It's mother's day at every meal

It's mother's day at every meal

When I was growing up, meals at home entirely consisted of Tambrahm home food. For lunch (eaten around 9 a.mon working days and around 10 a.m on holidays) we had rice, sambar, vegetable and buttermilk; Dosas, idlis, upmas and adais were for evening tiffin and dinner menu was sambar or rasam with rice and curd rice. Variation was only in the vegetable and the type of Sambar. The menu varied on festival days with special dishes to mark the respective occasions. Chapatis were still not accepted as a substitute for rice and bread was only eaten if you were ill. This was the 1960s and 70s. Chaat counters were available in a few restaurants which also served north Indian food that tasted suspiciously like South Indian sambar and kootu disguised under North Indian Spices.

After marriage I moved to Calcutta and as a new bride, I was invited to meals by many of husband's friends and colleagues where I was introduced to dishes with fancy names like Alu mattar, Channa masala, Bhaingan Bhurtha,Palak paneer etc and the food at the Chinese reataurants of Calcutta. My sambar-ravaged taste buds woke up to hitherto unknown pleasures while tasting spices other than chilli and pepper. I loved them and craved them and began to eagerly wait for dinner invitations! Once they started dwindling, I armed myself with a few Tarla Dalal recipe books and quickly learnt to make a few of my favourites and decided to surprise the husband and the father-in-law with a lunch menu comprising entirely of these divinely delicious dishes.
Come lunch time and I made a production of it. I waited till they were seated at the table to unveil the dishes expecting a few audible signs of excitement and delight. All I got was a puzzled expression as the duo inspected the spread. And then the husband blurted out: "Looks very nice. but where is the food?"
"What, What do these look like -clay models of food?"
"No, I mean our food, like sambar, rice and all that."
I could have killed them with just a bit of poison in the Sambar next time but I resisted and simply said:
"Sambar does not go with this menu and yes, there is rice in the pulao and some plain rice."
There was ominous silence and the normally hearty eaters pecked politely at the food and fell with passion on the rice and curd.
The barbarians, philistines, Food fascists, Culinary Chauvinists - I could have gone on a la Captain Haddock but I was a new bride remember and rather young, and it was two against one. So I endured it all with a smile.
Anyway I lived on left over food for the next two days while cooking (no prizes for guessing) Sambar , Rasam and vegetables for the rest of the family.

I decided that the family I married into are culinary cowards who refuse to eat anything that their mothers did not recognise as food. But over a period of time, I have come to realise that almost everyone of my relatives brought up in Tamilnadu prefers the sambar, rasam, vegetable menu day after day after day without ever tiring of it. They actually think that it is the best kind of food in its taste, variety and nutrition! Last year I went on a holiday to the U.S to a cousin's place hoping to finally get away from the tyranny of sambar and rasam as this cousin has lived in the U.S. for over 20 years. I was secretly hoping to try out American and Mexican and whatever-else kind of food but imagine my dismay when my cousin assured us that we would get "our food" every single day. Her kitchen looked like a replica of her mother's in Bengaluru, well stocked with all the ingredients and when we went out to eat, we went to places serving Dosas and Puris! When my son comes back from his trips abroad, relatives of my generation are usually concerned about what he did for "food". I am tempted to tell them about the existence of "food" other than sambar, rasam, kootu, curry but then I do not want to offend their sensibilities so I tell them about the availability of our "food" almost everywhere in the world these days.

I read other blogs and people talk about experimenting with cuisine from all over the world and wonder how they got so adventurous. In my family people go to five star hotels and order Dosa from the menu (and that is what we have at home for breakfast about 3 days in a week.) They can claim to have eaten Dosa in Dubai, London, New York and San Francisco! Ask them about the local cuisine- they never tried it but mostly lived on salads and yoghurt and by the time they come back they exhibit serious symptoms of sambar withdrawal!

I sometimes think that to my family, food is not just a thing to tickle our tastebuds, satisfy our hunger and provide nutrition. It is much more than that - it is a relationship that links them to their roots and more specifically to their mothers. It reminds them of their mothers and childhood and gives them a sense of comfort and belonging.That is why it is important for them to be able to see it, feel it and taste it in a certain form so they can finally feel that they have come home. When I was newly married I noticed that even though the dishes were similar between ours and my in-laws', there were minor variations to the recipe and I was urged to follow them strictly. Being a bit of a rebel I once made Morkozhambu the way my mother makes it and was politely but firmly told that it tasted good but they preferred it the way my mother in law and her mother in law made it.
In the west they have one day to celebrate their mothers but for generations, men of our family have celebrated and honoured their mothers at every mealtime by recognising as "food" only what their mothers fed them. Everything else is just decoration on the table.

Happy mother's day!