“I rather not eat the food I was not expecting.” Gurinder Chadha comes across as a different kettle of fish across the table. Going through the menu at Elan in The Lodhi hotel, she wants to distinguish between Rajasthani and Punjabi karhi and asks existential questions about ulta tawa parantha . “Why do you need to turn the griddle upside down,” she asks. Sometimes, she uses her husband as a taster before proceeding with a dish but here she is eager to play the role for me. “Can I order for you? I like the menu here for there are elaborate descriptions,” says Gurinder as she picks palak ki chaat and bhalle ki chaat to set the spicy tone for the evening. “I love the yoghurt stuff that you get here. We don’t get it in England. Many times I have tried to make chhach at home but I just don’t get the same flavour,” laments the British Indian filmmaker.
Adept at cooking, Gurinder — who was in India recently for the recce of her next project on Partition — is fond of an array of cuisines and has a number of experiences to narrate. “When I was in school, during cookery classes we used to make traditional English dishes. One of my favourites was Lancashire hotpot. It is from the North and is basically lamb fried with onion and you have it like a stew. When I brought it home I was very proud to show it to my mom. My dad had one look at it and then he made my mom re-cook it as lamb curry! In fact whatever I would make, they would ‘Indianise’ it with masala masoola and tadka laga as my dad would say. And I would cry: you guys are ignorant! Once I made chicken casserole and as usual they described it as bilkul pheeka (absolutely bland). Again my mom turned it into chicken curry, and he said, ‘She brought casserole and we turned it into casserolla’.”
Things have changed now as new generation British Indians can flaunt their spicy food openly. “Oh! Yes. I think what is interesting is when my parents first came to England whenever my mother would cook people, going past would make all sorts of faces, calling the smell awful. And 20 years later when the tables turned, people would come and ask what the recipe was. ‘Give me the recipe. That thing smells so good.’ Today curry is the number one food. You can find an Indian restaurant on every prominent lane. Indian food has become an important part of British cuisine.”
She cites how deep the relationship has become. “Halloween is a big thing in the part where we live. And making Halloween cupcakes with scary faces on them is the norm. But last year, we had a party and instead of making cupcakes, we made jalebis and put scary faces in the middle of each of them. They looked like a spider’s web.” Does she see a movie in these anecdotes? “May be…possibly,” she says after a pause.
From Thai to Jamaican, she tries her hand at a variety of delicacies. “My favourite recipe is aloo wadiya which goes well with a watery contraption of ginger and garlic. In England when the weather is cold and you have sore throat, this is the best thing. I also like kadhi chawal.” Then in Jamaican food she cooks chicken stew by using one of the hottest chillies in the world, the scotch bonnet. With her husband and long time collaborator (Paul Mayeda Berges) being of Japanese origin, wasabi is also an important ingredient in Gurinder’s kitchen. “I have different kinds of chillies for different cuisines. We try to keep it as pure as possible. No crossovers here!” she laughs. However, she adds, “There is not enough space to store all the ingredients in the British kitchen. The British cut it, grill it and boil it. They don’t need too many ingredients, but our case is different and my cupboards keep groaning.”
Gurinder feels a fondness for spicy stuff doesn’t mean that she has lost interest in the simplicity of British cuisine. After a round of spicy food when I crave for something plain, I bake potatoes in the oven and then we have it with cheese and tuna fish. That’s comfort food.” Right now ulta tawa parantha is here and Gurinder is glad that “we are breaking our roti in a smart restaurant!”
