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After his mother Mary Narielwala, home cook and reportedly a renowned hostess in the 1950s and 60s, passed away in 1981, son Adi and his cousin Hilla Maitra were sorting through Mary’s possessions when they came across a notebook covered with red paper. Hilla "kept it aside… she said ‘you don’t need to know about it,’” Adi told the audience at the launch of From the table of Mary S. Narielwala: A perspective on Parsi cooking at the reception room adjoining Gallops Restaurant on August 23, 2019.  Compiled from the red-covered notebook, this volume is Adi’s tribute to his mother’s culinary expertise. Edited by family friend, home cook, marketing consultant and coordinator of the annual Kala Ghoda Festival Nicole Mody, who "made all the recipes in the book, at least twice,” the book is her way of remembering "Mary Aunty.”
Adi, a consultant to a shipping company, said he forgot about the notebook, until a friend asked him for his mother’s Goan Prawn Curry recipe. "Hilla said no (to parting with the book), so I asked her for the recipe for Cold French Bean Salad, and she said no to that too!” Adi shared. "But, these are my mother’s recipes I said, but the answer was still no!” he narrated. "Having eaten Hilla’s saas ni machhi I did not pursue the matter further,” said Adi, much to the amusement of family and friends present. After Hilla passed on, Adi looked through Hilla’s belongings with yet another cousin Khershed Powvala and found the red recipe book, with the pages for the Cold French Bean Salad torn off. "So that has gone into cold storage forever, but thanks to Nicole you can all enjoy the other recipes,” stated Adi.
Mody’s brother, Darius Madon, sous chef at Tresind, a Bandra Kurla Complex eatery, was her cohort in trying out the recipes. "Our favorite day was when we made about 10 different pies,” smiled the chef. "I did not realize how much cheese, milk and cream would go into a single dish back in the 1960s… It is never too late to learn that a perfectly good sauce can be made with simple ingredients like grated cheese, vinegar or even ketchup,” he stated. "Ingredients and styles of cooking were different back then… we had to make a few variations… one recipe called for 56 chillies with two kilos of meat…we have modified that in the book,” he noted.   

Speaking to Parsiana at the sidelines of the launch, Madon said, "You cannot cut off essentials like oils and fats from your diet entirely.” And even if one is watching the food one eats, "we all want to have our cheat days… but yes, the book is for ‘everyday cooking’… it is not a book of only Parsi recipes. It is all about rich food developed by one Parsi lady.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The bearer sounded the dinner gong, ubiquitous in every Parsi household, when the clock struck seven. The family would await the knell (sic) and troop out from various rooms in stately assemblage.” This sums up editor Nicole Mody’s view of Parsi cooking and entertaining in the 1950s and 60s, when Mary Narielwala, mother of family friend Adi, was reportedly a well-known hostess, renowned for her meticulous planning of menus and guest lists.  Designed and conceptualized by Mody jointly with Adi, the book, divided into Appetizers, Sides and Salads; Pies and Bakes; Mains; and Desserts, attempts to perpetuate Mary’s home cooking with over 65 recipes from her collection of over 100. Mary, we are told, "valued the secrecy of (her) recipes over the fame of being featured” in that Bible of its times, The Time and Talents Club Recipe Book. Both Mary and her husband Shapur, a commercial director in the Tata Group loved entertaining and going to the races, Adi told Parsiana.
A mélange of European, British and Goan dishes predominate. The book offers only a handful of typically Parsi dishes, including the old familiars dhansak ("rich dal made with four lentils, vegetables and mutton”) and wafer per eedu. That Mary’s family lived somewhat privileged lives is evident from the soufflés, pate, quiches, schnitzel and Neopolitan ices they consumed. Mody attributes the eccentrically-spelt ‘Baffate’ made with chicken, garlic, vinegar and Kashmiri chillies, among other spices, to Mangalorean cooks "that once graced Parsi homes.” Duck in Wine, Coq au Vin, Scalloped Oyster Bake and Pork Chops in Orange may find favor with those hankering for a taste of the sixties. Expectedly, vegetables get short shrift: they are accompaniments at the very best. We are told that the Allbless Stew (mutton, bacon, peas, carrots, tomatoes and carrots in thick gravy) is a Parsi mainstay and that Kerala-style Fish Molly is "part of what we call Parsi food.”
Mody narrates one particularly quirky anecdote, based on what she was told by a close family friend: In one household, elaborate meals ended with partaking from a bottle of liquid paraffin (sic) "that had emerged with the liveried bearer.” Reportedly, this was drunk "in one smooth movement from liqueur glasses.” 
The recipes in the book created "for family, by family” are interspersed with over 10 pages of uncaptioned black and white photographs of navjotes, weddings, buffet and sit down meals of the Narielwala family and friends. Perhaps a more personal touch could have been provided with captions. Mody’s commentary interspersed between dishes provides an overview of Parsi food as Mary and her peers saw it, with the chapter "The 4th tenet,” according to Mody referring to good food, an allusion to good thoughts, good words, good deeds. A dozen menus prepared by Mary for "Adi’s end of term lunch” or "Buffet dinner for the race course lot” and the like make for interesting reading, harking back to meals of up to 10 courses: a lifestyle that some could have had back then, but few can today.
Since some of the recipes use kilograms and grams as the units of measurement and others pounds and ounces, the conversion table included at the back of the book is helpful. Food styling is credited to Roxanne Bamboat and Zina Mody, while Sharang Patil has taken photographs of the food. Some images of recipes in Mary’s handwritten or typed notes are included. Mody had previously, in 2016, edited flavours of Kala Ghoda – recipes from the art district featuring recipes from restaurants and chefs in and around the heritage precinct.
Will the somewhat elaborate preparation for the Hilsa (a river fish) in bhusa (sawdust, used for smoking) find favor with the millennial who would rather "Swiggy it in?” Will the heavy sauces appeal to people with a penchant for new-age "lean” cooking? As Mody states in her notes: "I have delved into family stories and anecdotes to give you a sense of what food and etiquette used to be like.” So, even if one does not try out the recipes, a flashback into a charmed lifestyle is guaranteed, even for one unaccustomed to being served by Peter the cook or Anton the "boy.”            F. J.