This morning i received a forwarded whattsapp message from a friend who is enjoying her current posting in Myanmar. It had the ever so popular Ekla Chalo Re composition sung by Ms Shreya Ghosal. And as the music played the immortal words of Guru Rabindranath Tagore flashed by. Few if not all meaningful eternally relevant words by Tagore flashing on the screen as the song played. Jodi tor dak shune kyu na ashe tobe ekla cholo re
Currently i am wanting to focus on one of those words.
'' The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence. "
The week that was had many special dates. 7th May being one. It is celebrated by one and all and there are simple gatherings where the birthday of Guru Rabindranath Tagore is celebrated and his compositions sung.
So here i am listening to'' Jodi tor dak shune kyu na ashe tobe ekla cholo re...'' Translation: If nobody responds to your call, then you move forward. My blogging may or may not be consistent with Guru's immortal words but this is what i have to say today. My mind having flashes of it's own of this peaceful nestled amidst forest, a region in the Doars of India called Alipurduar.
Some of us have the habit of making sweeping generalized statements. Like this one that if ever there was a food crisis the Chinese as a race will emerge because they would survive. They can eat anything and everything that moves. There is no scientific validity about that 'if' barring the fact that nature has a way of dealing with things and in nature either the species evolve or get obliterated. After all it is a survival of the fittest planet, this earth. i suppose that nature has a way of maintaining balance or for even providing if things go haywire.
For quite sometime now i have had strange food cravings. This was way before the lockdown. i remember telling my friends about my strange cravings. Biological Science has an explanation to 'Senior Citizen' cravings.
i don't know if that science has explanation for what i am having. Cravings that are not only sudden but also consistent. Most of us are quite familiar about expectant woman cravings and maybe science has research papers to explain that too. For those women who are 'expecting' the cravings might not only be for sweets but it could differ. Some crave sweets, some have cravings for salty or that which is sour. Talking about craving reminds me of that particular scene in the Bollywood movie 'Salaam Namastey' where pregnant Amber/ Amby Malhotra (Preity Zinta) has a sudden craving in the middle of the night to have nothing but Ben &Jerry's Belgian Dark Chocolate icecream. i have known friends who have wanted to eat Paani Puri or Chaat items all of a sudden when they were pregnant. When i was expectant with my first i craved crisp Jalebis and warm Gulab Jamuns.
Past one year or so i have realized these sudden cravings to have returned with vengeance and now as in today cravings are quite frequent for primitive and simple foods. Some that don't involve cooking at all but just mixing the available ingredients. Adding this and that and food is all ready to fulfill. Really don't know if Biological Sciences can explain post menopausal strange food cravings.
One thing i request for whosoever reading this is to understand that my cravings are not for what society has labelled as 'poor man's food'. Food is survival and it is none of our business to brand food as 'rich' or 'poor'. Hunger cows men and can make us eat whatever.
i was not born of pauper, begging parents nor am i lacking anything now. It's just that i am myself nonplussed as to how my mouth salivates at the thought of what i don't see but have known in fragments. A memory here and an experience there. Primitive because i don't see anyone talking about those foods what to talk of making them or eating them. Although there is not much making involved only assembling things and custom mixing them to suit the taste buds just as it is of so many delicious Indian snacks for example Bhelpuri. Primitive foods because my understanding so far of pre gas stove era or any stove era for that matter is that getting the cooking fires lit itself was a major task which was accomplished eventually nonetheless for all that must involve cooking ( frying, boiling...). Food for breakfast generally then were the initial fast foods, mostly leftovers from the previous night eaten with a ready made pickle or onion or perhaps even jaggery if the need arose.
During this period of lockdown people are forced for reasons best known to us and them of making do with whatever is available and there is a sudden boom of food videos be it on instagram or facebook or even whattsaap apart from very-depressing-to-me workout videos. But strange it may sound i wouldn't be interested in any of those food videos. Needless to say then that i delete the work out videos even without seeing them. i have urges of my own and who knows the universe might get the vibrations generated by my urges and provide me with videos that i seek. These days i roam the internet lapping in all the information about all the hitherto overlooked edible leaves and flowers that exist around us and just a few days back i was amazed to God's glory to read about Edible Dandelions. Yesterday i felt thrilled to forage edible purslane called noniya (Hindi) which had appeared naturally in my flower pots. Also enjoyed cooking it with Bengal lentils called Chana Dal . Decided to make a simple dry veggie dish mixing potato if more Noniya Saag appeared naturally in my flower pots.
i once called up a friend just to know what she was cooking because i had exhausted my own ideas and wanted easy vegetarian recipes. Secretly i wished my folks at home to mirror my own cravings and i think an epiphany of sorts was constantly happening regarding food.
Just like every other thing food is so personal and tastes undergo evolution too.
One cannot force one's tastes on another.
Everybody has their own cravings which could be based on their own memories of food that once was and is no longer easily available.
Only little babies, the old and sick eat without fussing and shaming food... .
Yeah more truths emerged. i have listed just a few.
i have waited for just Saag &Bhaat posts and posts showing Maand Bhaat & Aloo Chokha.
Taste buds have undergone massive changes too and i think just like my Bitmoji avatar on my phone whatever we come across as healthy eating feels somewhat like a Bitmoji avatar. i did not come across what in the village i had once, a potpourri of sorts of the leftover cooked rice of the previous night. The leftover rice that remained in the container in which it was cooked and doused with some fresh water as if to soak the already cooked rice !
Early morning that rice mixed with ingredients like mango pickle spices, green chillies and raw onions ! My original first indigenous fast food breakfast. No cooking shooking just some chopping of raw ingredients and mixing them happily with the same amount of affection as one would happily cook.
Eating this eating that also has a fashionable status associated so much i have experienced. Chinese, Thai, Lebanese, Mexican and of late Sushi....then things have gone further and even more complicated. There are vegans and probably more 'ans' quite justifiably so. From oats to olive oil to exotic multi grained breads, red rice, black rice and recently quinoa pronounced keen-wa...
Not surprising when Gods could be in and out of fashion then why not food. First Natraj, then Ganesh and these days Buddha in all possible postures. Be it Food or Gods who are supposed to provide food, both can't escape 'trending now' status.
My cravings being consistent i eagerly look for veggies that i could forage. Eating all kinds of edible greens with plain boiled white rice and freshly cut onion quarters. Not a salad which is a mix of cucumber, onion, carrots, tomatoes, radish and whatever one possesses... just plain onion quarters.
It forces me to think however that everything happens for a purpose and in order to satisfy my cravings, the cosmic forces in nature created situations which took me to a place where foraging for food is a common sight. West Bengal. Maybe not in the metro cities but small towns far from metros, not heard of generally foraging in the wilderness even, is indeed a common sight. That is if the food to be cooked is not to be found in the makeshift kitchen garden or nearby pond. Most individual homes have an area where vegetables or a couple of fruit trees grow, Banana clump a must and maybe guava or mango or any other and every few houses share a pond where one could forage for all kinds of the much loved fish.
My learning regarding healthy and sustainable eating reached new frontiers and i could acknowledge the amount of wasteful consumption that i have been indulging into all along. Bengali cooking has a perfect recipe to use the discards effectively. Delicious simple recipes for Cauliflower stalks, potato/bottle gourd peels, the thick stalks of greens that generally go to the dustbin, leaves of vegetables, flowers and buds of certain vegetables, even the tendrils you name it and all can be cooked into one yummy treat that not only satisfies the craving for primitive food palate but also indulges the soul. It's a feeling i can't describe. Eating and imagining all the vitamins, minerals, roughage reaching the various parts of the body which is famished for those providing not only nourishment but healing too. The essentials reaching even the brain which has a mind. The mind feeling blessed, feeling joy of yet another kind. Awe mixed with the thrill of discovering foods that exist all around us and will help us survive if only we cared enough to know them.
Food taken care of by nature and indeed not planted by humans but others. Birds/bees/ insects/animals all playing interconnected parts in that. From pollination to germination to seed dispersal and finally as being organic fertilizers that enrich the earth again. No wonder then i was healed from much of the pain i was suffering from. i felt healed inside out.
Today as i foraged and found flowers of pumpkin to make as fritter, a special treat for my craving palate i am posting a borrowed from you tube video which will not only show the recipe but also tell about the foraging for food sight i talked about.
It tugs my heart when i recollect the images. The 'Mothers' in taant sarees some wearing pola shakha bangles and others without picking 'stuff' from the green patches by the sides of the road, lurking and looking around near the boundary walls/fences searching and picking up the choicest leaves, collecting them in the makeshift pouch made in the overlapping folds of the taant saree ....
True it is when they say that when it has to happen things will automatically happen. We have no way of controlling what we need or when we need. Thanks to my husbands' posting in that particular region which falls under West Bengal i was in the right place at the right time to know that during one such occasion and i am forgetting if it was Bengal Nobo Borsho (New Year) or Bashonto Utsab (Spring Festival) a potpourri of 21 greens is prepared with the most simple ingredients easily available in any Indian kitchen. All one needs is, to raid the local vegetable market for most and perhaps forage for the rest. This special dish for the day apart from many other special dishes like crispy fritters made from edible flowers and a delicious paayesh ( pudding) made from aromatic small grained rice and nolen gur ( Date palm jaggery) .
Twenty one types of greens and although i can't remember the names of all than what i already know of spinach, chenopodium, fenugreek, dill, purslane, amaranth- red and green, mustard, drumstick...! Sensing bliss through the palate with plain white boiled rice a bowl full of all kinds of edible greens from nature. Patua saag (Jute) and Dhekia saag (Fern) in that bowl of edible greens, my craving reaching fulfillment and satisfaction. Plain rice with nutritious greens and onion quarters.
What i crave of my village that i once visited as a child was something special too because i remember pickled spices scooped from mango pickle jars also added to this what West Bengal calls Panta Bhaat.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/coverage/pantabhat--well-slept-rice-13162
i am sure most rice producing regions might be having their own versions of Panta Bhaat or Baasi Bhaat.
Not really knowing the real reasons for such cravings to happen has nevertheless not stopped me from having theories of my own validated by my own experience.
a) It is also genetic and,
b) history repeats itself.
i recall my Ma who would cry out in her sleep and crave in her awakened state for Paeda ( Sweet fudge made from thickened milk). i remember being in the final year of graduation then. i also remember Papa taking care of that earnest request when she wanted the Amber-of-Salaam-Namastey-type Paeda and obliging her by getting special Kesariya Paeda ( Sweet fudge having real saffron strands for flavor and color) from Banaras. She is in heaven now perhaps not needing anything and experiencing what saints and seers describe as true BLISS land where one actually is 'wantless' or 'craveless' so as to speak.
Not that i don't miss her otherwise but in this too i can't help but regret not understanding her craving then and all of us poking fun at her. i wish i could go back in time and change that.
From craving Orange Marmalade to craving soupy noodles to the indigenous Bihari Baasi Bhaat, i told you it is getting weirder and weirder!!
Want to say more but i think i must refrain from making more sweeping generalized statements of my own. Will return soon to share my own recipe which took care of my craving. Not many but one which perhaps should be consistent with my own narration of foraging and eating happily.
Also the second Sunday of May i received Mother's Day messages too which instead of uplifting me made me miserable. i missed my Ma not especially on this day or when i have my cravings but always because in all that i do or all that is happening around me i know i have seen before when Ma was physically around.
Currently i am wanting to focus on one of those words.
'' The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence. "
The week that was had many special dates. 7th May being one. It is celebrated by one and all and there are simple gatherings where the birthday of Guru Rabindranath Tagore is celebrated and his compositions sung.
So here i am listening to'' Jodi tor dak shune kyu na ashe tobe ekla cholo re...'' Translation: If nobody responds to your call, then you move forward. My blogging may or may not be consistent with Guru's immortal words but this is what i have to say today. My mind having flashes of it's own of this peaceful nestled amidst forest, a region in the Doars of India called Alipurduar.
Some of us have the habit of making sweeping generalized statements. Like this one that if ever there was a food crisis the Chinese as a race will emerge because they would survive. They can eat anything and everything that moves. There is no scientific validity about that 'if' barring the fact that nature has a way of dealing with things and in nature either the species evolve or get obliterated. After all it is a survival of the fittest planet, this earth. i suppose that nature has a way of maintaining balance or for even providing if things go haywire.
For quite sometime now i have had strange food cravings. This was way before the lockdown. i remember telling my friends about my strange cravings. Biological Science has an explanation to 'Senior Citizen' cravings.
i don't know if that science has explanation for what i am having. Cravings that are not only sudden but also consistent. Most of us are quite familiar about expectant woman cravings and maybe science has research papers to explain that too. For those women who are 'expecting' the cravings might not only be for sweets but it could differ. Some crave sweets, some have cravings for salty or that which is sour. Talking about craving reminds me of that particular scene in the Bollywood movie 'Salaam Namastey' where pregnant Amber/ Amby Malhotra (Preity Zinta) has a sudden craving in the middle of the night to have nothing but Ben &Jerry's Belgian Dark Chocolate icecream. i have known friends who have wanted to eat Paani Puri or Chaat items all of a sudden when they were pregnant. When i was expectant with my first i craved crisp Jalebis and warm Gulab Jamuns.
Past one year or so i have realized these sudden cravings to have returned with vengeance and now as in today cravings are quite frequent for primitive and simple foods. Some that don't involve cooking at all but just mixing the available ingredients. Adding this and that and food is all ready to fulfill. Really don't know if Biological Sciences can explain post menopausal strange food cravings.
One thing i request for whosoever reading this is to understand that my cravings are not for what society has labelled as 'poor man's food'. Food is survival and it is none of our business to brand food as 'rich' or 'poor'. Hunger cows men and can make us eat whatever.
i was not born of pauper, begging parents nor am i lacking anything now. It's just that i am myself nonplussed as to how my mouth salivates at the thought of what i don't see but have known in fragments. A memory here and an experience there. Primitive because i don't see anyone talking about those foods what to talk of making them or eating them. Although there is not much making involved only assembling things and custom mixing them to suit the taste buds just as it is of so many delicious Indian snacks for example Bhelpuri. Primitive foods because my understanding so far of pre gas stove era or any stove era for that matter is that getting the cooking fires lit itself was a major task which was accomplished eventually nonetheless for all that must involve cooking ( frying, boiling...). Food for breakfast generally then were the initial fast foods, mostly leftovers from the previous night eaten with a ready made pickle or onion or perhaps even jaggery if the need arose.
During this period of lockdown people are forced for reasons best known to us and them of making do with whatever is available and there is a sudden boom of food videos be it on instagram or facebook or even whattsaap apart from very-depressing-to-me workout videos. But strange it may sound i wouldn't be interested in any of those food videos. Needless to say then that i delete the work out videos even without seeing them. i have urges of my own and who knows the universe might get the vibrations generated by my urges and provide me with videos that i seek. These days i roam the internet lapping in all the information about all the hitherto overlooked edible leaves and flowers that exist around us and just a few days back i was amazed to God's glory to read about Edible Dandelions. Yesterday i felt thrilled to forage edible purslane called noniya (Hindi) which had appeared naturally in my flower pots. Also enjoyed cooking it with Bengal lentils called Chana Dal . Decided to make a simple dry veggie dish mixing potato if more Noniya Saag appeared naturally in my flower pots.
i once called up a friend just to know what she was cooking because i had exhausted my own ideas and wanted easy vegetarian recipes. Secretly i wished my folks at home to mirror my own cravings and i think an epiphany of sorts was constantly happening regarding food.
Just like every other thing food is so personal and tastes undergo evolution too.
One cannot force one's tastes on another.
Everybody has their own cravings which could be based on their own memories of food that once was and is no longer easily available.
Only little babies, the old and sick eat without fussing and shaming food... .
Yeah more truths emerged. i have listed just a few.
 |
| Kumhror phool : Pumpkin Flower |
Taste buds have undergone massive changes too and i think just like my Bitmoji avatar on my phone whatever we come across as healthy eating feels somewhat like a Bitmoji avatar. i did not come across what in the village i had once, a potpourri of sorts of the leftover cooked rice of the previous night. The leftover rice that remained in the container in which it was cooked and doused with some fresh water as if to soak the already cooked rice !
Early morning that rice mixed with ingredients like mango pickle spices, green chillies and raw onions ! My original first indigenous fast food breakfast. No cooking shooking just some chopping of raw ingredients and mixing them happily with the same amount of affection as one would happily cook.
Eating this eating that also has a fashionable status associated so much i have experienced. Chinese, Thai, Lebanese, Mexican and of late Sushi....then things have gone further and even more complicated. There are vegans and probably more 'ans' quite justifiably so. From oats to olive oil to exotic multi grained breads, red rice, black rice and recently quinoa pronounced keen-wa...
