Sweet Memories

Some of my earliest childhood memories are to do with Indian sweets. My eyes would widen as I peeked into the clear cellophane of the box... slowly peeling off the sellotaped sides...the creaking of the box, and then a inhaling the heady sweetness of the Gulab Jamuns. 

I remember my mother sending me to the sweet shop in the early morning on Diwali, Raksha Bandan and other festivals to buy boxes of sweets for my family. I also remember queueing up for almost half an hour because year after year I would be late to the shop. I'd edge closer to the counter, my eyes on the Patisa, Ghajar ka Halwa or Rasmomali and clutching the paper that my mother sent me with. (If I got it wrong and brought home undesirable sweets they would lay untouched and unloved on a plate for the rest of the evening.) 

Motichoor Laddu are always a hit

On Friday evening I attended the wedding reception of my very good friend. The food was great and everybody on our table really enjoyed the Papadi Chaat, the fish Pakoras and the chicken Biryani. But when it came to dessert there was a few frowns and many murmured "why don't you try this?" coming from the non-Asian members of the table. What is it about Indian sweet dishes that make them unpopular? Could it be the syrup they soak in? the excessive sweetness of one portion? or the unnatural colours of the sweets?

Whatever it is has me baffled. Even now I can't help gazing into the Mithai shop when I walk home, or stopping outside the Jalebi vendor as he squeezes out the squiggly shapes into the hot oil.

Jalebi Glasses

I remember occasions where my mum and I would make Gulab Jamun at home. Oddly, it was near the time we'd make homemade Samosas too (that used to be a tiring week). I can't remember how to make them but I can recall making the balls that my mum would fry and sprinkling dessicated coconut over the top of rows of the brown spheres. They tasted so much better than the store bought ones because you get to pick the juiciest ones, the coconuttiest ones and gobble them up.You might find a squishy lump in a few of the homemade ones too. Mum would pack some fresh Gulab Jamun in Tupperware and send some to my Aunt who lived nearby.

So for me, Indian sweets are a a sign of happiness, celebration and prosperity. Therefore, whenever they are in the house something good has happened. Someone has had a healthy baby, an engagement, wedding invitation, festival or excellent exam results.(Mother, if you're reading this I'm hoping for homemade Gulab Jamun when I graduate.)

The colourful delights of my local Mithai shop

Indian sweet dishes are not contained in just the sweet snack arena either. They come in the form of drinks like Falooda (Vermicelli, rose syrup and jelly) and sweet lassi ( Yoghurt drink). And heavier desserts such as Kheer ( rice pudding), Kulfi (Ice cream) and Jarda ( orange rice).

What really brought me to the topic of sweet dishes is Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. It my one of my favourite books despite being a difficult read. What I enjoyed most about Rushdie's novel was how its detail on memory and food. Other texts such as Nigel Slater's Toast and Alice B Toklas' cookbook examine memory through food but Rushdie does it in the realm of Magical Realism.  When the novels protagonist Saleem Sinai writes down the account of his extraordinary life, from birth until this 31st birthday he focuses on the unreliability of memory. My own memory is laughable and like that of a goldfish but taste and smell are often great triggers of memory. Taking you back to your Mother's freshly fried Gulab Jamun or smell of the Barfi sizzling in the microwave.

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. My copy was published by Virago in 1995.

Smell is one of the central themes in the novel. The protagonist, Saleem Sinai, is blessed with a large nose. 

On Aadam Aziz, the nose assumed a patriarchal aspect. On my mother it looked noble and a little long-suffering; on my aunt Emerald, snobbish; on my aunt Alia, intellectual; on my uncle Hanif it was the organ of an unsuccessful genius; my uncle Mustapha ,made it a second-rater's sniffer; the brass monkey escaped it completely; but on me- on me, it was something else again. But I mustn't reveal all my secrets at once.(14)

Rushdie links the nose to the whole family adding continuity to the storyline; it adds a linear aspect to a convoluted story. The reader can trace the family tree through the family nose. It is Saleem's nose which is one of his identifying aspects even though he is not the biological grandson of Aadam Aziz. The novel has recently been adapted to film and I include an interview with Satya Bhabha who plays Saleem.  Skip to 1:35 for Satya's explanation of the famous nose.

Saleem Sinai is a cook and a writer. His memory is inextricably linked with food, he explains to Padma his fiancee that

"Things- even people- have a way of leaking into each other...like flavours when you cook" (38)

The role of the cook and the writer are inextricably linked in Saleem and he is aware of this. He consciously considers himself as preserving his memories like pickles:

"And my chutneys and Kasaundies are, after all, connected to my nocturnal scribblings- by day amongst the pickle-vats, by night within these sheets, I spend my time at the great work of preserving.Memory, as well as fruit, is being saved from the corruption of clocks.(38)  

For me Midnight's Children is a novel of education. The reader has watched Saleem grow from an innocent boy into a crumbling man. His relation to food is like his relation to writing: it nourishes, preserves and it has an array of ingredients. In the last chapter of  Midnight's Children  Rushdie exemplifies this when Saleem tastes a chutney that transports him back to his childhood.

"One of the blind waitresses brought us a congratulatory, reviving meal. On the thali of victory: samosas, pakoras, rice, dal, puris; and green chutney. Yes, a little aluminium bowl of chutney, green, my God, green as grasshoppers...and before long a puri was in my hand; and chutney was on the puri; and then I had tasted it, and almost imitated the fainting act of Picture Singh, because it carried me back to a day when I emerged nine-fingered from a hospital and went into exile at the home of Hanif Aziz, and was given the best chutney in the world...the taste of the chutney was more than an echo of that long ago taste- it was the taste itself, the very same, with the power of bringing back the past as if it had never been away..." (456)

In Rushdie's lingering style, he describes how the memory is stimulated through the senses. I have previously had this experience with a semolina Halva called Karah. Karah is a delicious, sweet buttery dish whose butter seeps between your fingers when it is given to you at the temple and is rare eaten in the Kumar household. (In fact, I only remember eating it in the house once. It is packed full of calories.) 

Part of the reason why I love Karah is that it only tastes good at the temple. It is hot, soft and it melts in your mouth better that the cheesiest Wotsit. Maybe it tastes so good because it has been touched by the hand of God? Or maybe it tastes so good because the volunteers at the temple go heavy on the butter and sugar. Either way, whenever it finds its way in my hands I am transported back to a simpler time.

Karah is ridiculously easy to make (which is why my mother recommended it to me) and takes under 10minutes. It requires Semolina, sugar, butter and cashews/almonds if you like nuts. All you do it heat some butter, stir in some semolina, and nuts and then tip some sugar in the pan too. SIMPLE.

I tried to do a healthy version of Karah and skimped on the butter and sugar. Instead of being a golden brown mushy rush back to my childhood, it was health conscious failure. There was no trickling butter, no flashbacks and LOTS leftover.

Me and my brother, Sanj. "One for you, two for me"