Good morning. This week, we are welcoming Ru to take over this week’s gazette, sharing Ru’s food of the week. Both of us are very excited. Enjoy!
sinae + kate
Preamble:
I am writing from Bangalore, where I’ve come home to visit my family. The 18th-24th of July is supposed to be an exciting week of food in my life, marked out in the calendar as days to be spent fulfilling the cravings I’ve had for months. It is still that, with covid added to the list. Home-food-sick-food-shared-food-week.
June 18th:Â
It’s 11:30 am. I peel myself off my bed, drenched in sweat; a daily occurrence since I got covid almost two weeks ago. My body aches as I get through pissing-showering-brushing. I want a hot cup of tea to wake me up. My grandmother makes it for me and braids my hair as I sip on it, I always feel lucky to be in her presence. She tells me my hair has thinned out and that I should oil it.Â
Water is heated in the kettle. Pepper-cardamom-grated ginger is placed in a pot, and boiled for 10 minutes. 2 ½ teaspoons of wagh bakri chai is added per person, per cup. Fresh milk (that has just been boiled to ensure that it is pasteurised) is added, its volume equal to half of the water in the pot. Then it is strained through into cups, jaggery/sugar added to taste, orange-brown and sharp in taste– this tea is consumed at least twice a day.
I’m at my father’s place, where him, his parents and my brother live. My aunt’s family (aunt, uncle, two cousins) is visiting from Sydney, and like me they are checking off their list of food to eat whilst here. It’s 1 pm and we eat dupke and saag with rice. Dupke is a thick, grey gravy made from lentils, cooked in an iron pot that gives it its distinct colour and earthy taste. The saag was made from mustard leaves, spiced to accompany the dupke perfectly. I’ve come to appreciate my grandmother’s preparation of Kumaoni food only as I got older, my taste buds now attuned to enjoy bitter flavours.Â
Another cup of tea was consumed while on a zoom. Snacks today included Thattai, which my aunt-uncle picked up while visiting his father in Chennai before coming to Bangalore. Fried, savoury, crunchy and spicy– thattai has all the qualities that make a perfect snack for me. I also ate two guavas, very much on the raw side but I can never resist them. They top my list of favourite fruits– second only after juicy mangoes and bursting lychees. Summer is for fruits and winter is for vegetables. Grandfathers tend to fruits while grandmothers are in charge of vegetables. My father on the other hand did not enjoy their chalky tartness after a cup of tea, and left guava remains; more for me to enjoy.
Hi all I’m Ru (she/they), a designer and researcher based in South-East London. I’m part of Em–Dash Press, a small press that produces (amongst other things) a series of zines on our shared love of eggs. I’m also a part of à la carte, a collective that explores the relationship between food and care through a series of workshops. Find my instagram here.