TANGENTSBy Ihtisham Kabir
Grandmother's <i>Diet </i>
Shorbot of Bel. Photo: Ihtisham Kabir
Michael Pollan is known for his groundbreaking books on America's food business. In The Omnivore's Dilemma, he analyses the dependence of American food on processing and fertilisers. First hand research on American food businesses, from farms to manufacturing plants, enables him to analyse the confusing state of many American foods, including the preponderance of corn and its derivatives in American diet. Pollan has a simple advice for those wondering what to eat for dinner: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” While fascinating, Pollan's work, in the end, is relevant for America with its abundant natural resources and wealth. While Bangladesh has made great strides in food production, Pollan's work hardly applies here. Or does it? One sentence from Pollan struck me: “Don't eat anything that your great grandmother would not recognise as food.” Great grandmothers are too far in my past, but since I was close to my grandmothers, I thought about their eating habits. They were very different people, my two grandmothers. But in hindsight, they had many similarities. Fiercely patriotic, they fought against colonialism and for Bangla. They were healthy and active well into their 80s, always helping the unfortunate. Between them, they raised fourteen children. My paternal grandmother, Dadu, had robust taste. She loved fish, small and large. Her everyday meals boiled down to simple elegance: rice, dal, curries and lots of vegetables and fruits. Lemons held a special place in her diet, squeezed into dal and tea and many foods in between. She certainly enjoyed an occasional treat of foreign chocolate or biscuit. Nanu, my maternal grandmother, had more austere taste in food. She preferred simple deshi food: chapati and tea at breakfast, and rice, dal, and curries with minimal spices for her meals. She loved smaller fish, like bashpata and small pabda. Protesting against colonial rule, she had sworn to boycott British foods. This ban extended to all Western foods. In a household well-known for lavish cooking, she ate little, like a bird. Both loved fresh local products: greens and vegetables, papayas, oranges, and a shorbot (smoothie) of bel. Toast biscuit, fresh-baked nankhatai cookies or muri (puffed rice) were preferred snacks. They avoided oily, spice-laden curries and fried foods. Dessert was often milk and rice, sweetened with gur (molasses) in season. Of course, they enjoyed festive meals on special occasions: akni polao, rezalas, musallams, kebabs and firni. What would Nanu and Dadu make of today's multicoloured breakfast cereals, fancy cookies, chanachurs and chips? Burgers, pizzas, noodles and shawarma rolls? Pangash, grass-carp and those giant African catfish? Would they recognise these as food? Perhaps. Would they eat them? Probably not. In the end, Pollan's world and ours diverge at a crucial point. He writes about processed food, not adulteration. The difference is important. Ingredients of processed food (in America) are documented clearly for the consumer. But with our rampant adulteration, undocumented and unhealthy ingredients are added surreptitiously to food. If Nanu and Dadu were alive today, adulteration would undoubtedly be their biggest concern about our food.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments