadyas, she says, were also epic. “Preparations started days in advance with the puli inji, kaalan and pickles made days ahead. She woke up at dawn on these days and the kitchen was a flurry of activity with the avial, kootu, olan, pachadi, sambar and other staples prepared over the next few hours. The payasams would quietly simmer in a corner of the kichen, away from the tart, spicy curries and to this day the entire family and the dozens of people she invited to lunch with us swoon over her paal payasam and parippu pradaman,” she adds.
Though her mother is no longer able to cook, due to old age, Menon says that her eyes still light up when her children ask her for her recipes. “A few days ago, she woke up and just like that made a huge stock of her fiery molagapodi for my sister who she lives with [in Mumbai].”
While this book started out as an attempt to feature mothers and the food they cooked, Menon says at some point, it took a life of its own and became a fascinating journey of discovery for her. “I realised that through food the mothers and grandmothers in this book taught their children precious values and life lessons. Artist Atul Dodiya’s mother waited for him to return from school and over a shared lunch of simple Kathiawadi fare, they talked about films, books and his beloved art,” she says, adding, “I too grew up in a family of very modest means and my mother had precious little to raise her four children on, but I learnt about compassion, kindness, generosity and the value of sharing from just being around her. No needy person ever returned home disappointed or empty handed from our home. And no one was sent home hungry.”
Karela
Ingredients
5 to 6 karelas
5 onions sliced long and thin
2 small bowls of besan
1 tsp turmeric
3 tsp roasted coriander seed and cumin powder (dhaniyajeera powder)
Salt to taste
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
A pinch of asafoetida for seasoning
Curry leaves
Coriander leaves
2 tsp sugar
Juice of a lemon
Garlic masala to taste: 4–5 pods of garlic, 1/2-inch piece of ginger and red chilli powder as per taste (made as follows: grind garlic, ginger, red chilli powder and salt to a fine paste. This chutney can be stored in the fridge in an air-tight container and used whenever required).
Method
Cut the karela into thin slices, add salt and keep it aside, preferably overnight.
The next morning, wash them well and then boil them in a little water. Squeeze and discard the water.
Heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds and curry leaves. When they start to splutter, add asafoetida and chopped onions.
Simultaneously, mix the chickpea flour (besan) with all the masalas and then add it to the karela.
Once the onions turn pink, add the karela mixed with the besan, masalas and sugar. Mix well.
Cook this mixture in a pressure cooker for 2 whistles without adding any water. The bottom of the pressure cooker needs to have the required quantity of water for its safe functioning.
After the pressure cooker has cooled down, gently stir the karela, add coriander leaves and serve with a dash of lemon juice.
Choorma ke ladoo
REPRESENTATION PIC
Ingredients
1 big cup wheat flour
2 small cups ghee
1/2 cup jaggery
Poppy seeds (khuskhus) to taste
Cardamom powder as preferred
Method
Add 1/2 cup ghee to the wheat flour and knead till you have a firm dough.
Make this into 3 to 4 big and thick bhakris.
Roast equally on both sides on a slow flame.
Then grind these bhakris into a fine powder.
To this chooran (bhakri powder), add cardamom powder and mix well.
Chop the jaggery into small, thin pieces and add it to the mixture. Mix thoroughly.
Now, warm the remaining ghee, and add it to the chooran, kneading continuously.
Mould this chooran into round balls, roll in a plate of khus and the ladoos are ready to serve.
Excerpted with permission from Recipes for Life, Sudha Menon, published by Ebury Press, Penguin Random House
From Ba, with love Atul Dodiya, artist
Growing up in Ghatkopar, a suburb in Mumbai, where we lived in a chawl in great harmony with several Maharashtrian families, Ba (my mother) had adopted the practice of fasting in the month of Shravan. She asked the rest of the family to fast too, on Mondays of the month. The fast involved eating only one meal, usually at night, and faral (fasting snacks) during the day. I remember waiting eagerly for Shravan Mondays because Ba would prepare delicious upvas (fasting) snacks for lunch. I adored her sukhi potato bhajis, fried sakkariyas (sweet potato), rajgira (amaranth) puris, fried peanuts garnished with roasted jeera powder, all washed down with fresh dahi. I could eat great quantities of these snacks to Ba’s endless amusement.
Ours was a middle-class household and Ba was a simple woman from Kathiawad, Gujarat, who cooked a simple fare of rustic Kathiawadi food—dal, chawal, rotli, shaak—for her husband and seven children. Since I was the first son born to her after four daughters, my siblings always teased her that the household had to eat whatever her pampered son wanted to eat. Unlike the rest of Gujarat where food is sweet, Kathiawadi food is spicy with lots of chillies, onion and garlic in it.
Ba, a keen learner, always ready to experiment, eventually learnt how to balance the spice in her preparations, taking away the raw, rustic side to it. Ba was from a Rajput family and had in her repertoire of recipes a number of non-vegetarian dishes, but strangely enough, I have no memory of her eating non-vegetarian food at home. My parents gave up non-vegetarian food at some point in my childhood and we grew up on a largely vegetarian fare.
While lunch at home was always the typical rotli, dal and shaak made Kathiawadi style from vegetables such as bitter gourd, cabbage and cauliflower, dinner was when the entire family sat down to have a meal of thick bajra bhakris with dollops of ghee and a gravy-based vegetable because the bhakris were too dry to be eaten on their own.
Dinner also had Ba’s delectable moong dal khichdi with lots of ghee, a taste that still lingers in my memory, reminding me of her. Ba’s cabbage and potato shaak was one of my favourites, as was a karela dish with roasted masalas and onions, which was so delicious that we kids would actually look forward to her cooking it. She also made an outstanding drumstick dish with a thick gravy of besan, and I remember dipping my rotlis into the gravy, soaking them up and popping them into my mouth, steaming hot. She also prepared a variety of dals—chana, moong and urad—all of them spicy and yet comforting. On the side, with every meal, would be dry chilli pickle made from either red or green chillies.
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