Sunday Food Memories - for our moms

We both grew up in lower to middle class families in bustling, vibrant neighborhoods in Delhi. Our working moms were always dashing about trying to juggle household chores with their full-time jobs. We don’t know how or when they managed to shop for groceries, do meal prep, and cook fresh meals. 

Weekday meals were good but our moms’ skill, imagination and pride shined on weekends. Sunday meals were special, a time for delicacies and family favorites, when our moms could also relax and join us at the table. Occasionally, mom would put away her rolling pin, switch off the tava. On these occasions, mostly on Sundays, we would get to order in from one of the many street-side stalls and restaurants dotting the city or get dressed up and go out for lunch or dinner. 

This blog captures our Sunday food memories and honors our moms, Harmohan and Madhulika. Thank you, for all you do for us and for raising unapologetic foodies. - Jeet and Reema

Window Shopping

I didn’t pay a lot of attention during high school.  So when I started college, I needed to catch up and get ahead.  I doubled up my undergraduate schoolwork with a chartered accountancy course.  Coursework and my class schedule consumed all waking hours, Monday to Saturday.  Sunday was the only day off.  

Mom always loved window shopping.  She loved perusing, comparing, parsing; an actual purchase was an occasional afterthought.  She had two boys so sometimes when she was missing out on having a companion for (window) shopping sprees, I would accompany her.  

We drove the short distance from Sarita Vihar to Lajpat Nagar market and always parked in our regular parking spot.  If it was April or May, and falsas were in season, we would beeline to the falsa and jamun street vendor.  I LOVE falsas, always have done.  We would each have our newspaper cone filled with tart falsa berries tossed with black salt.  We snacked on falsas as we walked our regular route through Lajpat Nagar, meandering through stall after stall.  

Regular stops included a fabric store, where one could pick out fabric and then get clothes, shawls or dupattas, stitched or hemmed from your local tailor.  Another frequent haunt was a men’s clothing store, where I would browse through pants, button-down shirts, or kurtas.  We seldom purchased anything of significant value, maybe a dupatta or small clothing item; regardless we spent hours strolling through the market.  In between window shopping, we would stop and eat gol gappe and papdi chaat.  The window shopping outing always ended with a ram laddu snack (lentil fritters, radish and green chili slaw, tamarind chutney).  [Jeet]

Continental Breakfasts

I inherited my love of food from my mom.

Growing up in a lower-middle class, single-parent household, money was tight. Mom is a foodie but we rarely went out to restaurants.  Instead, she found ways to infuse a specialness and wonder into simple, daily meals. 

Occasionally, mom would announce that Sunday would feature a “continental breakfast.”  Continental breakfast meant veggie omelets, toast, and home-made fries.  Sometimes, late afternoon “tea-time” would be accompanied by butter and cucumber or butter and boiled egg finger sandwiches, with the crusts cut out.  Whereas most of our meals were eaten sitting cross-legged, in a huddle, on the king-size bed, continental breakfasts and afternoon tea sandwiches were served formally on the dining table.  [Reema]

Kanjake, Girl Power!

Children should be seen and not heard. I never knew or believed in this concept. As a young girl, my single, working mom (read: perpetually exhausted) never muffled my opinion. Even when she told my sister and me to sit quietly while she took a short cat nap in the evening after walking home from her job and before dinner prep, we knew the talking ban was temporary. 

One occasion that centered, even exalted girls, was a festival called Kanjak or Kanjake. Wikipedia tells me it is a Hindu ritual where young girls are worshipped as incarnations of the Goddess Durga. I didn’t know the religious meaning of the day. For me, Kanjake meant a special day full of celebration and food.

The day would start with me and my sister taking our bucket baths early. Then, we would wear our fancy clothes, our mom would neatly braid our hair, and we would wait patiently for her to put finishing touches on the special meal. Mom would have been up very early making kale chane, sweet suji halwa roasted in desi ghee, and deep-fried pooris. Kale chane are smaller and darker than regular chickpeas and the traditional festival preparation involved boiling the chana, letting them simmer until the water evaporates, and then dry-roasting the softened chanas with spices. A thick scoop of the spicy chana and smaller spoonful of sweet halwa glistening with melted ghee would be nestled into small, round, freshly-fried pooris. Shining on top of each chana, halwa, poori parcel was a silver rupee coin.

