San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
THE TRUE LOVE OF A FIRST COOKBOOK.
A first cookbook is like a first love, the first boy that you meet and fall in love with. You might not end up spending your life with him, but you might always remember the relationship fondly.
That is exactly how I feel about Niloufer Ichaporia King’s “My Bombay Kitchen.” It was the first cookbook that I purchased, and in many ways my first love.
When I moved to America, I was excited to be in a new country. Most of my time was spent trying out new restaurants or trying to get invitations to my friends’ homes so I could eat something new. But then, suddenly, halfway through the first year of school, I started to miss the food of Bombay (now known as Mumbai), the city where I was born and brought up until I turned 20. Now in Ohio, I was unable to find a lot of those special dishes.
I missed the Indo-Chinese cuisine, a unique genre influenced by the Chinese immigrant population in India. I missed the pandan-scented goat biryanis served during the festival of Eid, and I missed the golden-brown grilled Mumbai sandwiches stuffed with spiced mashed potatoes and grated cheese, topped with warm melted butter.
And then there was the Parsi food.
Let me back up first. In high school, I joined a theater club, thinking a loud booming voice would be a good skill onstage. Between learning my lines, I made a few friends in the club, namely Yezdazar, whose mother ran the club. She chose the stories and the plays, picked the music and had the final say on all wardrobes. But she also did something that I thought was more amazing: She would invite some of us for lunch.
Yezdazar grew up in a Parsi household and his mom’s food was spectacular. Her kitchen table was always full — fresh crunchy spring onions served with bright red quartered tomatoes, lentil stews, an herb-seasoned roasted chicken, aromatic basmati rice and a wide selection of homemade condiments.
I eventually left theater club, when I realized I couldn’t hold a tune, and decided it was probably wise to move to something where I had some talent. But because the Parsi community is one of the most important communities in Mumbai, I had options to visit bakeries and restaurants to get my food fix. And so, Parsi food became synonymous with the city.
The Parsi community migrated to India from Persia centuries ago and brought its unique cuisine, which was adapted to the ingredients available in India. They built some of the most wonderful bakeries, full of cookies, breads and pastries loaded with sweet cream.
I missed Parsi food when I came to America, until I came across Niloufer, a San Francisco author who holds a special Parsi New Year celebration every year at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Those words alone brought back memories of the Mumbai I missed, the food that I craved. I made Niloufer’s dhansak, a rich lentil stew with fresh fenugreek greens, herbs and vegetables; her poached jardalus (a type of dried apricot) and eggplant pickles, which have become a staple in my pantry.
Today, I keep my copy of “My Bombay Kitchen” safely tucked away on a bookshelf on the wall in my kitchen. I’ve used it often and still go back to it, just for Niloufer’s prose or her recipes. They still fill that void when I get homesick for Mumbai and the parts that make it so endearing to me.