If you’re a Kashmiri
living in Bombay
Food is an occasion
to connect, with self, and with people. It’s a reason to explore traditions,
invest in a culture that shaped the cuisine, and revel in the happiness that
appreciation of patrons brings to the chef, in this instance Mrs. Suman Kaul of
ITC Kakatiya currently in charge of Kashmiri Food Festival at ITC Grand
Central.
Unlike Punjabi cuisine that’s found in every nook and corner restaurant around Mumbai, served up to each cook’s own reading of the recipe, Kashmiri cuisine is conspicuous by its near total absence in roadside restaurants with the exception of what passes of as Kashmiri pulao, regular pulao you’d expect to find at restaurants, only this one is prepared with smattering of fruits that varies depending on what’s available in the restaurant kitchen on the day. The Kashmiri pulao has been my only introduction to Kashmiri cuisine, one I suspected is Kashmiri in name only.
I was looking forward to the opportunity to find out what the Kashmiri pulao actually tasted like at Koshur Saal, the Kashmiri cuisine festival currently underway at ITC Grand Central’s Hornby’s Pavilion (17th – 26th May, 2013), to which we were invited to partake of Kashmiri culinary delights, except the Kashmiri pulao was not on the menu the day of our visit, having featured on the menu the day before!
So I suppose I’ll have to wait for another day, another time to find out. Kashimiri pulao aside, there was much else on offer, none of which I had heard of before let alone taste any, and it was as much a learning experience for the palate as it was an evening of getting to know Suman Kaul and her husband over dinner along with Arundhati, where they kept plying us with Kashmiri food and stories of food.
“My grandmother, Sati
Razdan,” said Suman Kaul when I asked her of the person who got her interested
in cooking. “We’re from Srinagar
At one level, stepping into Hornby’s Pavilion for Koshur Saal was about solidarity with Kashmiri Pandit heritage that has survived the jihadi onslaught on their identity. And in sharing their cuisine and interacting with the wonderful couple, Mr. and Mrs. Kaul, it was about bringing home a better understanding of a cuisine, and by consequence, the people for, food does define ethnic identity in many ways. Here I leave my ‘pen’ aside and let the other take over.
~
“There is no love sincerer than the love of food.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
Synonymous with Kashmir ’s
picturesque beauty is its aperitive native cuisine more so the Kashmiri Pandit
Cuisine. From the land of saffron and red chillies
comes Koshur Saal at The Hornby’s Pavilion at ITC Grand Central. On their
invitation we visited them for a special Kashmiri Pandit culinary experience. Authentic
Kashmiri
food was served, with recipe which dates back to hundreds of years and ITC Grand Central is one
place which has never compromised on quality. Some ingredients like collard
greens for Haak, the famous Red Cherries of Kashmir and fish used
for Tsok Gaad (fish in tamarind
sauce) which are not available in Mumbai were transported from Srinagar
Festival had a sumptuous Kashmiri buffet selection for vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike, featuring a fresh selection of Murg Sufyani
Tikka and Veg Shammi Kebab accompanied
with mint chutney and Sattaras (Lamb Soup).
There was a
carving buffet station for freshly made Green
Apple and Potato Fritters (pakoras).
Green apples are a Kashmiri speciality and they were perfectly thin sliced and
battered in gram flour to deep fry and get a unique juicy crispy texture to
them.
For the main course the la carte menu had both
vegetarian and non vegetarian dishes which were without onion and garlic which
is a speciality of Kashmiri cuisine. The gravies are pretty hassle free with
usage of hung curd, sometimes tomatoes and occasionally tamarind for sourness. "Preparing
gravies in Kashmiri cuisine is a lengthy process as they are simmered for hours
with ambrosial flavour of spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, aniseed, fennel
powder, cumin seeds, saffron, dry ginger, turmeric and to top it all hing (asafoetida)," Chef Suman Kaul exclaimed with a twinkle in her eye before continuing, "hing to hamari jaan hai as it gives the required flavour to the slowly
simmered non-veg dishes."
For the vegetariano in me the buffet had a lot to offer. My
favourite was the Nadur Yakhni, i.e. lotus stem in yoghurt. This delicacy was perfectly
sober, crunchy and juicy, with a vinegarish taste. Guess the taste came from
yogurt simmered for good few hours with spices. Hedder Aluro (mushrooms cooked with potatoes in kashmiri style) was
a lovely combination of two vegetables.
Dum
Monje (knol khol in kashmiri style) had a distinctive flavour and is one of
the first European vegetables grown in India
For the meat eaters there was the most famous Kashmiri dish Nainey Qualiya (lamb in
yellow gravy Kashmiri style), Kabargarh (lamb
ribs marinated and fried in ghee).Chicken even not quintessentially Kashmiri, has slowly gained
acceptance with youngsters. Gandee Kokur
(chicken with onion) is worth a
try according to Chef Kaul.
The staple diet of every Kashmiri is rice, the most preferred being the dense, slightly sticky grained variety. Rich and redolent with the flavour of the spices used there was Nainey Pulao ( rice cooked with lamb in Kashmiri style) for the meat eaters and the perfectly cooked steam rice for the veggie in me was on the menu of the special buffet at ITC grand central.
On the sweet note there was the all time favourite Shufta which is a lavish assortment of
dry fruits mixed with honey, sugar and saffron and a mesmerising dish called Zuk-e-Shahi which was khoya dumplings
soaked in sweetened milk.
It's been a long day for Suman Kaul but the prospect of introducing her native cuisine to the city and have visitors acquire a taste for it must be a satisfying experience. Back home in Kashmir, the Pandits after returning home on a tired cold day would've had their Kehwah (sweet green tea with almonds and cardamom) post which they would gather for their dinner and at the end of the meal would sip Sheer chai (salted pink tea with almonds), more of a digestive drink, before inching toward the end of the day. The rest of us non-Kashmiris, returning home from this outing would've no such luck. I make a mental note of checking out Sheer chai someday.
"At any given time we would've 10-15 people gathering for food at our place, to taste my grandma's cooking," Mrs. Kaul told us of her relatives visiting their place in Srinagar, remembering her time in Kashmir before they had flee for their lives. "I've never been back there after we had to leave Kashmir."
Mrs. Kaul credited her husband for unflinching support through her career. At the Koshur Saal, they relished the opportunity of meeting fellow Kashmiris over dinner at Hornby's Pavilion. I'm sure many stories will have been exchanged of things back 'home', of food, of memories from Kashmir, wistful and poignant.
"At any given time we would've 10-15 people gathering for food at our place, to taste my grandma's cooking," Mrs. Kaul told us of her relatives visiting their place in Srinagar, remembering her time in Kashmir before they had flee for their lives. "I've never been back there after we had to leave Kashmir."
Mrs. Kaul credited her husband for unflinching support through her career. At the Koshur Saal, they relished the opportunity of meeting fellow Kashmiris over dinner at Hornby's Pavilion. I'm sure many stories will have been exchanged of things back 'home', of food, of memories from Kashmir, wistful and poignant.
