Moveable feasts

The fact that a well-known sports-writer has chosen to write a cookbook-memoir was, to me at least, unremarkable because of the provenance of the author. Boria Majumdar is Bengali and any paid-up Bengali takes an inordinate and fastidious interest in food.

My (partly facetious) complaint is that Majumdar has made an erroneous assumption. As the subtitle of his book suggests, he has predicated it on the notion that all Indian women can cook and, that too, cook as well as our mothers and grandmothers before us. Alas, this is one hereditary skill that eludes many women these days — working women who like to eat but are indifferent and disinterested cooks and are also, like Majumdar, on the run. Now, if his publishers had made this engaging little book more gender-neutral they could well have found an even wider audience.

The author himself is clearly more nervous about this offering than any match analysis he has ever written. No less than two friends have written charmingly friendly forewords. His own introduction, titled “Pre-match Jitters”, is hedged with diffident disclaimers. “It is not the work of a specialist, nor is meant for the specialist. It is the handiwork of an average Indian who loves to eat his own food, and is meant for others like him,” he writes.

The book traces Majumdar’s evolution from a hungry student at Oxford, reeling from burnt French toast and yearning for home-cooked food, to his realisation that knowing how to cook is a healthy life choice. The reason it works for his target audience is precisely because he’s written it from the point of view of the novice. His recipes are encouragingly accessible to the generally ignorant and, barring posto (poppy seed), does not involve unduly exotic ingredients or techniques.

I can vouch for the ease of the first hurdle: “My first chicken curry” (page 23). This wasn’t the first time I’d made one, but the first without the indispensable services of the splendid Bolsts Hot Curry Powder (my tip: the chilli powder in Majumdar’s recipe may be overdoing the spice). I am now encouraged to try “Dimer Devil (Spicy Stuffed Eggs)” next, a Bengali snack that I first tasted watching a cricket match at Eden Gardens.

Majumdar, however, writes with the fervour of the proverbial reformed rake. His book ends on the admonitory note that “cooking is just as fashionable as listening to music or dressing up or partying with passion”. His parting message to young professionals — and, yes, he includes young women! — in the media under the constant pressure of “breaking news” is that cooking is both therapeutic and healthy. If we exclude the point about youth, may I say, point taken.

COOKING ON THE RUN
Author: Boria Majumdar
Publisher: Collins Pages: 177
Price: Rs 250