In the end, it looked like a conspiracy — Women’s Day, a raw mango in the refrigerator, half a kilogram of freshly arrived sardines, wife not available to cook, my day ending early with no calls with colleagues from Trumpland.
The setting was perfect to attempt that one curry I somehow seemed to be missing much of late: sardines with raw mango in coconut gravy.
I quickly figured out the recipe video from YouTube, assembled the necessary ingredients, peeled and cut the raw mango. The curry started to get ready in an earthen dish on the gas stove.
I added coconut milk and finally the killer ingredient, raw mango pieces. After a few minutes the curry started boiling; I opened the lid to check the consistency and taste. The smell was tempting. I was proud seeing my creation, and slowly tasted a spoonful of gravy with the mango.
Then it hit me. Memories. Memories laced with food. My tongue blissfully soured at the taste of mango.
It was a massive throwback. A sudden push like the one I get usually in the city buses thanks to our supremely skilled drivers and pot-hole ridden roads. The smell, texture and taste of the innocent sardine curry with raw mango pushed me back more than three decades.
Memories of my late maternal and paternal grandmothers rushed in.
A signature dish
I grew up near my maternal grandmother’s house. She was also an awesome cook. And for all my luck her signature dish was sardine with mango. Sardine was and still is one of the cheapest, most nutritious and tastiest of fishes. Of course, she made it the best way. Once during Onam, she had stealthily kept some of this curry in the darkest corner of the kitchen for me.
Onam — though the biggest festival in Kerala — is celebrated without non-vegetarian dishes in our region. She clearly understood where it hurt most for me! My father’s mother was a vegetarian. Yet, I have some fond fish curry memories with her.
The good part was that I had made my food habits very evident. I used to eat very little, and without some sort of fish preparation, even less. The onus was on the loving grandmother to impress her carnivorous grandson. Though she hated the smell of fish, she advised her daughter — my aunt — to make my favourite dish whenever I landed up at my parents’. The combination was tapioca with sardine curry. My tongue always rolled inside the lips to taste the last drop! Ammoomma , as I used to call her, sat at a distance from us, eating her vegetarian lunch, while we basked in the smell and taste of the sardine curry made in grated and fried coconut.
My fish curry, made two generations later, boiled over the simmering flame. Memories about my grannies kept fluttering. I could see myself eating, and them watching, the room, the piquant air, others in the room…
Looking back, I realise that both were not made in the same mould. However, both had something in common — they loved their grandchild.
Taste of love
One fish curry and so many memories. Did I ever thank my grandparents for the awesome taste of their love?
My dish surely did not taste anywhere near what they would have made. But I thanked the circumstances that made me attempt the dish again. I thanked the nervous system that captured these linkages between people and food and brought them back at the prompt from my senses.
While the dish cooled, I opened the lid, clicked a couple of pictures with fish and mango pieces in focus, and WhatsApped the images to my mother with the caption — ‘mathi (sardine) with mango — made by me.’ I am sure it would have evoked memories in her too.
The taste in my mouth did not match the taste in my mind. Yet, I congratulated myself on the attempt. I can get only better. I called out to my 12-year-old in the house — ‘Aadi, come and taste this.’ He came and took a mango piece from the dish. ‘Awesome!’
I felt one more linkage happening to my food memories. I hope he felt the same too.
g opinath.sanjay@gmail.com
