NO FULL STOPS IN GODDESS DURGA’S FESTIVE BOUNTY

October 31, 2020

It’s heartening to see the number of home chefs growing, especially since the lockdown inspired just about every talented cook in our city to take to serious cooking, and for some, the next step was to turn entrepreneurial. One such food enterprise born out of the pandemic was Gusto by...

WHY KABAB REMAINS THE UNDISPUTED KING

October 31, 2020

Many moons ago, I had attended a kabab workshop—a brainwave of the brilliant hotelier, Major (Retd.) Habib Rehman—at the Maurya, where chefs from ITC hotels across the country showcased 101 kababs, originating from Kashmir to Thanjavur. I also remember meeting the maestro M.F. Husain, who shared his fondness for the...

THE STOMACH LEADS TO THE GODDESS

October 24, 2020

Swami Vivekananda used to keep reminding his disciples the famous words of his guru, Sri Ramakrishna: “Religion is not good for an empty stomach.” Bengalis have for long cherished their tradition of Pet Pujo—the worship of the stomach—and it keeps manifesting itself on every festive occasion. No wonder, this Durga...

DESPERATELY SEEKING THE DEVI’S BHOG

October 24, 2020

Thanks to Covid-19, we have been denied the unalloyed joy of going to a puja pandal and digging the khichuri bhog, which is one of the best parts of the Durga Puja festivities. I wish puja committees had been allowed the right to deliver bhog to the homes of people who ordered online, but health concerns nixed...

WHY GOOD FOOD IS CENTRAL TO DURGA PUJA

October 24, 2020

Bengal doesn’t have a single temple dedicated to Goddess Durga, who doesn’t also make an appearance in the Puranas till the fifth century CE, and the earliest recorded celebration of her divinity goes back to Raja Kangsha Narayan of Tahirpur, a zamindar in contemporary Rajshahi, a municipal town in Bangladesh,...

Back to Burdwan: Infusing life into classical recipes

October 17, 2020

In my last column, I had shared my excitement about being invited to a dinner where the writer and restaurateur Pritha Sen would recreate the recipes originally given in what is believed to be India’s first printed cookbook, Pakrajeshwar. Written and published by a printer and journalist Gaurishankar Bhattacharyya in...

What Shah Jahan’s got to do with Agra’s petha

October 17, 2020

Coming back from Agra without your box of pethas is almost blasphemous as visiting the city for the first time and not visiting the Taj or Fatehpur Sikri. The Agra experience is not complete without gorging on this sweetmeat made with cubes or cylinders of ash gourd (white pumpkin), first...

Agra bounces back as Delhiites descend on it

October 17, 2020

For purely personal reasons, I have spent the last two weekends in Agra, where I normally OD on the street food, having lost count of the number of times I have seen the Taj. I wish I could spend as much time at Fatehpur Sikri, which I find so much...

Does cooking make a man more charming?

October 10, 2020

For Netflix India, this is the season for romantic comedies (rom-coms)—Emily in Paris, starring Phil Collin’s daughter Lily, was the one I binge-watched over a night, soaking in the sights and food experiences of the French capital, and I have just finished seeing Ginny Weds Sunny, a soul-warming Karol Bagh...

Oldest Bengali cookbook comes alive

October 10, 2020

The Burdwan Estate may not ring a bell today, but it was a princely state in British Raj Bengal that was established in 1657 by a Khatri merchant-prince from Punjab named Sangam Rai Kapoor. Emperor Shahjahan apparently owed a favour to the dynasty’s founder, so he gifted him the principality...