When your
mother shows up, the gastronomic aspect of your life invariably takes a better
turn.
Food is
important, which is why I seldom outsource buying raw materials, especially
vegetables and fish. For the same reason, I am typically reluctant to hire
Maharashtrian cooks.
Do not get me
wrong. Maharashtrian cooks are honest triers who put in every bit of their
culinary skills. They try very hard, incredibly hard, but there is only so much
you can do if your armoury consists of, and ends at, onions, garlic, tomatoes,
and curry leaves, with coconut for variation.
You cannot
blame them. They simply attempt to win a war with pea-shooters. Perhaps it is
some sort of guerrilla warfare that we are too mainstream to figure out.
Perhaps they can be good in an unfathomable sort of way.
The one that
works at my apartment is professional but restricted in a very Maharashtrian
sort of way. She toils hard without much success, but expecting quality out of her
would be akin to expecting me to sing.
The matriarch
of the family had tried to mentor her. She got the cook to prepare fish the proper
(Bengali, in other words; machher jhol) way. The cook grumbled at not being allowed to use curry
leaves but came to terms with that.
Tomatoes, of
course, were another thing altogether. I have known people who seem to think I
do not rate tomatoes very highly. That is an understatement. I detest, hate,
loathe those squishy red orbs from hell, and even that – or any other synonymous
verb, for that matter – is an understatement.
Over years I
have mellowed down enough to accept tomatoes in dishes (though never in
excess). The raw ones continue to remain inedible abominations.
But we are
digressing. She was obviously unhappy about not being able to add tomatoes to
machher jhol. She had tried to convince us, but we had stood firm: there was to be no
compromise on machher jhol.
So by the time
she had showed up yesterday, there was not a single atom of tomato (or even
ketchup) in the household. There was not a slice of lemon, not the tiniest
morsel of tamarind, not even vinegar. The yoghurt was tucked away safely. There
was no contraption she could use to turn machher jhol sour.
But she won.
My mother had
forgotten the raw mangoes, kept aside for superior culinary ventures. She had
never expected chunks of them to show up next to fish… kajori, especially...
