Waking up to Maharashtra’s ancient winter breakfast wisdom. Dhundur Maas winter festival at Mumbai’s Aaswad Upahar & Mithai Grah

It is the start of
the week today and let me tell you about a new culinary experience that I had yesterday. This
was at the ‘Dhundur Maas Winter Festival’
at Aaswad Upahar and Mithai Grah, the vegetarian Maharashtrian restaurant at
Dadar in central Mumbai. This is the third year since which they have been hosting this festival. It was the first time that I attended it even though I am regular at the restaurant. There is a reason why I had not gone for the Dhundur Maas festival earlier. One that I am a bit embarrassed about, but more on that later.

I learnt from my friend Suryakant Shrikant Sarjoshi, the second
generation of the owner of Aaswad, that dhundur maas refers to the winter month
of poush. This is a time when one’s skin becomes dry and one’s body needs
warmth. To address this, said his wife Smita Sarjoshi, traditional wisdom  recommended the use of certain locally
available seasonal ingredients in one’s diet. A number of dishes were thereby created
to convert these ingredients into tasty dishes by the Maharashtrian matrons of yore. These had won over even the
most stubborn of diners. There is a reference to these in ancient scriptures such as the vedas and purans says Smita Sarjoshi. With increasing modernisation and urbanisation, a lot
of this native wisdom has unfortunately been lost and the awareness of such dishes in cities
like Mumbai has reduced over time. Smita and her mother in law, Mangala
Sarjoshi, have tried to bring back these dishes in the Dhundur Maas menu at Aaswad.

I went to the fest yesterday with my friend Dr Manisha Talim who runs an
Instagram page called Sugarsnap Mumbai where she combines her love for food and
her professional expertise as a diabetologist to help diabetics eat more
joyfully and healthily. She is also a Maharashtrian food evangelist and is the
one who had first introduced me to the Sarjoshis of Aaswad among many other
Maharashtrian food entrepreneurs.

I walked in at 9.15 am yesterday and saw that the place was packed and
the atmosphere most festive. I mean this rather literally. There were musicians
playing Maharashtrian music at the entrance. Young priests reciting shlokas at
the entrance and ladies welcoming one with tikkas. It was almost as if one had
stepped into a wedding.

The Sarjoshis were out in full force. Suryakant and Smita
were there going from table to table and ensuring that their guest were at ease.
Their daughter, Manasi, who teaches French in the suburbs, was there to
welcome us and explain what was happening. Towards the end of the morning, the venerable and
ever smiling Mr Shrikant Ganesh Sarjoshi, Suryakant’s father, walked in. He had
founded Aaswad in 1986 and the eatery has grown remarkably since those early
days.

We were welcomed with warm water and honey followed by the
Dhundur Maas thali. My favourites were the deep-fried
version of the thali peeth (traditionally a toasted multigrain flat bread made on a tava at homes but deep frying is easier at restaurants it seems), made in this case with jowar and bajri millets and
sesame seeds, which was served with unsalted white butter. There was the amboli
too. A Maharashtrian rice flower based dosa like dish. The regular amboli at
Aaswad is white in colour. This was yellow. “We add turmeric to boost immunity as
it is winter,” explained Suryakant.

Suryakant had earlier once told me about a breakfast dish called
satori and I got to taste it yesterday. A lip-smacking pancake stuffed with
jaggery, grated coconut and sesame seeds. The coconut possibly a result of the
fact that most of the food served had its origins in the Konkan belt as Manasi
explained. Which is also where the Sarjoshis hail from.

There were til (sesame) ladus, peanuts, green chickpeas (harbara),
Indian plums (baed/ narkol kul in Bengali) jaggery, kurmura (muri in Bengali/
puffed rice), poha crisp noodles (sev) and fresh sugarcane to munch on. Ghee poured liberally on all the dishes. Something that would make dietician Rujuta Diwekar very happy. Not that I am complaining. I love ghee. In moderation.

There was a hot sticky rice dish too. The Maharashtrian
equivalent of a congee which I had not heard of, even though I was aware of the
Japanese one and have had it too before. I guess that this would sum up the case for many of us.  A pity isn’t it that we know more about international dishes often than about what is there in our own backyard?

On the sticky was sprinkled metkut, a spice made with crushed lentil,
grains and spices which is said to have medicinal properties. A touch of salt would have helped to liven up the dish I feel but the overall effect was
warm and soothing.

Offering a tantalising finish was a kheer/ milk pudding made
with a local version of dried dates called kharikh. The cost of this meal is Rs 280
this year and it is available only on Sundays (till 26 January 2020 this year) and up to 10 am.
You would do well to book in advance as the place is absolutely packed during
the event. Suryakant tells me that the response from the first year itself has
been overwhelming with folks coming in from far off places to experience the
festival.

Now let me tell you why I made it the Dhundur Maas festival at Aaswad only in its third
year and not much earlier.

In the first two years years, the breakfast was available up to 9 am. Smita explained
the significance of the timing to me. Turns out that the sun god is worshipped
during winter and this happens early in the morning which makes the timing
significant of the breakfast significant. You can’t keep the sun God hungry can you?

The problem is that I am not an early riser and therefore
the idea of attending the festival did not work for me. A few things have
changes since then. To start with, the festival is now on till 10am on Sundays.
More importantly I have learnt to appreciate the importance of having a higher proportion of plant based dishes and
ancient grains in one’s daily diet and hence decided to overcome my
sense of sloth and go for this and I am so glad I did so.

I saw more customers queueing up yesterday as I left. The
restaurant had opened for their regular business by then explained Suryakant.
That’s when it struck me how big a labour of love this was for the entire
team. To open a restaurant, which is open all day, three hours earlier in the morning is no
joke. The tables were packed right from the start which meant that there was no
time to take it easy. Yet the entire staff was there. Familiar faces going from
table to table with broad smiles and trays of food. As were the Sarjoshis. The fact that a long
day lay ahead did not seem to cross their mind. Or the fact that they could
have taken it easy on Sunday. They had a story to tell and were clearly folks on a mission. A most noble and delicious one.

Which made me feel a bit embarrassed about not waking up in time and coming for this much earlier, but better late than never as my father would say.

I went home armed with a resolve to emulate a bit of the spirit and passion of the folks at Aaswad when it comes to doing my bit for strengthening and spreading the story of Indian food and I do hope that you find this story inspiring too.

I want to leave you with a piece of good news before I sign
off. The second season of the Times Kitchen Tales started and you can catch the
column every Sunday in the Times Life supplement which comes with the Sunday
Times of India. Yesterday’s issue was about respect for food and the Dhundur
Maas meal at Aaswad was an example of how to apply this our daily lives in my opinion.