#noshtalgia

Baba’s Sunday mutton curry

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Like most Odia families, for us Sundays meant mutton. For my sisters and me, it also meant having our father at home for the whole day; dedicated government servant that he was, we hardly saw him on other days of the week. As for Ma, it gave her a short respite from the kitchen. Before we woke up, Baba would have come back from the market with the mutton, and Ma would have started…

May’s missing maushis: A Mumbai summer without the itinerant East Indian masala makers

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जब से मैं याद कर सकता हूं, मेरे जीवन में synaesthesia ने विशेष रूप से महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभाई है। मेरे लिए नंबर जेंडर हैं। सप्ताह के दिनों में एक निश्चित पदानुक्रम होता है, जिसमें रविवार को पैक होता है। और मेरे सभी महीनों को रंगों के इंद्रधनुष के रूप में बड़े करीने से विभाजित किया जाता है।

मई का रंग हमेशा एक तितली पीले और एक मिट्टी के जले हुए सिएना के बीच के स्पेक्ट्रम पर होता है। कोई…

This sourdough light rye loaf was my second attempt with a banneton. And it was a whopper, I wondered whether it might grow beyond my baking stone while baking. But I’m very happy with the result.

It’s my tribute to Suzi, the tirelessly caring and stoic Hungarian woman who fostered me when I was very young. Her influence manifests as part of the fabric of who I came to be. And it was in her home that I first ate sourdough rye bread.

I got a taste for it, often there was Hungarian apricot or cherry jam for it, but even Vegemite came to life on a simple slice. I loved it especially when spread with körözött or Liptauer - as her adopted Austrian mother called it - mostly Suzi added slices of sweet green banana chillies, a beautiful combination with körözöt’s creamy paprika flecked caraway flavours.

When I first heard her offer her guests toast as a snack I found it odd. The bread my mother had fed me was Dad’s preferred tasteless squares, limp commercial bread, nothing special that you would offer a guest.

But once I ate Suzi’s oval ‘Continental’ bread as it was known at the time, I understood how special it was. And later the realization of how special grew another layer.

Suzi was a Holocaust orphan. She suffered physically, emotionally, mentally during WW2. It never left her, it shaped her.

While like many Jewish survivors little was said about a time they felt was better forgotten, I knew her parents perished in Auschwitz, a horrific concentration camp. I knew what had led to her arrival in Australia.

She and her brothers came to Australia to be adopted by relatives but were split up. It was a complicated and unsettled childhood.

She didn’t get along with her adoptive mother who chose her brother and hadn’t wanted her. But Suzi’s older brother would not be separated from her. Luckily she found parental solace in another couple who quietly fostered her with no declaration or fanfare, much as she later did for me.

The people in their circle were mostly also Holocaust survivors. And they had suffered all manner of depravation, desperation and horrific trauma. Some had lost their entire extended family, or their children, spouse or parents.

They did not judge me, there was no orthodox prejudice against an outsider. They accepted that in my own way I too was alone. To them Australia was a place to relish the bounties and freedoms without looking back, to adopt new customs and people. To enjoy.

From them I learnt to share whatever I have, no matter how little it might be. And they taught me the value of food, a respect for not wasting a scrap and to never take anything for granted. The simple joys, the notion of being safe, to have bread, to share, be well fed and housed.

Their ways seeped into my psyche. It made me a smiley person because in spite of whatever personal trauma I may have had, they had given me these basic things to ground me, and reasons to rejoice.

Later in life Suzi became an avid home baker. Her kids joke that no one ever left her house without a loaf of bread. With a dash of her typical sarcastic humour, her bread oven machine was placed by the coffin at her funeral and offered for sale. The service featured a photo of her with bread of all shapes and sizes.