Not surprising when Gods could be in and out of fashion then why not food. First Natraj, then Ganesh and these days Buddha in all possible postures. Be it Food or Gods who are supposed to provide food, both can't escape 'trending now' status.
 |
| Simple stir fried mixed greens |
It forces me to think however that everything happens for a purpose and in order to satisfy my cravings, the cosmic forces in nature created situations which took me to a place where foraging for food is a common sight. West Bengal. Maybe not in the metro cities but small towns far from metros, not heard of generally foraging in the wilderness even, is indeed a common sight. That is if the food to be cooked is not to be found in the makeshift kitchen garden or nearby pond. Most individual homes have an area where vegetables or a couple of fruit trees grow, Banana clump a must and maybe guava or mango or any other and every few houses share a pond where one could forage for all kinds of the much loved fish.
 |
Dhekia:Diplazium esculentum the edible fern |
Food taken care of by nature and indeed not planted by humans but others. Birds/bees/ insects/animals all playing interconnected parts in that. From pollination to germination to seed dispersal and finally as being organic fertilizers that enrich the earth again. No wonder then i was healed from much of the pain i was suffering from. i felt healed inside out.
Today as i foraged and found flowers of pumpkin to make as fritter, a special treat for my craving palate i am posting a borrowed from you tube video which will not only show the recipe but also tell about the foraging for food sight i talked about.
It tugs my heart when i recollect the images. The 'Mothers' in taant sarees some wearing pola shakha bangles and others without picking 'stuff' from the green patches by the sides of the road, lurking and looking around near the boundary walls/fences searching and picking up the choicest leaves, collecting them in the makeshift pouch made in the overlapping folds of the taant saree ....
True it is when they say that when it has to happen things will automatically happen. We have no way of controlling what we need or when we need. Thanks to my husbands' posting in that particular region which falls under West Bengal i was in the right place at the right time to know that during one such occasion and i am forgetting if it was Bengal Nobo Borsho (New Year) or Bashonto Utsab (Spring Festival) a potpourri of 21 greens is prepared with the most simple ingredients easily available in any Indian kitchen. All one needs is, to raid the local vegetable market for most and perhaps forage for the rest. This special dish for the day apart from many other special dishes like crispy fritters made from edible flowers and a delicious paayesh ( pudding) made from aromatic small grained rice and nolen gur ( Date palm jaggery) .
Twenty one types of greens and although i can't remember the names of all than what i already know of spinach, chenopodium, fenugreek, dill, purslane, amaranth- red and green, mustard, drumstick...! Sensing bliss through the palate with plain white boiled rice a bowl full of all kinds of edible greens from nature. Patua saag (Jute) and Dhekia saag (Fern) in that bowl of edible greens, my craving reaching fulfillment and satisfaction. Plain rice with nutritious greens and onion quarters.
What i crave of my village that i once visited as a child was something special too because i remember pickled spices scooped from mango pickle jars also added to this what West Bengal calls Panta Bhaat.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/coverage/pantabhat--well-slept-rice-13162
i am sure most rice producing regions might be having their own versions of Panta Bhaat or Baasi Bhaat.
Not really knowing the real reasons for such cravings to happen has nevertheless not stopped me from having theories of my own validated by my own experience.
a) It is also genetic and,
b) history repeats itself.
i recall my Ma who would cry out in her sleep and crave in her awakened state for Paeda ( Sweet fudge made from thickened milk). i remember being in the final year of graduation then. i also remember Papa taking care of that earnest request when she wanted the Amber-of-Salaam-Namastey-type Paeda and obliging her by getting special Kesariya Paeda ( Sweet fudge having real saffron strands for flavor and color) from Banaras. She is in heaven now perhaps not needing anything and experiencing what saints and seers describe as true BLISS land where one actually is 'wantless' or 'craveless' so as to speak.
Not that i don't miss her otherwise but in this too i can't help but regret not understanding her craving then and all of us poking fun at her. i wish i could go back in time and change that.
From craving Orange Marmalade to craving soupy noodles to the indigenous Bihari Baasi Bhaat, i told you it is getting weirder and weirder!!
Want to say more but i think i must refrain from making more sweeping generalized statements of my own. Will return soon to share my own recipe which took care of my craving. Not many but one which perhaps should be consistent with my own narration of foraging and eating happily.
Also the second Sunday of May i received Mother's Day messages too which instead of uplifting me made me miserable. i missed my Ma not especially on this day or when i have my cravings but always because in all that i do or all that is happening around me i know i have seen before when Ma was physically around.
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