Reviving culinary traditions and wisdom from your grandma

Begum Zeba Sultan Khan Babi (left) of the Balasinor palace shared insights into their royal cuisine. Pic courtesy/The Nanima Project

Scrolling through Pune-based jewellery designer Aditi Bharadwaj's Instagram handle, The Nanima Project, is like leafing through old, stacked-away albums and diaries. There's that grassy odour of yellowing paper, sepia-tinted photographs of once-young faces, hurriedly written recipes slipping out of pages, and a reassurance that all was well once. But what makes Bharadwaj's social media project comforting are the delicious food memories attached to the visuals that include postcards of recipes exchanged between members of a pan-India ladies' club in the '80s, menu and cutlery on the ill-fated RMS Titanic, vintage advertisements of Parle, Rex syrups and Parisian tea brands, monochrome portraits of the Taj Mahal Palace and Watson's hotels in their early days, and of course, a spread of dishes ranging from tinned biscuits to Roce-special pork bafat.

The 34-year-old tells us that the idea to crowd-source food memories, pictures, recipes and experiences started cooking in the lockdown, after she came across her grandmother's diary of recipes. "My grandmother, Chandervati Buxi was from Multan, Pakistan, so their food habits were very different from ours. The diary was filled with these notes of which family member likes what, and had contributions by my grandmother and my mother. As someone who has always been fascinated by culinary traditions, I wanted to preserve these recipes, and their wisdom for my daughter," elaborates Bharadwaj. Food memories, she asserts, are enjoyed by everybody, as in India especially, we express our love through khaatirdaari or feeding people.

A page from the book of hand-written recipes that Bharadwaj inherited from her grandmother; (left) Aditi Bharadwaj

To illustrate her point, Bharadwaj recollects the meethe chawal that her grandmother would dish out for her satsang group. "I would sit through her bhajans, only to get a bite of the rare Punjabi recipe from the other side of the border. Although it was supposed to be a saffron-infused yellow, my nani's family couldn't afford it after the Partition, and started using haldi. It's a bittersweet memory for me, but it embodies that Punjabi spirit of never say never," she says, adding that she wanted to piece together such stories from others' lives and spread joy.

It is this sense of joy, coupled with nostalgia, that we feel bubbling up inside, as we dip into the visual repository. On the grid is an interview by Maharajkumari Alaukikaraje Gaekwad of Jasdan, Gujarat, chatting about the "unfamiliar aromas" that greeted her as a shy bride in the royal kitchen. There are a host of warm tributes to everyday chefs like grandmothers, aunties and even a travelling biscuitwalla - written by Karachi native Wayne Croning - who attracted neighbourhood kids with his trunk of treats. If you dig deep enough, there's also a chat with the young begum Zeba Sultan Khan Babi, where she decodes the intricacies of the Balasinori cuisine. Bharadwaj shares that apart from crowd-sourced memories, she also shares vignettes from her age-old folder of visual references to culinary traditions, such as a photographs of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway dining car, V Dhurandhar's paintings and pages from heritage recipe books like the Landour Book of International Cuisine and Indian Cookery General. "The idea was to strike a dialogue around culinary traditions and keep documenting them," she signs off.

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Meethe chawal

Ingredients
. 1/2 cup rice
. 1.5 tsp ghee
. Pinch of haldi and salt
. 1.5 cup water
. 1/2 cup sugar
. 1 tbsp raisins

Method
Wash the rice, preferably basmati, well; drain the water. In a vessel, heat ghee and sauté the rice for two minutes. Tip in the water. Sprinkle a generous pinch of turmeric and a little bit of salt. Throw in a tbsp of raisins. Let the rice cook. Add two crushed, powdered cardamom seeds. Once the rice is almost done and only a slight amount of water remains, add sugar. The rice must have a bit of moisture, else the sugar won't dissolve. Decorate with slivered almonds. Don't stir the rice