Food means different things to different people. For some it nourishes the body while for others it nourishes the soul and more.
For me, food is a lot more than what I just eat.
One of my greatest passions is cooking and feeding friends, family – even casual passers-by. Seriously, yes, in Singapore! I know people don’t usually cook at home in Singapore but I do. And I love it. Call me boring but I care about these sort of things. (By the way, I have a regular, fairly interesting day job).
It’s a kind of communion – a bonding that you have in an intimate setting where you talk religion, politics, sex, films and anything else while eating a meal cooked with love….
I decided to start this blog because I have heard this so many times in various avatars: “This is great, but my mother makes it differently”. And here the “different” is really a euphemism for “better”.
And I’ve found this true not just in the Indian setting I come from – it’s something that crosses national boundaries.
I know a couple who fight over whose mother is a better cook….I have two Italian friends who have a war of the pasta in my backyard….and all of us get to sample the spoils of the war 🙂 not that we complain….bigger tradeoffs have taken place in the aftermaths of largescale wars!!!
I’ll start this blog with my Christmas story…..
For many years my family would get together for Christmas at my parents’ place – and my mum would make all these wonderful dishes and Christmas sweets that we have tried to replicate without much success. Recipes don’t work with mum because her instructions in the form of “a little bit of this” and a “pinch of that” does not help…
Over the years mum got older and all of us decided to share the work and cook a dish or two and bring it home to my parents’ house and eat together for Christmas lunch.
The only one dish my mother would make (and still does) was this painstakingly long-to-prepare pork dish. Mum is Mangalorean and all her cooking takes hours. She’s openly derided my dad (who is East Indian) for the last 53 years of his community’s quick-fix approach to cooking. (It certainly is not true – but that’s for another post. And if mum reads this blog I am hoping she’ll part with yet another recipe).
The pork curry that she made was prepared the night before – and was eaten with sanas or polas the next morning for breakfast….
By the way, our Christmas lunches were legendary – the previous night’s midnight mass and cake and wine thereafter would keep us in bed way after breakfast. And, by the time we got to mum’s pork it was lunch!
No matter how much mum cooked there would be nothing left after we’d eaten the first course.
Then was the endless drinking, talking nonsense, singing baritones and the inevitable squabble that ensued before we got down to having lunch….by like 6 pm…
I tried taking the recipe from mum several times and it did not work. Something was always amiss. Two years ago I asked my mum to set aside the spices she would need for 3 kg of her pork recipe. And I counted every piece of spice and measured it. Then I cooked it many times (while phoning her for tips) and while I’m sure my mother still makes it better – here it is for you to try – and let me know how it turns out…..
Mum cooks it in a stainless steel pot. But I prefer cast iron. That’s the only difference….
On this site, I’m going to invite some of my friends to share recipes that have been in their family for generations – or simply recipes that tie them in a subliminal bond with their mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, fathers….no matter where they are in life – or how far they really are from their mothers!
Enjoy! Try the recipe and I look forward to feedback. Feel free to post your own recipes…I’ll definitely try them and send you feedback….
