It was the early 1980’s. I was preparing for my first school leaving examinations. In those days we would get about three months study leave before the ‘Board Examinations’ began. We lived in a joint family with more than half a dozen children.  That would often deter me from my not so strong passion for studies. My parents decided that I should be preparing for the exams at my maternal grandparents’ house, within the quietness and tranquility, and none of my siblings to spoil my concentration.

My grandmother, ‘Didu’, as I would call her, was a quiet yet strong woman, whose family originally hailed from Bangladesh. The family came from a village called ‘Shubaidya’ near Bikrampur. Growing up I always believed that my grandmother was the best cook in the world. Whatever she cooked had a ‘bangal’ taste (as anyone hailing from Bangladesh would be called so by the Bengalis of this side of the border), or that is what I would believe as an adolescent. She was a woman exuding extraordinary strength, who made sure I would not be disturbed during my studies, but also believed in good sustenance for me. She used to easily rustle up a three to four course lunch for me without any fanfare. I would look forward to the simple, yet special dishes that Didu would prepare every day. I remember two very common, yet unusual dishes cooked by her. One was the ‘labra’, a mixed vegetable curry with jackfruit seeds and the other was a simple ‘rohu’ fish curry with potatoes and ‘Amarnath’ stem. The house would get redolent with the smell of spices she used– ‘panchforon’ (Bengali five types of whole spices –cumin, fenugreek, nigella seeds, wild celery and mustard seeds), jeera powder (cumin) and ginger paste. A simple concoction of Bengali spices, and yet every time I reminisce the days I lived with her, the memory of this Bengali dish, its smell, afternoons with her come alive, as if it just happened.

Summer afternoons were quite special with Didu. It was time to prepare lip smacking pickles – tamarind, lemon and ‘kul’ (Indian Jujube). She would mix the fruits separately with home made spices, salt and mustard oil, and put them in large ceramic jars, which would be tied with a clean white piece of cloth. The jars would then bask under the summer sun for weeks before the pickles could be eaten. As an impatient teenager, I would ask her every day, when it would be ready to be devoured. Didu had banned me to touch the jars or even trying to open the cloth and quickly peek in. It was instilled in my adolescent brain, that if one touched the pickle jars without having a bath, then maggots would spoil the pickles. I believed what she said, never questioned the logic or the lack of it behind it. As I look back and reminisce, I wonder at my naivety then. The adolescents today would laugh if such embargo was passed by the elders of the family.

My grandmother embodies much more than memories of food. And yet, like most Bengali families, the women in the kitchen and their food become an important facet in how we construct our stories of love, vulnerability, and create pockets of solidarity and sisterhood. Come to think of it, my grandmothers from both sides came from extraordinary culinary traditions that passed down in the family, to my mother, my aunts, and later my mother-in-law’s whose cooking influenced me tremendously. I grew up in a household, where discussion on recipes, stories around food, critiques on ingredients and reconstructing recipes made the mundane magical and delicious. I was always enchanted by the snippets of conversations on new dishes, the spices that would be used, the different flavors of mustard oil or groundnut oil, how the timing of adding the spices would bring about marked changes in the taste of a dish.

 I sometimes wonder if in this hyper connective social media world and the constant onslaught of recipe videos, we are forgetting the food cultures, their metaphors and the stories that are lost in the kitchens of our past. I end this mnemonical journey with this forgotten labra recipe that comes from my grandmother, and trickled down to me. Through it, I leave you with a little essence of her.

Labra (A mixed vegetable curry with jackfruit seeds)

Ingredients:
Yellow Pumpkin (Kumra) – 250 gms
Potato (Aloo) – 200 gms
Sweet Potato (Ranga Aloo) – 100 gms
Eggplant (Begun) – 3 medium / 1 large
Pointed Gourd (Potol) – 200 gm
Jackfruit seeds (deskinned and cut lengthwise) – 8 to 10 pieces
Turmeric (Haldi) – 1 level tsp
Ginger paste – 1 ½ tsp
Bay leaf – 2
Whole Red Chilli – 2
Panchforon – 1 tsp
Salt – 1 level tsp (or as per taste)
Sugar – 1 level tsp
Green Chilli – 2/3 (slit length wise)
Mustard oil – 30 gms / 3 Tbsp
Ghee (Clarified butter) – ½ tsp (optional)

Method:
Cut the vegetables into medium sized pieces. Wash thoroughly and keep aside. Take a deep bottom pan and pour 1 tbsp of the mustard oil and wait till it reaches smoking point. Fry the diced eggplants till half done. Remove from the pan. Now add the rest of the mustard oil. Once it is heated, add the whole spices – bay leaf, whole red chilli and panchforon to the oil and let it splatter. Add the rest of the vegetables, jackfruit seeds and salt, cover and cook in low flame, till the vegetables are two-thirds done. It is now time to add the other ingredients – turmeric, ginger paste, green chillis. Cover and cook for five minutes more. Make sure that the water released from the vegetables has evaporated and the vegetables are well done yet not mushy. Add a final touch of ghee and serve with steamed rice.

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