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How Maharashtra cooks and eats
Updated On: 26 June, 2022 08:36 AM IST | Mumbai | Nasrin Modak Siddiqi
A new book uses simple ingredients, memories and traditional tales to discuss the state’s recipes, with a special focus on GSB cuisine
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Patolis are steamed in turmeric leaves
You missed the ramphals. Two weeks ago, we had a good batch,” this writer’s nephew had said to her on a recent trip to the Konkan about the hyper-local fruit called wild sweetsop, that resembles the custard apple. Like most villages in the country, here too, minor changes in seasons define the local produce. Some fruit and vegetable ‘seasons’ are blink and miss, available barely for a month. The elusiveness of availability means that Maharashtra’s indigenous produce, alsandes, triphal and alu chi pane, isn’t always discussed in the mainstream.
Roopa Nabar hopes her book, My Romance with Food (Popular Prakashan) focuses the spotlight on Marathi food, especially that which is central to GSB (Gaud Saraswat Brahmin) cuisine. Nabar says her culinary sensibilities were shaped during childhood trips to the village of Prabhanvalli, near Ratnagiri, an eight-hour bus ride from Mumbai, followed by a 20-minute bullock cart ride. The family house saw its spacious rooms connect to the massive kitchen via mystical corridors, allowing the aroma of wood fire cooking to waft through. On a regular day, the meal would comprise bhaatachi pej (rice porridge) with a spicy-tangy backyard vegetable preparation called dabdabit.
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