The Idea Of 바카라�Indian Food바카라� Has Always Been A <em>Khichdi</em>

바카라�Do you know what kapura are?바카라� 바카라�Of course, I do,바카라� I answered with some affront. 바카라�They are sweetbreads, and they are cooked with kidneys, and they are very good.바카라� Natives should always be natives바카라�and I felt irked to be so probed around the issue of my own nativity. But Tillat바카라�s face was kindly with superior knowledge. 바카라�Not sweetbread,바카라� she gently said, 바카라�They바카라�re testicles, that바카라�s what kapura really are.바카라�바카라� And with that o(w)ffal disclosure, says Sara Suleri in her memoir, Meatless Days, 바카라�바카라�something that had once sat quite simply inside its own definition was declaring independence from its name and nature, claiming a perplexity I didn바카라�t like.바카라�

As far as analogies (and puns) go, this might be a bit nuts. But after about a week of prodding the words 바카라�Indian바카라� and 바카라�food바카라� from every direction바카라�together and in isolation바카라�I find myself in a Sara Suleri soup-shorba. No thanks to a spell of intense nationalist navel-gazing, stirred by the sentiments of an auth­­or of Pakistani descent, no less. An exercise that eventually led to the dodgy deduction that our 바카라�Bharat바카라� is really her 바카라�kapura바카라�. Now, before you get your knickers in a twist, and send for goons to deep fry my anti-national gonads in pure desi ghee, humour me for a moment here.

Historically, we바카라�re a nation with more perplexity than any of our ruling dispositions would have liked. So whether you call it India, Bharat, kapura or Amrutanjan Strong, our country has an annoying tendency to declare its own independence from all or any definition(s), and from its very name and nature too. Some might say, that is its nature. Willed into being바카라�like most former colonies바카라�by a virulent reaction to colonial excess, the concept of nation­hood as we know was as foreign and al dente to embryonic India as pasta carbonara to our great grandmothers. And the articulation of the need for a national biriyanisamosadosa dish?

Cooked over the residual heat of the Independence movement, India바카라�s dream hadn바카라�t even been reali­sed before post-war food shortages, the Partition, and later, famines and floods in the 바카라�40s and 바카라�50s drove it to distraction with hunger. It would also appear that suddenly rati­on cards were the passports to a better life. Even the Father of the Nation set about boosting the new Republic바카라�s health and character with a meat-free and caste-free diet. Eager to establish its own legitimacy, the new government바카라�s exhortations to 바카라�Grow More Food바카라� or 바카라�Miss a Meal바카라� now rent the free air like war cries. Crackling on the shortwave바카라�rallying the nation together almost by habit, as if chasing ghosts of colonial masters past. 바카라�Calories바카라� and 바카라�vitamins바카라�, freshly discovered at the turn of the century, were technocratic fodder; surgically removing food from its cultural context, one regio­nal wishbone at a time. For our nati­on-builders, Indian food바카라�or at least the idea of it바카라�was a pile of unpalatable numbers, underlining our crippling agricultural dependence, and a biopolitical carrot.

Meanwhile, somewhere in post-Independence Lahore, in a house with dovecotes on the roof, the Suleris were also 바카라�enduring바카라� their meatless days. Tuesdays and Wednesdays were earmarked for conserving flesh and fowl in Pakistan, and Mondays바카라�at least in households with refrigeration바카라�for hoarding flesh and fowl. And so it was that soon after the dust settled on the Radcliffe Line, in affluent Pakistani dining rooms, as also in many north Indian homes across the border, the aromas of qormas and kapu­ras, curried brains and kidneys, keba­­bs and biriyanis, were lifting wounded spirits. For who can entomb the fragrance of kewda in a box? Which border and barbed wire can stop food, language, music and culture from flowing where they must?

