Replaying food

Self-sufficiency has gained a new meaning for some during the lockdown period. Madhulika Dash finds out what’s aiding them

If there has been a sliver lining of the few weeks of stay at home, it has been our renewed interest in food — from making childhood favourites, to curating interesting dishes made of pure substitutes, to eating healthy and even finding ways of presenting the old dish in a new style.

In other words, we have literally aced the art of old wine in a new bottle — where the wine is food, our evergreen obsession. But that hasn’t been the only brownie point of this nation-wide stay at home agenda, the preceding days have had us press the refresh button on many good things within, says restaurateur Dharmesh Karmokar.

“A basic sense of what we need and want, and gladly, we have gone for the ‘need’. The result, I have been happy living off my standard pantry with an occasional demand of milk or curd maybe for my parents and kids,” he adds. Concurs seasoned chef Pradeep Tejwani, who feels that these tough times have given him the impetus to dig into his Sindhi legacy and explore dishes like santa (pronounced sah-un-tah), a sweet made of part maida and wheat flour with curd and ghee and a spiced lentil dumpling called thank variyan.

Says Chef Tejwani, “the beauty of these Sindhi kitchen staples is that they were more than just handy ingredients for making food, especially the variyan, they were also tastemakers that could crank up the flavour profile of a simple dal.” Since the realisation, Karmokar and Tejwani have joined the new bandwagon of a few individuals who have decided to use the period to reinvest themselves in deciphering the traditional knowledge of food.

Purvi Vyas

Self-sufficient

Purvi Vyas is a Food Politics Professor and Environmental Consultant by morning and organic farmer by evening. At the start of the two weeks lockdown, Purvi had decided to go on self-sustainability— and has had little reason to complain.

Says the founder of Plate Politics (a forum that looks into sustainable farming and food habits), “the decision of surviving with what I have in my home with my kitchen garden supporting me came not as an after-effect of a situation but as a self-project I had procrastinated for long. These past weeks provided me with the optimum opportunity to not only delve into traditional food practices but also find ways to cook better and use every produce in a variety of ways to get the maximum benefit.”

Purvi, who stays on her farm, admits that it was not an easy project to start off given that she had a bounty at her disposal. As summer was at its peak, managing a farm became a challenge that needed rethinking. Since then, the farmer is involved in ‘project preservation’. “I need to find traditional methods of preserving perishable food as much as possible. Of course, the fact that it will help me and my community in the future is a feel-good push to do so wholeheartedly.”

Preservation incidentally was the first step for nutritional therapist Sveta Bhassin, who began by preserving vegetables by storing them in muslin wrapped vacuum packs after cleaning and steaming wherever necessary “like in the case of carrot, and frying the paneer to make it stay longer”. This simple activity has helped her bring down not only her cooking time and have a better menu in place, but also shorten the trip to replenish. “I usually rely more on my pulses, which is cooked more during the week with two odd days dedicated for a vegetable dish. And for the vegetables that go old and limp, there is always a paratha or chutney waiting,” says Sveta, who feels that vegetables are to be thrown only when they are oxidised (or blackened).

Pratima Seth

Fascinatingly, it is a process that can be delayed in most vegetables excluding the greens. How? By steaming or puréeing, says culinary custodian and home-maker Pratima Seth, who often uses the trick in the season of saag. “Lasts a little longer for her foodie Punjabi family,” while she treats it as one of the key tricks to effective kitchen management. “Most vegetables,” says Pratima, “when processed can be used for a variety of reasons.

Take for instance when you have a puréed jar of palak in your freezer, you can use it to make a variety of interesting dishes that goes from an obvious palak dal to palak pilaf, palak puri and such.” This traditional nugget has allowed her to not only effectively manage the pantry without the need to replenish often, but also lend her a wide range of options to play around with. “I have enough today in my pantry to last me a good month if I want with one interesting dish today,” says the home-maker, who relies on a collection of freshly ground house spices and herb mixes to do the trick.

Alka Jena

Optimisation

Traditional know-how is also behind Odia recipe curator Alka Jena’s decision to be a part of the ‘replaying pantry’ bandwagon. Says Alka, “come to think of it, traditionally, we all know how to use food optimally, but it takes a stay home agenda to revive those lessons.” And one such lesson that
the habitual gardener has lived off well is the use of vegetables as flavourant — an adventure that has allowed her to not only use a set of vegetables in a variety of ways but also put interesting dishes for a family with food priorities “my mother is ardent traditional while my son is a modern-day experimental foodie,” says the food researcher, who today can look at a vegetable and at least come up with four ideas on how to use it. Her best preservation so far has been her instant pickles, especially made with tomatoes and one with lemon and chilli that is like a dish.

Of course, she adds, “my kitchen garden is full of herbs and is a saviour that helps me play around with a simple dish like dal to give it a different taste every time I make.” This clever use of vegetables and a kitchen garden has been at the core of resin artist Neha Thakur’s choice of going ‘self-reliant’ as well.

Says Thakur, “my little garden is at full bloom at the moment with fresh methi, cherry tomatoes, drumstick and even banana available with enough sauces in my cupboard to help me curate a meal without repeating any dish in a month.” But the finest initiative of ‘playing the pantry’ has come from Srijan Vadhera (GM, Conrad Bengaluru) and his wife, who have used this period to cook for the staff holding fort at the hotel on a day-to-day basis. Says Vadhera, “It was my wife Nidhi’s initiative to make at least one meal for which she does the shopping a week ahead. But in the past few days, we have discovered the joy of finding these ‘rainy day’ recipes to cook from our produce.”

Vadhera and his small team also takes turns to go to the market once a week to fetch essentials for the mid-day meal association with Prestige Group that supplies food packets to nearly 500 needy individuals in the city with the help of the police . Even then, adds the seasoned hotelier, “we find ways to cook meals that are healthy, from our staple pantry with vegetable dishes that are added for boosting immunity.”

Photo courtesy @unofficialfoodie_bpd