Shobjikhichuri and chitolmachher dopeyaja, aaaah!
Khademul Islam nearly drools remembering nearly forgotten tastes
Times were, and this I remember from my childhood though I probably shouldn't say it since it is revealing of my advanced age, when cooking was a mystery wrapped in enigmatic colours and smells and was the sole monopoly of our mothers. Cooking signalled its presence every day with the ritual trotting off of either the household help, (a small tart-tongued boy in our case), or in more traditional households the head of the household, to the market with a bajaarer tholi. The day's middle passage was garnished, marked by sounds of activity, along with the occasional din of pots and pans and slices of old-fashioned tongue-lashing at ham-handed kitchen help, emanating from the kitchen which in those days was so eminently women's domain. It would end with Mother emerging after a cleansing bath clad in a fresh sari late in the afternoon for her ceremonial lunch, eaten only after everybody else had. In a habit picked up from her mother, the onion slices and green chillies laid on a separate plate had to be arranged just so! Thus has cooking, and its attendant magic rituals of moshla and the correct way to slice chicken pieces (which differed from household to household, from Father's side of the family to Mother's) to the uproarious relating of the morning's gossip from the bajaar by a high-spirited mama, or else a mournful recounting of the high price of a favourite fish by an aunt, been enshrined in Bengali life and literature. Times change. And with it mores and rituals, ways of living and loving, cooking and eating. We Bengalis, especially in the cities, are a busy people now, on the run, a pizza-sandwich-fast-food-eating crowd. The old leisurely family mealtimes, not only for the Westernised elite but also for the common run of people, for both men as well as the increasing numbers of women in the labour force, are very much a thing of the past. And one evidence of it is the fact that today Bengali homes need recipe books. Recipes, like medieval poetry, were an oral tradition for centuries. The only exception I saw as a child was a scribbled, much creased-and-consulted, Pharaoh-aged parchment on which had been laid down the potent formula for Noakhali-style mango pickles. Other than that, Mother's head contained all the tastiest, nourishing recipes that we needed. Today, that age-old oral tradition is nearly extinct. Who has the time? Women are out in the workforce, women are out on campuses and classrooms, women are out being rice-winners for the family, women are wearing RAB uniforms, and not dreamily rolling a wooden ladle in a cooking pot or delicately sliding pieces of meat covered with batter into sizzling oil. Well, all the more power to them! But one casualty of this role change and lack of time has been a simplifying of complex recipes, of food that is increasingly bland or hybrid or fusion, or some high-priced, uneasy mix of all three. Traditional Bengali food, like the Royal Bengal Tiger or honest politician, is increasingly an endangered species. Enter the Radhuni cookbook. Its title makes its objectives clear: 'Bangladesher Oitijjihobahi Ranna: Traditional Cooking of Bangladesh', brought out by Square Consumer Products. It is a book that lovingly seeks to preserve a proud and mouthwatering tradition of cooking, and pass it on to generations increasingly seduced and assailed by non-traditional cooking that has lowered standards of Bengali plate and palate. All of us know Siddiqua Kabir from her popular cooking show on television partnering the lovely Lucky, and it is from that show's 'Shera Radhuni 1412' contestsponsored by Square Consumer Productsthat this collection of recipes has been produced. As Ms. Kabir says in her foreword, aside from the more mainstream Bengali dishes the unique flavour of the book lies in the fact aside from regional specialties like "Shidol from Rangpur and Dinajpure, mejbani gosht and domacha from Chittagong, ponchar khatta and satkora flavoured ones from Sylhet…" there also" are "culturally distinct items like shukto, shorshe-ilish, labra and ghonto." Aaaaah!! The book, by Bangladeshi book production standards, has been lavishly produced. Care was taken in presenting the text and photographs so that it is both practical (it can be propped up by the cooking range and looks hardy enough to withstand a degree of abuse), and aesthetic (the photographs are mouthwatering, look good enough to eat off the page, but avoid the glitzy, gaudy reproduction that is the bane of other cookbooks and those burdened with weekend hangovers). A genuine effort has been made to make this cookbook not a decorative piece, as these things can get to be, but a handy tool in the heart of your hearth and home: the kitchen and the dining table. Buy the book. Tease your palate. Rediscover traditional Bengali food. Keep a colourful Siddiqua Kabir around your home. Since the recipes are both in English and Bengali the book covers all bases, and should make an excellent gift for your cousin heading/living overseas, your bideshi friends, or simply your own deshi family members and dearest pals. And now, dear readers, I must confess that reviewing this book has made me hungry. It's almost dinner time, and I could sure do with some shobjikichuri and chitolmacher dopeyaja on the table. Aaaah!! Let me go see what's cooking out there!
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments