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| Sneha Senapati’s Jagganath Puri temple prasad cum Odiya Ganesh puja feast platter |
An Odia feast for Lord Ganpathi
We had a fabulous Odia lunch at home in Mumbai this Sunday. I later overheard Kainaz excitedly tell her mother and her maternal uncle about it on the phone. Possibly her first taste of Odia food.
Mine was when I went to Puri with my parents at the age of seven. All I remember from then are the lipsmacking khajas and rice pulao that we got in sal leaf baskets at the Puri temple. And enjoying the mutton which was cooked for the dog that belonged to my father’s friends who were holidaying in Puri at that time! And of going to the BNR Club one night for dinner, which I think was a ‘continental’ affair. Not bad for a seven year old, eh?
I have had a few Odia food experiences in Mumbai through home chefs before this. The first by a Bengali lady! The ambidextrous Ananya Banerjee. And most recently, the Bombay Canteen’s interpretation of Odia food.
As a food writer who writes a fair bit about Bengali food, I have often received comments from Odia readers from across the world saying that many of the dishes that are cooked in our home are cooked in their’s too. The names are different. There is a bit of debate about why this similarity exists and who has the ownership on this. Some Odias attribute it to the fact that many well to do Bengali families employed talented Odia cooks at the turn of the century and that these fine gentlemen introduced dishes from their homes to Bengal.
I had planned a trip to Odisha earlier this year to eat. Hotel reservations did not work out and I thought I will keep the plan for later in the year. Turned out that Covid had other plans!
Mumbai’s unofficial home cook led ‘regional Indian lockdown food festival’
The lunch on Sunday was cooked and sent by Sneha Senapati. Let me first tell you in her words what was on offer.
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| Clockface: Potola alu rassa, dahi baigana, suji kheeri, khechidi, dalma |
I had heard a lot about dalma before, but this was probably my first taste of this rather thick dal which was packed with vegetables. When combined with the green moong and rice khichdi the dalma left one feeling well nourished and loved. The potol (pointed gourd dish) tasted of home thanks to the presence of what we call posto in Bengal, crushed poppy seeds, and was yet distinctive. It was rather hot in terms of chilli quotient. I liked the fact that Sneha kept the potatoes in the dish unpeeled. Reminded me of Durga Puja community feasts in Kolkata where the potatoes are treated similarly. Sucking and chewing on the peel adds so much more joy to the meal. As does the sauce of nostalgia which the lunch evoked for me.
The dahi baigana is a cousin of the doi begun of Bengal. The yogurt based sauce meant to had at room temperature was rather soothing. The dish was perfect to follow the heatiness of the alu rassa with. I have had it before and is one of my favourite Odia dishes. The aubergine slices in it were well and truly deep fried and this once again reminded me of the Durga Pujo feasts of Bengal, where the vegetable is treated so in the begun bhaaja or the laabra on offer.
The semolina based suji kheera took me back to my didu’s home and the shoojir payesh that she still makes for me when I visit her.
The memories of Bengali Durga Pujo bhog that the feast evoked was not entirely a coincidence as this too was a feast meant for a puja (Hindu religious festival). No, not the Durga Puja which is big for the Odias too.
Sneha had come up with this menu for Ganesh Puja. Ganesh is the son of the goddess Durga according to Hindu scriptures. He is the most popular deity in Mumbai and the timing of the meal was apt given that the Ganesh Chaturthi festival is going on at the moment. To be honest, I did not know that the Odias observe Ganesh Puja. It is not that big in Bengal after all, though my grandmom tells me that there are a slew of community Ganesh Festivals that are organised in Kolkata these days.
Sneha told me that Ganesh Puja is very much a part of the Odia culture. The dalma and the kechadi in her menu were inspired by what is served in the Jagannath Temple in Puri, she said. The other dishes are based on her memories of the Ganesh Puja feasts that she grew up around back home in Odisha.
Sneha was born in Cuttack in Odisha and grew up in neighbouring Bhubaneswar. She moved to Mumbai in 2006 to study at TISS. Mumbai has become her home now and she works as a CSR professional in a multinational company.
Her love for cooking started when she and her mum would ‘play Khana Khazana’ when she was a kid. The TV show by chef Sanjeev Kapoor which started the craze for food television in India, The recipes that her mother taught her in the process stayed with Sneha and she brought them to life after she settled in Mumbai and found no Odia food available to her. Sneha had lost her mother unfortunately to cancer by then and she said that this was her tribute to her mum.
The story of her taking her mother’s food outside of her home kitchen, started with her pop-ups at WTF, a resto-bar at Versova in suburban Mumbai. Sneha used to hang around there, made friends with other regulars and was encouraged by them and the owner to showcase her food there and thus were born her pop ups in the restaurant. Then the lockdown happened and this gave her the impetus to offer her food as a home chef to customers across the city. That is how we ended up having the wonderful lunch on Sunday
“I felt that this is the best way to keep my mother’s legacy alive,” said Sneha. “My primary objective is to bring Odia food on the national culinary map and then global maybe.”
