If you have read Saee Koranne-Khandekar’s Crumbs! or followed her Instagram and Facebook pages, you would know what to expect of her latest, 213-recipes-strong Pangat: A Feast (Hachette India), which went into reprint within a fortnight of its release in November.
The story is important for Saee, and that shines through in this treatise on Maharashtrian cuisine that taps into the history, geography, culture and tradition that played a role in the development of numerous sub-cuisines within one State, interwoven with a story, sometimes two.
The idea for the book, which discusses the food of various regions in Maharashtra, and Angat Pangat, the Facebook group Saee and some friends formed to popularise Maharashtrian cuisine, happened almost simultaneously, and drew on each other with the common goal of demystifying Marathi food.
Recipes come from her lived experience: her grandmother and mother’s cooking, her own, visits to people’s homes and khanaval s (loosely translated into house of eating). Probably why in his foreword, Pushpesh Pant writes: “…part autobiography merging into cultural-social history generously sprinkled with folklore and rare nuggets dug from the rich mines of literature”.
Saee writes with empathy, but also brings in the distance required to write objectively. Edited excerpts from an interview:
There is a lot of you in the book, but almost equal amounts of history and theory too. How did you put it together?
For the longest time, I was torn between figuring out how it should not sound like an encyclopaedia on food, or a listing of facts. When a book is heavy on detail, the storytelling does tend to get compromised, and I did not want that. For me, food is always connected to the personal, and I cannot approach it any other way. About a year-and-a-half into the writing, I gave up the idea of structuring it, and allowed it to flow the way it would organically. Thankfully, my editor Poulomi Chatterjee told me not to reason, and to just write what came naturally.
Often, one’s innate understanding of a particular cuisine translates into a familiarity while writing. How did you avoid that?
It took effort to write with empathy, and not familiarity. The idea was to give a broad perspective. For instance, I have limited exposure to tribal cuisine, and therefore, limited authority to write about it. So, I decided to view it all from the academic perspective, but bring in people wherever possible. That is how the chapter on Konkan Muslims came about — through a friend’s wedding and the unusual feast we ate there.
You have also written about the diaspora, for instance, the Maharashtrian community in Mauritius.
Because of my background in Literature, I am fascinated by the literature of the diaspora, and found a direct connect to food too. People who move away from the homeland adapt, but retain the soul of their cooking. In Mauritius, they make an aamti not using tur dal , but the more commonly available chana dal .
At its heart, Pangat is also a cookbook. How did you list recipes: with precise proportions or in a narrative style?
Despite being a writer of cookbooks myself, I am unable to understand why they ‘Frenchify’ everything to the minutest ingredient. This does not work for Indian cooking. I think cookbooks should aim to educate the reader or cook so they can explore a cuisine, rather than give them a temporary recipe to follow. You have to equip them with the knowledge that will allow them to question and understand ingredient choices. For example, why kokum? Is it for sourness? If yes, can’t you replace it with raw mango, tamarind or lemon? But, in a sol kadi , it has to be kokum. The idea is to nudge a novice cook in the right direction.
This is not to say precision is bad. Use that format while writing textbooks for culinary schools, not for cooking enthusiasts.
How did you decide on the ratio between stories and recipes?
I struggled and then gave up. There were portions that stood on their own, even when academically written. Others needed personal stories; that’s how the wedding story came in. When you read the recipe, you will make the connect. Likewise, when I speak about Koli fisherwoman Vatsala and curtains of bombil , or the gluten-based halwa of Bene Israel cuisine, you get a fair idea of the atmosphere the chapter is set in.
(The book costs ₹599 and is also available online).
