Food is about nostalgia. As is the soundtrack in the #FinelyChoppedKitchen when I cook.
The late 80s and early 90s in most cases. Today I asked Alexa to play ‘the best of Madonna’ while I made breakfast. As an aside, I must mention that our house help R and I often co-share the kitchen in the morning and I wonder if this hard working Marathi maushi hums now Deff Leppard, Dire Straits, Sting and Pink Floyd numbers to her kids thanks to this!
There was a spring in my step as I sliced mushrooms and then sauteed them in avocado oil (Black & Green) to the tune of ‘La Isla Bonita.’ ‘Material girl’ came next while I stirred the mushrooms till they got a slight char. Materialism was a pipe dream in pre-liberalisation India and Red Calcutta, a time when button mushrooms had just invaded the grocery stores of Kolkata. I sprinkled some Tuticorin sea salt (Ishka Farms) on to the mushrooms and then added finely chopped spring onions while Madonna crooned ‘Papa don’t preach.’ Our only hope to decoding the lyrics back then were the pirated song books sold on the pavement in front of the Grand, but that did not stop it from the song becoming the teenage anthem of the time. Regardless of your gender. Till you grew up a bit and said, “we don’t need no education,’ the Floyd way. Funnily enough, adding spring onions at the end to a dish is something I had observed my mother practise in the kitchen, even though my public stance was, ‘mamma don’t preach.’
Talking of nostalgia, here’s an interesting line that I came across recently:
“Only reminiscing or speaking nostalgically about the past, signalled that one had lost the spirit to progress and improve… it would invite one’s own spiritual ageing.” Dr Daisaku Ikeda, Buddhist philosopher (paraphrased).
Well, breakfast this morning was not something that I could have dreamt off in the 80s.
I put the sauteed mushrooms and spring onions in a bowl and blended in some hummus (locally made and bought from Regal Stores, Bandra). All I knew about the middle east when I was in school was courtesy Leon Uris novels and hummus definitely did not feature in them! Or did it?
I added some pumpkin and watermelon seeds (bought from Regal again), extra virgin olive oil (something to be added on chubby toddlers back then and not into food) and truffle oil (again something that one had not heard of in the 80s).
K had it as a salad and I as a sandwich filling in toasted sourdough (Danz Bread). Bread that was ‘sour’ was not a good thing in the 80s. Today it made for a hearty and healthy start to the week.
Here’s wishing you a great one ahead! Tell me about some recent food evoked nostalgia that came back to you in the recent past.
