Delicious is never dirty
Berjis Desai
A friend, who had undergone a kidney transplant six months ago, enquired whether it would be ‘safe’ to have dinner at a Parsi colleague’s wedding. We politely tried to dissuade her but failed to dampen her enthusiasm for the delicious lagan nu bhonu. I am willing to abstain from eating any ‘problematic’ dishes, she promised. Would you consider opting for the Gujarati thali, we hesitatingly asked, and received a look of utter disgust. So we set about identifying courses for her to abstain from.
Our friend was rather puzzled at our excessive concern. Parsis are so hygiene focused, she remarked, several suffering from OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). Like Lady Macbeth, many Parsi mothers indulge in compulsive and excessive washing of hands — their own and their children’s — not due to any guilt complex, but out of fear of dust, grime and bacteria in a tropical country. Never sip from a straw, our aunt used to injunct, what if a fly settles on excreta and then upon an exposed straw, your digestive lining can go for a toss. A housemaid may do all other chores but never cut a mango. Matronly ladies prefer sitting on the edge of a taxi seat or other public transport, ensuring that their talc powdered forearm never brushes against the window glass. Using public washroom facilities was out of question, nephrological complications notwithstanding. An uncle used to examine his domestic’s nails every morning when there were no air oxidisers, hand sanitisers and jet sprays to clean the larger auricles.
However, we explained to our friend that, strangely and suddenly, this great sense of hygiene stands suspended at communal feasts. As a community, we suffer from a mass amnesia, once we see a patru (plantain leaf) before us. Our collective sense of comfort at wedding and navjote dinners or at the so called gahanbar feasts is an inexplicable phenomenon, when deliciousness defeats dirtiness. It cuts across classes and countries. The masoor paavs and the NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts) Parsis (our coined term for the hoi polloi and the elite) both are oblivious to the cleanliness factor. The visiting NRIs (non-resident Indians) from overseas are equally unaffected. A cousin in Boston will not let her child eat coconut chutney with idlis in an Udipi restaurant but the child can go bananas (literally, on the patru) at Albless Baug.
Cooking for a celebration
Cooking commences rather early for large public feasts, almost at dawn. The pomfret pieces are cut and then allowed to sunbathe on old newspapers, enjoying the affectionate lick of the many canines, felines and rodents roaming the site. Towards the evening, they are dipped in boiling water and then the famous green chutney paste (made by adding many bottles of imported Evian mineral water, of course!) is lovingly applied to the fish, which is then wrapped in leaves, lying in a dump, and the Cinderella moment arrives, as you dig into the famous patra ni macchi. Its cousin, the saas ni macchi (fish in tangy white sauce) with a little cherry tomato enticing you, has undergone somewhat similar culinary indignities. Forget the fish, we tell our disappointed friend.
Carry a napkin from home and scrub the patru, as it usually has water on it. Wipe the cutlery clean or use your fingers. Avoid the innocent looking rotli, as it has been exposed to the flies. Same goes for the evil looking achaar (carrot and dry fruit pickle) stored in vats visited by lizards and cockroaches, both during manufacture and later. You may have the sarias (sago chips), we concede. Eat whatever is piping hot, as it minimizes risk, provided you don’t mind the aluminum vessels in which the food is cooked (a proven link having now been established between Alzheimer’s and aluminum vessels). Try not to look at the serving pots and pans, we believe that they are the secret of the great taste.
With items cold, you are flirting with trouble, so no pumpkin murabba or lagan nu custard, and certainly not those divine paneers dunked in water of suspect origin, glistening and velvety due to the rennet derived from the stomach lining of a duck. And please ignore the servers, a few inebriated after downing some hooch; surely, you do not expect the caterer to have their fingers manicured? Actually, the servers add to the ambience and are a marked contrast to overtly attentive waiters hovering around you in a five star hotel.
Imaginary fears, snorts our friend, dismayed at the prospect of her highly truncated menu. Have you known of any episode of mass food poisoning with the B. D. Petit Parsi General Hospital running out of beds? she queries. No, we say, but perhaps Parsis have acquired immunity over decades of food bristling with salmonella and bacteria. Maybe our Kyaani blood or some celestial angel protects caterers; there has to be one as evidenced from the following true stories.
A budding caterer obtained an order to serve at a navjote of some corporate bigwig, whose South Indian boss went into raptures savoring the sali murghi and demanded a second helping, when he noticed that the texture of the chicken was very rubbery and strange. Upon closer scrutiny, it was found that it was a rat whose head, limbs and tail had been carefully severed by a saboteur in the service of the budding caterer’s more established competitor.
The second story is even more authentic. Our aunt visited the caterer to settle his invoice, when she noticed a freshly baked lagan nu custard with currants liberally sprinkled on it. When our aunt protested about why her custard had been deprived of the currants, the caterer simply flicked his fingers to the many ‘currants’ who flew away to settle elsewhere, perhaps on the patra ni macchi.
Columnist’s statutory warning
Reading this piece may be injurious to your appetite for lagan nu bhonu.
(But so far Parsiana staff has survived and even relished the repasts — editors)
Berjis M. Desai, Senior Partner of J. Sagar Associates, advocates and solicitors, is a writer and community activist.