Speaking of borders, I remember, a couple of years ago, on a starlit drive from Zagreb to Dubrovnik, we briefly touched the once-troubled town of Neum in Bosnia. It looked suitably nondescript and uninterested in us, of course. But though we said little, those of us who were of a certain vintage were unsettled by memories of a televised war바카라�when, suddenly, out of the sea blue, as if to cheer us up, a giant Taj Mahal rose out of the thin, briny Adriatic air. It was a signboard on the coastal freeway. An ad for a Bosnian restaurant in Croatia called Taj Mahal. Go figure! A quick look at the menu on our phones, and we were busy placing imaginary orders of shish ćevap and Bosnian beef ćufte. As honorary members of the United Nations of ćevap/kebab and ćufte/kofte, somewhere between land and sea, between nations and notions, we knew we needed no diplomatic sanctions to heap culture on our plates.    

Back in the motherland, I바카라�m happy to report, borders and conflicts are subjects of culinary curiosity now; another sharp counterpoint, if you will, to the one-nation-one-dish lobby. So much so, that last year, Mumbai-based home chef Ragini Kashyap hosted pop-ups called 바카라�Bordered바카라� to lift the cloche of discomfort and reveal the shared flavours and ethnic heritage of not-so-neighbourly nations. From the Indo-China edge to the two Bengals, the Tamil-Sinhala homelands to Kashmir and Punjab, the borderless landscape of Kashyap바카라�s kitchen was determ­ined to be inclusive and warm. Whether the food was exciting or not, the flavours familiar or not, the conversations she brought to the table could hardly be bland.

And yet, as we all know well, sometimes, sharing a meal with the neighbours is not half as tricky as eating with your own  family바카라�especially if it has 133.92 crore members in it. As a rule, family dinners are messy. But when men get slaughtered on the suspicion of storing beef, things get downright ugly. And so it is that lawyer-acti­vist Nandita Haksar바카라�s new food memoir, The Flavours of Nationalism, attempts to conflate the personal and political through Indian 바카라�Recipes for love, hate and friendship바카라�, even as she maps the palate of our national aspirations. Having grown up in a meat-eating Kashmiri Brahmin family, she mourns the disappearance of a way of life. She also mourns the disappearance of the 바카라�wedding cooks바카라� and the meatwala바카라�who cycled from Old Delhi to their home to deliver pasandas from a blue wooden box, until quite abruptly, accusations of selling beef brought his trips to an end. Alluding to an event in 2017, when Twitter boiled over an attempt to anoint khichdi as the national dish바카라�or as the Union minister of food processing industries, Harsimrat Kaur Badal qualified later as 바카라�Brand India Food바카라�바카라�Haksar says she doesn바카라�t begrudge khichdi its new title, as long as its many recipes 바카라�from the bisi bele anna of Karnataka, to the pongal of Tamil Nadu, to the keeme ki khichdi of Hyderabad, to the simple moong dal ki khichdi바카라� find equal favour.

Of course, the idea of 바카라�Indian food바카라� has always been a khichdi, a mishmash of multicultural elements that come together, quite magically in our Indian heads. But in the last few years, we바카라�re beginning to celebrate its subtleties. Culturally aware chefs are carving entire menus, books and TV shows out of food yatras made across a respectable number of districts (out of our 723!). Ziro to Karaikudi, Kohima to Diveagar, Instagram is feeding the frenzy too, and staging its own minor mutinies with hashtags like #IndianFoodMovement. Armies of online home cooks are unearthing hyper-regional specialties that no one really cared about outside a 20-km radius before. Websites with names as impolitic as NativeSpecial.com, or the more kosher The­NortheastStore.com, are peddling everything from Srivilliputhur바카라�s milky sweet palkova to Naga pickled pork intestines. Single batch kombuchas are sitting next to bottles of kanji in hipster coffee shops with single-estate brews. And sour, misshapen bimblis are being 바카라�rediscovered바카라� by turmeric latte-glugging millennials. It바카라�s safe to say then, that 바카라�Indian food바카라� is finally coming to terms with its gurda-kapura, its own anatomy.

Soity Banerjee Delhi-based journalist and food writer