Started the week by having the Maharashtrian dish of missal the ‘Pune way.’ That is, with sliced bread and not pav. The customary farsan on top would have added crunch and fun, but I adulted and stayed away from that.
I used the bowl and plate from didu’s set which she’d given to me. She moved to Allahabad and then Delhi from a village outside Dhaka after she got married at a young age. Despite being thrown into a completely new world, she kept an open mind and connected with those from parts of the country that she had probably not even heard of before. In the process, she learnt to appreciate and even cook some of their food. There were no recipe blogs or reels in the 1940s and 50s.
My father was quite open minded about trying out cuisines from across the world during his time abroad. He had first left for the UK to study with almost zero exposure to the world outside. There were no reels, YouTube or even Travel & Living channel in the 1960s!
I guess I have inherited their spirits when it comes to culinary cultural curiosity.
Missal means ‘mix’. Which seems quite apt in the context of this post.
