A gourmet's delight it surely is . . .
Kaiser Haq is delighted by a new work on food
Eating is a biological necessity, but cooking is an art. Instruction in the art is codified in recipes. The first recipes must have been orally transmitted, but with the invention of writing, recipes, like other forms of literature, began to be inscribed. A Babylonian clay tablet from around 1500 BC preserves the recipes for certain appetizing ancient dishes. This may well be the earliest known precursor of the cookbook. The modern cookbook is of course a post-Gutenberg genre; in bookstores worldwide it is as conspicuous as fiction, memoirs or travelogues. In this country, though, it isn't yet a thriving genre. The reason no doubt is that those who do most of our cooking still belong to an oral culture. But things are changing, and at least one Bangla cookbook has become a bestseller. Tommy Miah, the NRB chef, became the first Bangladeshi to publish a cookbook in English. And now we have our very own homegrown chef Shawkat Osman carrying the tradition forward with this handsomely produced quarto volume embellished with mouth-watering photographic illustrations by his daughter. Shawkat is a successful businessman with an artistic bent, whose passion for food and cooking has opened up a fascinating sideline. He took sitar lessons for seven youthful years and taught himself to play the piano. Hearing him give an impromptu recital of Beethoven's "Bagatelle fur Elise" on the upright piano in his living room was a revelation. His handling of the arpeggios lent an insight into the exquisite composition of tastes and flavours in the meal we had just consumed. Shawkat's charming wife Nahid is both his muse and collaborator in the culinary art, and the two of them have conducted a very popular cookery show on Tara TV that had the same evocative title as the book: the khunti or spatula, and the korai or Bengali wok, are essential utensils in our kitchens. The book is therefore the product of a steady, natural progression: from gourmet (and gourmand) to amateur cook to serious chef to TV star to writer. Shawkat's charming wife Nahid is both his muse and collaborator in the culinary art, and the two of them have conducted a very popular cookery show on Tara TV that had the same evocative title as the book: the khunti or spatula, and the korai or Bengali wok, are essential utensils in our kitchens. The book is therefore the product of a steady, natural progression: from gourmet (and gourmand) to amateur cook to serious chef to TV star to writer. In a brief preface Shawkat makes certain very interesting and very bold claims. In a world devoid of certainty where one "has to settle for half-baked politics and watered-down doses of culture", "cooking has a visible finality about it." I thought at once of Matthew Arnold: what the Victorian critic had claimed for poetry, that it can provide spiritual solace, Shawkat seems to be claiming for the culinary art. In addition, cooking can be therapeutic: it "helps to hold back dark thoughts", whereas "other obsessions can create bitterness and pain". The introductory essay on "Bangladeshi Cuisine" that follows is down to earth and informative and should be of interest to students of culture though it isn't entirely free of boo-boos. In explaining certain traditional concepts, "Egg, onion, garlic and rice wine" are lumped together as "passion foods," and "pork, beef and scaleless fish" as "'hot' (gorom i.e. arousing)". Leaving aside the classification of wine as a food, there is a more basic question: do Bengalis consume rice wine and pork? The ethnic minorities in the hills do, but their cuisine is not included in the book. I wish it were. The recipes are classified in an original and imaginative manner, under eleven heads; among these are festivals, as well as social and other occasions. The first, "Friends and Family", offers nine items, ranging from maan kochu malaikari (Taro in coconut milk gravy) to fish kofta to moong dal that should go down well in a homely feast. Next, "Jamai Shasthi", the annual visit of the daughters and sons-in-law of a family, requires a selection of traditional delicacies like rui bhaja (deep fried rohu fish) and doodh aam bhat (mangoes with warm milk) to pamper the jamais. The eids, bijoya and Christmas are covered, as are peculiarly Bengali occasions like our new year, the rainy day in the monsoon season, when the palate longs for something special, and the hilsa fest. The most engaging aspect of the book, to this reader at least, is the cultural commentary accompanying the recipes. Two of these notes deserve to be singled out for special praise. The first is the robust defense of the use of siddhi or cannabis, also known as ganja or charas, which possesses medicinal properties, besides being an exciting recreational drug, and was banned in this country just to please the USA. The other relates to katchi biriyani. Until reading it I was unaware that the distinction between kaccha or katchi and pucca or pakki foods derives from the Vedas and has to do with the way they are cooked whether with ghee or water and with the way the ghee is used. Mughal cuisine therefore is a delectable fusion, materially as well as conceptually. Bangladeshi readers may notice the omission of beef dishes, but that is quite understandable in a book meant primarily for the Indian market. A fastidious reader may wish that it were more carefully edited and proofread. But one has only got to try out one of the recipes to be perfectly pleased with it.
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