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Pretty as a picture
Updated On: 21 November, 2021 08:00 AM IST | Mumbai | Tinaz Nooshian
The Parsi Kitchen, visually riveting and steeped in memories of a childhood spent in a Parsi home, could have offered a bigger bite of cooking
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The writer browses the title. Pic/Tinaz Nooshian
Everyone in the Parsi community has a favourite Patra-ni-machchi version linked invariably to the wedding caterer who serves it. Mine is late Katy Dalal’s; my mother’s is Godiwalla. The tenets of the traditional recipe that sees fish coated with a lush green masala and steamed in banana leaves tied with a sutli, stands across renditions. What changes is “pramaan” or ingredient portions. It’s what makes the chutney that coats the fish “jara fikki” (bit bland) or “ghani mitthi” (way too sweet). A food memoir, I think, is a lot like this chutney. Too much grated coconut, and it can lose its piquant kick.
Anahita Dhondy’s The Parsi Kitchen, is one of the most slickly produced culinary titles in recent times. Its glossy pages flaunt carefully-styled dining table shoots with crocket doilies and Old Country Roses (or some such) dinnerwear, with an art director no less overseeing the overall aesthetic. The last time I noticed an art direction credit in a recipe book was in Maunika Gowardhan’s elegant, Indian Kitchen.
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