Duniya’s dirty dishes

No one likes to deal with those dirty dishes yet these are intrinsic to cooking… My first memories around preparing food and all the fascinating kitchen politics around it, was a song I made up age 3 or 4 when living in Santiniketan (West-Bengal, India). Mimlu, my prolific creative mother, an outstanding story-teller, and Paban, my second father, a no less genius baul singer, musician, song-writer, painter, would often quarrel about whose turn it was to wash the dishes. A universal and timeless domestic tusstle if there ever was one. And so the simple lyrics go:

Basone dhoa, basone dhoa, kay korbay basone

Dirty dishes, dirty dishes, who will do them?

Ma bolay baba korbay, baba bolay ma korbay

Ma says baba will, baba says ma will.

Ever since I can remember, I like nothing more than to "cook up a storm" and feed my people. One other early memory is of me, age 4, and my baby cousin Kunal, age 2, sitting together on the floor in our home in Kolkata, and me affectionately hand feeding him neatly prepared balls of delicious rice, dal (lentils), dim and aloo sheddho (boiled egg and potato), a classic meal for bengali toddlers (and still very much a personal favourite of mine).

Everyone in our tribe cooks excellently. Food is constantly on our minds. As soon as we can, we are either thinkingor talking about food, reading about it, watching food shows, checking out restaurants, buying goods to cook, cooking it or eating it. I suspect my own brain is shaped exactly like a veal sweet bread.

Food markets…

I think I was 8 when I convinced Mimlu that I was independent enough to sell, at the local market, some green vegetables we had growing on the family land located in Boral outside Kolkata. Our wonderful family friend Santanu took me there on the back of his motorbike. The market vendors shuffled to the sides creating a tiny space next to them for me. They smiled away at the ridiculously small amount of product I was so proudly laying out on the bamboo mat like crown jewels. Needless to say, the sale was hugely succesful and, with the meagre earnings collected, I immediately splurged on cadubry gem chocolates.

Who framed Roger Rabbit?

There is also Krishna, my remarkable brother, a fabulous cook obviously, who I mention because of the dirty dishes business. But first another food anecdote comes to mind. Then aged 10 or so, I was in Sarthe, with Mimlu and Krishna (12), at her good friend’ s Larry’s country house. Larry was a jazz singer and actor who played in “Who framed Roger Rabbit”. We had visited his neighbour’s farm and animals, and the idea of eating rabbit was mentioned. I vehemently refused to eat those cute furry balls I had just been cuddling and everyone immediately reassured me. We would eat duck instead. Later, that day, when I tried to step into the kitchen as the meal was being prepared, I was quickly distracted away from there. At dinner, which was delicious, my witty brother solemmnly declared “Daffy duck framed Roger rabbit”. You get the jist, I certainly didn’t back then. It’s all fine though, I eat rabbit now as I did then unknowingly.

Plates in a tub

A couple of years later in Paris, Krishna and I were home alone for a while and I’d had enough of doing the dishes because my brother would never do them despite always claiming he would. I stopped and after a few more days, the pile of dishes got inceasingly daunting while the false claims persisted. Again, I threw in the towel but, there were so many dishes, I had to carry them all to the bath tub and clean them there. It took me 3 hours, a baptism which vaccinated me from the fear of dirty dishes for life.

Festivals and weddings

Telling nico about lingering tuna aroma...

The idea of cooking large quantities has never been an issue. Paban and Mimlu would host Baul music festivals in Boral, receiving up to 1000s of people daily, and delicious vegetarian Bengali food would be cooked and served all day and all night, on rows of banana leaves on the floor. Steaming rice, fragrant, spicy dal and vegetable curries or khichuri, a rice, dal, vegetable and ghee risotto-like dish to die for.

Nico, my darling life partner, also from a family of fabulous cooks, always makes fun of what a freakishly acurate memory I have about food. We have journeyed together for 20 years and I can still remember most meals we shared with our families and friends and even what each person ordered in which meal or restaurant.

When we got married, unsurprisingly, we decided to cook the meal ourselves. The discussions on the menu lasted months and months. A wonderful team effort between both families, an unlikely combination of French, Indian and other dishes. Sabine, my mother in law, prepared 20kg of delicious foie gras months ahead for our 200 guests. We ordered médoc wine from my father in law Joel's family. Our wedding took place at the great Ariane Mnouchkine's théâtre du soleil in the bois de Vincennes. The 3 days preceding the wedding mobilised family and friends for shopping and cooking, a fantastic way to get 2 communities to bond. When the guests arrived at 7 pm for the party, I was still finishing chopping 15 kgs of fresh tuna for the Tahitian raw fish and coconut salad. Mimlu gently pulled me away so I could have a shower and dress for the party while I tried to delegate what was left to do.

Roulés saucisses, an assortment of verrines and more were served for the champagne cocktail while we performed a small concert. Luckily the music and champagne made me forget the slight aroma of fresh tuna that still lingered on my fingers. "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" to quote Lady Macbeth from Shakespeare another theatre giant. The meal consisted of foie gras, Tahitian raw fish salad and zucchini flan for starters. Vegetarians are indeed never forgotten. For mains we served ratatouille, beef curry, lamb méchoui, rice, raita, tomato chutney and dal. After a “trou normand” of calvados and apple sorbet we brought out the cheese and deserts. Nico’s aunt had made a giant fraisier and other deserts. We served huge bowls of summer fruits and candy while friends carried cakes and pies to complete the banquet. Towards the end of the meal, a group of Tibetan Buddhist musician monks arrived after a day visiting Paris. They were staying at the theatre which always welcomes troupes and artists from abroad. We invited them to share our dinner while we prepared for the next part of the night and partied and danced till late the next morning.

At mid day, we started clearing the mess, a lot of us rather inefficient because of our predictable hangovers. When I entered the kitchen, I saw that the monks had generously helped clean all the gigantic pots and pans and through the brain fog it occurred to me that this was pretty awesome karma.

Moral of the story, you cannot be scared of dirty dishes if you love cooking and receiving. You must embrace them. There will always be dirty dishes. On the other hand, you should never clean those dishes too soon either, not till everyone is done enjoying the meal and each other’s company and conversation or it breaks the magic spell of interconnection which always happens when great people share a great meal.

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