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| Sneha Senapati |
Welcome to the #FoodocracyKitchens
Our conversation brought alive an idea that I have been living with for a few years. To capture the multi-cultural identity of Mumbai, something that is the essence of the city to me, through the food of its people. To share stories of folks who belong to different communities in the city. People who might or might not be connected with the world of food. This will not be a weighty ethno-cultural study or a historical one. Just a collection of everyday stories. Stories which will hopefully give you a tiny taste of a community you might not be familiar with and intrigue you to find out more about them. Through their food.
The thali for Ganesh Puja gave me an idea.
I realised that after #foodocracyindia (my podcast where I talk about popular eateries spread across the bylanes of India), #foodocracyforher (where I do Instagram live interviews with women entrepreneurs in the Indian food and beverage business) and #foodocracyseries (where I do skill development workshops on bookaworkshop.in), it was now time to launch my fourth lockdown baby: #foodocracykitchens.
A writing project based series where I will bring you stories from across the kitchens of Mumbai and later the country perhaps.
This is the first instalment. I aim to do one a week. Interested?
An Odiya-woman in Mumbai (sung to the tune of an Englishman in New York)
For the Odia episode, I reached out to my friend Sweta Mohanty, whom I know through the food event circuit in the city.
Sweta has lived in Rourkela, Bhubaneshwar and Cuttack in Odisha before this, and of the three, Cuttack was her favourite. It’s the heritage of the city that appealed to her the most.
She moved in to Mumbai ten years back and has had made it her home. She is an MBA who worked in the corporate world and then left it all to pursue her interest in the world of alcohol. She is now a wine and spirits trainer who works as a marketing and brand trainer with one of the leading wine importers in India.
In her spare time Sweta is a home cook. Like Sneha, she too is keen to spread the knowledge of Odia cuisine among the world at large. I am sure that with their efforts, Odia food soon will no longer be the largely unknown quantity that it still is unfortunately, often eclipsed by the world of the food of the neighbouring state of Bengal.
The heart of Odia food lies in the variety on offer, according to Sweta. “Each town will have a dish typical to that place.” The food is “wholesome, hearty and healthy” according to her, but could be hot (chilli heat) too. She prefers to temper down the spice levels when cooking for non Odias. Having tried a fair bit of Bengali food, Sweta feels that while the two are similar, they are distinct from each other too.
Sweta gave the dalma as an example of the nutritious nature of the Odia food. A dish often made on Mondays when many Odia households turn vegetarian. According to Sweta, the taste and texture of the dal, as well as the vegetables used in each, could differ from house to house. The heart of the dish according to Sweta, is the jeera lonka guda (cumin and red chilli) masala based in it. Interestingly, this household staple is even found in the dhaabas that dot the state’s highways. To be always paired with steamed rice.
Like Kolkata and me, what Sweta misses the most about Odia food in Mumbai is the street food from back home. It is far more difficult to replicate after all, than the food that is cooked at home.
What’s good on the streets of Odisha, I asked Sweta and this is what she replied:
a) Dahi Bara / Aloo Dum / Ghuguni: It’s a mix of all the three items served on a plate with sev, chopped onions, green chillies & coriander leaves. The dahi bara is dunked in a watery dahi, with a powder that is synonymous to every household in Odisha and is known as jeera lanka gunda. You can ask for the extra dahi water to drink after you finish your chaat. This is available for breakfast, lunch, dinner in every corner & street of Cuttack.
b) Gupchup : Odia for phuchka (Bengali for pani pure/ pani ke batashe).
c) Gulgula with Spicy Aloo Dum: It is a breakfast item. Gulgula is made of a mixture of atta, suji, baking soda, sugar, salt & fennel seeds. Mix all of it and leave it for an hour or so. And then deep fry it till brown. The sweetness of this is balanced by super super spicy aloo dum. d) Mudhi Mangsha : Puffed Rice topped up with Spicy Mutton Curry.
e) Chattu Poda in Kakharu Patra : Local mushrooms wrapped in Pumpkin Leaves and charred in the fire.
f) Baunsa Mangsha : Mutton Cooked in Bamboo cylinders.
g) Mangsha Chop : Potatoes filled with Minced Mutton and deep fried.
Enough reasons to plan a trip to Odisha once the new normal is the old normal. Till then we have the talented home chefs of Odisha to bank upon.
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| Sweta Mohanty |
Also of interest:
- On the rasgulla debate between Bengal and Odisha
- The Bombay Canteen Odia festival
- How home chefs came of age during the lockdown
- My TedX talk about how sharing stories of food can connect us and this is an attempt of mine to do that:
