I Love India: Recipes and Stories from City to Coast, Morning to Midnight, and Past to Present

341 Pages·2017·10.06 MB·English

by  Anjum Anand

Contents
Title Page
Introduction
Street-side tiffin
Sunset bites
Indian summer
Coastal curries
On high days and holidays
Regional stars
Comfort food
Accompaniments and sides
Desserts
Index
Copyright Page
Introduction
I believe that each of us is the sum of all our parts. I know that everything I have
done and experienced in life has brought me to this place in my career and,
looking back, I see how all the dots join up. In my case, these indelible markers
started before I did.
My father was born in India towards the end of the British Raj, only 12 years
before the Partition. His family were enjoying a cool break in Kashmir when
they received word that the rumours about India splitting were indeed true, and
that they had to gather what they could and travel to find a new home within the
new Indian borders. This was a time of utter chaos, confusion and fear, with
people traversing whole countries with more apprehension than belongings. My
father’s family travelled on the top of a train for days, slept in a railway station
for weeks and – with lots of help from old friends – made their way to Delhi.
Many months later, they finally settled into a new home and life. By the age of
18, my father got a job with a British company, which meant he got the
opportunity to travel a little. In his early twenties – for the second time in his
young life – he moved to a new country where he knew no one and had little
more than a few coins in his pocket.
My mother grew up in the mountains between Afghanistan and what is now
Pakistan. She had six sisters and one brother and grew up very sheltered, her
older sisters more like mothers to her. They were a proud family, with a little
land to their name. My grandfather was a trader, importing fruits and nuts into
India from Afghanistan. My mother’s extended family had more advance
warning about Partition and came to live with my grandfather’s brother in a
large, sprawling family home in Old Delhi. In time, the home was split between
the men of the family, while all the women married and left for their new
families’ homes. By the time I visited this imposing villa, my mother’s brother
lived in a one-bedroom flat with his wife and children (space for the new
families having diminished as children arrived). It was small, but the grounds of
the house were huge, with flat roofs forming verandahs around the home;
everyone was surrounded by family and cousins, and all the positives – and the
politics – that that involved.
My parents had an arranged marriage. My father travelled to India and met my
mother; five days later they were married and he brought her to London… a
world as different from hers as it was distant. The way she remembers it, my
father had a party at home in London to celebrate his marriage and to introduce
his new bride to his friends. My mother had never before been out without her
sisters or cousins and she apparently left the party – full as it was of drinking,
smoking and the loud friends of my father – and sat on the doorstep, looking at
the stars, with tears falling for all she had left behind and apprehension for what
was to come.
By the time we were born, my mother had settled into her new role as a
supportive wife and – by the time I was four – my father decided to move us to
Switzerland. We spent ten years in Geneva, the weekdays in school and the
weekends driving around exploring a completely new world and cuisine. We
went from one recommended restaurant to another, acquiring a taste for
everything Swiss and middle European – with a bit of German, French and
Italian – fondue and raclette, filets de perches (a local river fish), spätzle (a short
noodle-like dumpling), Birchermüesli, wild strawberries and raspberries,
pâtisserie and, of course, amazing cheeses and chocolates. Swiss food is very
good; often simple but rich.
Inside our Swiss home, it was more akin to a little India, with Indian food on the
table and Indian movies playing on the television, instead of the local networks.
My father’s new circle of friends was also Indian as, having spotted a Sikh man
at the bus stop, he went straight up to him, introduced himself and soon met all
the other Indians in the small city.
My father loves having people round and these new friends were often invited
over for dinner, so I have countless memories of women dressed in colourful
saris with clinking bangles, laughing and recounting stories from “back home”,
eating Indian food that Mum had spent the day cooking (enlisting a very eager
young me to help) and generally giving me the impression that India was an
amazing, vibrant, fun place full of interesting characters.
This was only reinforced on the frequent trips we took to India. In the early days
we stayed with family, only taking hotel rooms once my father could afford
them. One of his cousins had a chicken farm and, on arrival, we would receive a
basket of eggs and have the tastiest eggs on toast. The food in India was always
amazing; I don’t remember a single bad meal. Visits to my father’s family were
always meaty affairs, with melting mutton curries and soft, puffed chapatis
anointed with a little ghee. In contrast, my mother’s family were vegetarian and
preferred lighter food and meals that usually featured lentils with seasonal
vegetables and some of their own specialities. These meals were often
punctuated with fresh sugar cane brought in from a nearby field; we would sit
and use our teeth to strip off the hard fibrous “skin”, tear off large chunks, chew
the flesh, extract all the sweet, flavourful juices and spit out the fibrous remains
into a large bowl.