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When Plath, Woolf and Zola came alive in heady flavours and handsome bone china

The Literary Lunch at Narendra Bhawan in Bikaner is civilisation at its best

Published - December 01, 2018 05:26 pm IST

Delicious Lamb Daube in honour of Woolf.

Delicious Lamb Daube in honour of Woolf.

More than a century ago, writer Aldous Huxley proclaimed, “Civilization means food and literature all round.” The Literary Lunch at Narendra Bhawan in Bikaner is civilisation at its best.

It’s a culinary experience where every dish is paired with a literary classic that has inferences of food; classics that in all probability satisfied the literary pursuits of Narendra Singh, the erudite last Maharaja of Bikaner.

In his twilight years, the Maharaja moved away from the main palace and lived in his farmhouse, Narendra Bhawan, along with his 100 dogs, cows and beloved books. Today, his passions have been translated into culinary meditations such as the Literary Lunch and Le Diner Dans le Noir (Dinner in the Dark) at Narendra Bhawan.

The elaborate six-course Literary Lunch has a fixed menu of amuse-bouche, soup, entrée, main course and dessert. The dining room is furnished with luxury — think pastels, pearls and satin. The table is clean and the temperature comfortable.

The half dozen guests — all women — are intelligent without being pedantic. Elegance hems the anticipation in the air. Soon, the drama unfolds, and each exquisite presentation matches the sumptuousness of the classics being read aloud in the background.

The lunch kicks off with a passage from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar: “My grandfather and I had a standing joke. He was the head waiter at a country club near my hometown, and every Sunday my grandmother drove in to bring him home for his Monday off. My brother and I alternated going with her, and my grandfather always served Sunday supper to my grandmother, and whichever of us was along as if we were regular club guests. He loved introducing me to special tidbits, and by the age of nine I had developed a passionate taste for cold vichyssoise and caviar and anchovy paste.” As the words mingle with the genteel sounds of fine crockery and cutlery, our meal begins with an extravagant Salt Roasted Beet (stock braised leeks, goat’s cheese and anchovy pate with balsamic caviar and pomegranate blood) under a bell jar atop a marble slab on a pedestal. Precise in arrangement and subtle in flavours.

Salt Roasted Beet inspired by Plath’s ‘The Bell Jar’.

Salt Roasted Beet inspired by Plath’s ‘The Bell Jar’.

As lunch progresses, guests are invited to participate in the reading. The luncheon is less solemn and more relaxed now. Next up is chowder in a shell-shaped bowl.

The shellfish extract enhanced with cognac and crushed ship biscuit is brought alive from the pages of Moby Dick; or The Whale by Herman Melville: “smoking chowder… made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits and salted pork cut up into little flakes the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt...”

This is followed by the pairing of The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante with Gnocchi — ground meat wrapped in grilled eggplant, milk cheese and herbs.

The tale about food and falling in love from The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones is captured in the Charred Chicken (soya-ginger marinated chicken with white fungus and honey drizzle) plated on handsome bone china. A visual contrast that complements the smooth and smoky savour.

The consummate “scent of olives and oil, rose juice and savoury brown and yellow meats” from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse is aptly interpreted in the delicious Lamb Daube — braised lamb in wine, balsamic, olive oil, garlic, herbs, cinnamon, orange peel and nutmeg. Heady flavours indeed.

The sweet and salty baked (Camembert) cheese on Melba with grape and wine relish is inspired by Émile Zola’s Le Ventre de Paris . If you close your eyes as you taste the dish, you might get a glimpse of the bourgeois society in the novel that was devoted to food.

But it’s the dessert that’s a surprise. No ardent reader would ever imagine that James Joyce’s Ulysses could inspire such a cheerful dessert as White Chocolate Pudding. Gerty in Ulysses often wondered “why you couldn’t eat something poetical like violets or roses”. She would’ve approved of this dish. The candied rose petals, silver and lime curd are sheer poetry.

The writer is solo traveller, photographer, artist.

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