Khaana and memories ka khazana

I saw this tag at D's and it tempted me immediately. It asks of you to describe the five most memorable meals you've had. I wrote this post and realized that memorable meals are not about the food alone. They are about the people you eat them with, the people who prepare them, what your senses feel and record of the moment and indeed, about the time of your life when you have them. In chronological order, my top five:

Chaat chaat kar plate saaf kar di, by God: The mohalla where my mother comes from has a halwai at every corner and trips to Nani's house meant being treated regularly to rabdi and samosas and kulhad ka doodh. Clearly, when they said Nani ke ghar jayenge, mote hokar aayenge they meant it literally. Once we went to Nani's house, we were all free birds. We ran from house to house without much supervision. Mom did her own thing, meeting her extended family and friends. So it is surprising that I remember Mom and self trooping off one day to eat chaat at a really obscure shop when I could not have been more than 8 or 10. The shop was a soot-covered affair with an old man sitting at the karhai and frying some delectable looking things. He greeted my mother as if she were a child and asked if he could prepare two plates of his famous chaat. We sat on wooden benches and waited for the man to weave his magic. That chaat, what do I say? I can only hope I can eat it again once in my life, that the shop and the shopkeeper have both not fallen prey to the passage of time. The aloo-tikki was crisp on the outside and soft inside, the dahi was cool, the sonth was perfect, the hari chutney was delectable and the whole thing stayed hot till the last bite. So when I crib about the soggy puris and the ubiquitous hara dhaniya on them, it is for a reason. I have already been to chaat heaven.

Thandi hawaein, paranthe lekar aayein : This was when I was about 14 and in Class IX. Our (sad, sad, sad) school was pretty big on debates but did not have a debating team. For every inter-school debating event, students were asked to prepare and then the best were picked out to represent the school. This may appear to be hugely democratic but in reality, this left the field open for the teacher's pets (clearly, I was not one of them; else I would have called it hugely democratic and left it at that). Now I quite liked the idea of getting on stage and declaiming about this and that till the cows came home and having junta applaud me at the end. So when a school in Mussourie invited us for a Hindi debate, I jumped at the chance. All sorts of politics ensued but I managed to get selected (there is a God and he loves misfit teens). Imagine getting to go out of town for a school event! In my tame life, this was pretty big. When we (the teacher in charge, a classmate and self) arrived in Mussourie, the cold was enough to freeze our teeth off. It was unrelenting. I have spent many years in Dehradun but still, I don't remember the valley ever getting as cold as those few days in Mussourie. It went right through my two layers of sweaters and school blazer and entered my hands and feet and stayed there. Anyway, so we did really well in the debate and I got a prize (not first; else I would have mentioned that, yes?). Suddenly the path to becoming the teacher's pet seemed to be smooth and easy. When we came back to the hotel where we were being put up (that setting I am going to use in a book someday), the teacher asked us if we were hungry. Err, yes, we said shyly. She called one of the hotel staff and asked him what would be available. Aloo parathas, he said. Well, bring them on, she said. When the steaming hot aloo paranthas arrived, they were accompanied by a suspect looking ketchup. I don't know whether it was the kaamyaabi ka nasha, the chattering teeth or the ghostly hotel setting but those aloo paranthas were nothing short of divine.

Papa kehte hain badi bhujiya khayega: In college at Delhi, I stayed with a bunch of girls in PG digs. It's a very common thing to do in Delhi because of limited seats in college hostels and most of the colonies around North Campus are teeming with householders willing to give one or more floors of their houses to students from all corners of the country. Our flat provided us with a kitchen complete with a gas stove and LPG connection but none of the eight residents could cook and the aromas of cooking masalas would emanate from the kitchen only when someone's obliging mother arrived. The rest of the time, we made do with the dabbawallah, as in the food he brought. Burnt rotis, watery daal and the cheapest rice on the market. Apart from ribs that stuck out a mile, we also had people falling ill all the time. Also, because the food was so bad, it was hardly eaten. The rest of the time we snacked on tea (excellent because the tea leaves were real, unadulterated Darjeeling tea leaves that my flatmates got) and bread and aloo bhujiya. I still eat aloo-bhujiya and bread and I still remember those times. We might have been miserable then but through the looking glass of the passage of years, they sure look like the good old times now. The friends I made then, those lovely Sikkimese girls, are my friends even today.

Italian mein pizza ko kya kehta hain: Time took a turn and one moved up in life. Foreign holidays became possible and we ate in many different countries and many different cuisines but food was never really a priority. We often bought bread, cheese and juice from the nearest supermarket and ate when we took a break from sightseeing. The fact is that after we got married, M was in a hurry to show me all the things that I wanted to and he already had - Venus De Milo, The Birth of Venus, Michelangelo's Dying Slave, The Sistine Chapel - not surprisingly, there was not much time or money left to eat. All this changed when we went to Italy. Because we had limited money, we went in freezing winters. We first went to Florence and checked into the small hotel where our room had a view of the Duomo, no less. It was already late in the evening and we were starving. There was a small market nearby and we walked into the first restaurant that we came across. The cook there was a handsome man and after duly winking at me whipped up some zuppa de verdura and margarita pizza that made me want to shift to Italy permanently. Such simple ingredients and yet, what magic those Italians conjure. No, I will never forget my first Italian meal. In Italy, that is. Ever.

Yeh khana kya Alibaug se aaya hai: I think I have written about this before. We went to a resort in Alibaug in June last year. They have a restaurant called Kokum and Spice where we had one of our meals. We were the only guests there, given that the property had barely opened. The chef himself came out to take our order and explained that he specialized in coastal cuisine. Normally when coastal is followed by cuisine, we vegetarians beat a hasty retreat, carrying our sattvik tongues elsewhere but in this case he was convinced that he could feed us and while he was at it, whip up some khichdi for the child. Now I don't know if it was a case of naya-naya mulla going dohra in namaaz or the astoundingly fresh spices that he used but that meal I will not forget till my dying day. What flavours, they just burst in your mouth. The aroma filled your nostrils and entered your heart and made unforgettable memories out of the food. I have been telling Mahesh that we should make a day trip to Alibaug just for lunch one of these days. Let's see how that goes.

What a lovely tag, I say. I could write and write and not get tired. If you are a foodie, you should take this up. Trust me, you'll have fun.