We live in interesting times. If you are a good cook and want to showcase your food, you don’t have to run or own a restaurant or a catering service. You can do a pop up – which is an excellent way of presenting your food and making a name for yourself, as well as some money.
My friend, Arun Kumar TR, did this successfully. He used to be a filmmaker who would make his crew very, very happy by cooking for them during shoots. He was such a good cook that people urged him to take it up commercially. He did so with a pop up to begin with – and then, a couple of years ago, he became the executive chef of Zambar.
I see another friend going the same way. I have known Pritha Sen for long, but we hadn’t met for many years. But I used to follow all her food tips on social networking sites, and realised that she was not just a good cook, but a knowledgeable one as well. She had been doing a lot of research into steamer food – a special kind of cuisine that was served aboard steamers that took you into the interiors of the East from the last railhead – Goalondo, which was where the Padma met the Brahmaputra.
Goalondo steamer food, Pritha points out, was cooked by boatmen – simply, yet most flavourfully.
She organised a feast of Goalondo Steamer food in Gurgaon recently, and then in Calcutta. She has more such festivals in mind. To get an update on when her next pop up would be, and where, you could get in touch with her on email (pritha.sen@gmail.com) or on the phone (0-9810107211).
I missed the special feasts — but had a taste of some of the dishes the other day. I thought the food was superb. Take something called the Goalondo steamer fowl curry. I am told Pritha had gone through reams of historical data to get the authentic recipe for this dish. She found mention of it in many places, and almost everybody agreed that it was a “fiery, thin red curry with oil floating on top.” Some people use boiled eggs and potatoes to pep up the gravy, but Pritha realised that it was essentially a simple boatman’s curry prepared with grated onions, garlic, ginger, chillies and mustard oil. The kick in the chicken gravy, however, came from dried fish, which gave it its own piquant flavours.
Pritha’s feast includes a roasted mango sherbet to begin with, steamed rice, Dhakai masoor dal, a steamed and baked radish dish called mulor paturi, smoked bekti, Goalondo Steamer fowl curry and Colonel Skinner’s chutney – prepared with tart green mangoes. There are other dishes, too – such as shrimp with bamboo shoot, a Khasi pork dish — and for dessert you can expect aamkheer, a delicious mix of creamy milk and sweet, aromatic mangoes.
The Gurgaon pop up – held at the Hachiba restaurant and curated by Chowder Singh (a food group) – was priced at Rs.1500 per person. I hope her next pop up is a big success – for the food deserves it. It doffs a grateful cap to forgotten times.