By late morning, the young girls from neighboring homes would start arriving at our apartment door. They would remove their slippers or shoes at the door, and we all sat cross-legged, single file, on the freshly-mopped cool cement floor.  We would wait excitedly for our “offering.” Mom would walk down the line tying a red string on our left wrists and handing out the edible parcels, topped with coins. As the hosts, my sister and I would sit at the end of the line and had to wait the longest to get our chana/halwa/poori parcel and pocket our coin. 

We devoured the sweet, salty, fatty festival food in minutes, probably seconds. Maybe there were other parts of the ritual - did my mom chant a prayer or light incense? I don’t really remember. My focus waned after the pooja food was served and consumed. I was already thinking ahead to the other homes we’d be visiting next. Our procession of girls would go door to door throughout the afternoon, where all the moms had prepared similar food parcels. We ate our way down our residential street, pocketing our growing heap of coins.  [Reema]

Laudi Majra, Punjab

I grew up a city kid.  I had never visited a small village until I was 8 years old.  My grandmother was from a tiny village so when my parents told me we were taking a trip to attend a wedding, I was very excited.  I had never met my relatives or cousins from that part of India.  

In the 1980s, the 8-hour drive from Delhi to Laudi Majra was bumpy and grueling.  Our route did not go through any major highways; just lots of residential areas and towns.  As we drove through narrow residential streets, I peeked into houses to see how people lived their lives.  

As we got closer to the village, my grandmother got more chatty.  She started pointing out all the major landmarks she remembered from her childhood.  She talked about people she knew from the village and how they might be doing, mixed in with her memories of the landmarks we were passing.  

We reached the village early in the afternoon.  As we got out of the car, I immediately began waiting for my dad to arrive (he was driving up solo later in the evening).  As I sat outside my grandmother's house, I could see singular cars approaching from miles away.  Every time I spotted headlights, I would excitedly track the car as it wound through the roads.  After following a car for 20-30 minutes, it finally would get close enough for me to realize that it was someone else.  I watched cars for a good part of the evening until he finally showed up.  

After dinner, when we were getting ready for bed, I had to use the restroom.  It was detached from the main house so one had to walk outside to get to it.  When I stepped out of the house, it was night.  Although there were no street or outdoor lights, to my amazement, I could still see everything under the light of the moon and the stars.  I was so busy staring up at the night sky, I almost ran head-first into a grazing water buffalo.  I remember thinking, this is so great I could study out in the open if I wanted to.  (That never happened!)

The next morning, my father took me to visit his extended grandparents (they must have been in their 90s at the time).  As was customary, as soon as we arrived at their home, they offered tea.  And as was customary, we accepted.  When the tea started boiling, grandmother went to their yard with a tumbler, milked their water buffalo, and finished the tea with the fresh milk.  My jaw fell; my 7-year old mind exploded.  I have no idea what was being discussed over tea.  All I could think about and watch was the water buffalo, mooing and swishing her tail out in the yard.  [Jeet]

Birthday

My sister, Seema, is 5 years older than me.  Our birthdays are in October.  She was born in early October, a libra.  I was born in late October, a scorpio. 

When I was little, she was didi.  I stopped calling her didi when I grew taller than her, though I later regretted that.  Seema didi took care of me during the daytime while my mom was at her job.  It was Seema’s job to make sure I ate my meals, read to me, entertain me when I got bored and console me when I was missing mom.  

I was like an appendage to Seema didi - I went wherever she went.  When she was a pre-teen and I was 5 or 6 years old, she was most often my babysitter.  We were literally joined at the hip, or I was joined to her hip, in every respect.  Even our names were identical, just one letter off.  

One occasion where I wanted to extricate myself from didi was my birthday.  I was pretty territorial about birthdays.  I wanted a separate birthday party, individual birthday cake, distinct birthday presents.  I simply didn’t want to share the attention with anyone, even didi.

Unfortunately, my five-year old logic fell on deaf ears. Mom was pragmatic and trying to stretch her modest income as far as possible.  She decided that rather than having two birthday parties, and associated expenditures, in the same month, we’d combine both birthday celebrations.  And, because she did not want to favor one or the other, she decided that our combined celebration would land in the middle of the month.  

I’m sure I was disappointed.  Looking back at the birthday pictures, I’m also sure my disappointment was eventually overshadowed by my interest in the goodies.  The spread from Wenger’s in Connaught Place - birthday cake (for “Seema and Reema”), pineapple pastries and other sweet confections - was just the enticement I needed to quell my objections.  [Reema]