bread, butter, books | an essay for papercuts

plump pierogi fried in goose fat, krakow

my essay on 'bread, butter, books' was published in volume 17 of papercuts magazine with the theme 'appetite'. it is about first tastes and travel and about how real and imagined foods coincide in experience. papercuts is a biannual literary magazine established by desi writers' lounge. desi writers' lounge provides a platform for aspiring south asian writers. volume 17 of the magazine explores 'appetite' and is guest edited by novelist and playwright anita nair. this is an excerpt - 

"the discovery of fictitious worlds and meals coincided with an awareness of how my family was different. my maternal grandparents, who have polish and kashmiri origins with english leanings, met in london at university and spent the first decade of their marriage in wales. i realised that there were stories and memories associated with the things that i ate. it was our kitchen table that gave colour and substance to my mixed heritage. my school day breakfasts of a soft boiled egg cradled in an egg cup to be eaten with buttered toast or pancakes drenched in orange juice and dusted with sugar were very different from the ‘fried anda and paratha’ of my classmates. my school lunch of soft white buttered bread with crimson strawberry jam contrasted with the meaty whiff of their shami kebab sandwiches."

read the full essay along with visuals of my food memories in volume 17, papercuts

home cooked italian meals

thursday night in turin, i’s mum cooks dinner for us. to start with there is a moreish artichoke soup with a small dense pasta and crusty bread. i love the informal dining culture in italy where bread sits on the table cloth and it doesn’t matter if there are crumbs. the second course was really tender and finely minced beef wrapped in savoy cabbage along with a side salad of chicory, walnuts, raisins and oranges dressed with olive oil. the sharp taste of chicory was made mellow with the fruitiness of orange and raisins. the walnuts added a nutty oily taste. for dessert there was home baked caramel custard and plenty of muscat to end on.

on a sunny saturday afternoon we drive up to asti to lunch with ray. an extended lunch starts with dates, flattened and stoned, topped with mascarpone and a walnut. a refreshing salad of oranges, peeled and cut into rounds, dressed with a fruity olive oil, pepper and orange follows the dates. the first course was lasagne. i haven’t had such an excellent lasagne since my mum’s in a little over a decade. dessert was an assortment of almond paste pastries – pignoli are balls of almond paste rolled in pine nuts and pistachio’s, discs of paste topped with flaked blanched almonds and cannoli, a bottle of muscat with cantucci and vin santo.

hobbs

on our arrival in turin, i and s take us to hobbs. on my previous trip we had been there for lunch with i. this time we were there for an oddly timed breakfast/coffee. i has followed the changes and relocations of this eatery faithfully since the time she was a child (including its name changes).

hobbs is warm, with soft yellow lighting and simple furniture. a large glass display holds the days dolce. there are cakes, muffins, croissants, tarts and biscuits. i runs us through the options but in predictable fashion we order the pear and chocolate cake. o decides on the orange. with that i have a cappuccino, i and s tea and o has some kind of a rich coffee with chocolate and hazelnuts.

the pear and chocolate cake is incredibly moist and melts in the mouth more like a soufflé or molten cake. long slices of pear run along the centre of the cake and add a fruity sweetness to the chocolate. o’s orange cake is equally good. the orange is strong and fresh against the denseness of the cake. in italy i never have to sugar my cappuccino. there is perfection in the roasting and making of the coffee that does not lead to a strong slightly better aftertaste. so the sweet of the cake was undercut by a really well made cappuccino.

it was a good way to start our stay. [and at least this time i didn’t twist my ankle on the way out from hobbs like last time].

via cavour| 22| 10073 ciriè| turin (piemonte) | italy

nonna's baked fish

nonna's food in torino

eating i’s nonna’s cooking is a real treat and one that i was really looking forward to. on friday night we went to hers for dinner. nonna had dispensed with the traditional courses and was not quite pleased. as far as o and i were concerned it wasn’t really an issue, partly because we aren’t italian and partly because i cannot manage to eat antipasti, primo, second, contorno and dolce without feeling like my stomach is exploding.

we started on two antipasti – a salad of octopus, prawns and small diced potatoes dressed in a green sauce made of garlic, parsley and olive oil and ‘acciughe in carpione’. the latter is lightly floured and fried anchovies in a marinade of olive oil and white wine vinegar, thin roasted potatoes, onions softened in olive oil and garlic. the marinade is good soaked up with crusty white rolls which nonna had placed on the table alongside our glasses and plates

our second course is whole baked fish. there is much deliberation about the fish used. i is sent to fetch a rather voluminous and old dictionary which helps us establish that the fish is ‘dentice’ (we later corroborate this from a food encyclopaedia we see at eataly in asti) and then some further googling by me leads to the discovery that the italian dentice is known as sea bream in the uk. to return to the fish. nonna had baked it with butter and herbs stuffed in the cavity of the stomach. there was a contorno of spinach with pine nuts.

the funniest part of the meal is the dolce. i’s mother had roasted chestnuts and made a fresh custard to go with it. nonna and i’s mum had the mithai i bought from ambala – two kinds of ladoo’s, a balo shahi, pera and some barfi. we finished our meal on a homemade liqueur called vov which is really a concentrated zabaglione. absolutely delicious!

ristorante Vo torino

vo would be a more comfortable fit in london or new york. in turin, its ultra modern decor with bright lighting is in stark contrast to turin’s other eateries that have dim lighting and soft earthy and beige tones. but where its decor may be modern its food is traditional. o and i both settled for the traditional menu which came highly recommended by i’s dad.

the chef’s compliments were a ball of raw meat with a little salt, some lemon and rocket leaves dressed with olive oil. accompanying this was bread, small rounds of white bread some of which were flecked heavily with rosemary and grissini. 

we started on ‘vitello tonnato’, an appetiser of veal and tuna sauce. the presentation was simple and flawless: four thin slices of lightly seared veal folded into half with a smooth tuna sauce in their fold on one side, and a line of rocket leaves on the other. there was complete silence on o’s and my side of the table, a testimony to the flavour in the food. our first course was a traditional ravioli ‘agnolotti with sugo d’arrosto’. served in quintessential shallow pasta bowls, these were small little squares of fresh ravioli with a meat stuffing. they glistened in their coat of roasted meat sauce which stained them to a brown.

the second course was ‘stracotto with mashed potato’; a large medallion of beef slow cooked for ten hours in a red wine sauce. it was served on a bed of mashed potatoes with a stalk of rosemary. the meat had a glossy darkened skin and a full intense flavour. the sauce was a dense red wine with a slightly molasses edge.

to finish, we had the chef’s version of a gianduja bar which was a thick chocolate bar shaped dessert, coated with a glossy dark chocolate with a centre of a nutty gianduja mousse and a thin vanilla custard. gianduja is turin’s ultimate chocolate and therefore a perfect end to a traditional menu. o’s dessert had him so transfixed that he could barely speak.

via andrea provana| 3/d| torino

very fishy

the remains of satisfaction = zabaione & italian hot chocolate

a mountain lunch

i am at i’s mountain house today in ormea. here the kitchen is the heart of the house. our afternoon meal borrows from last nights left over’s – cold tongue and a ‘zuppa di legume’ and ‘friselle’. for the first course i’s mum has put together a soup of legumes. it is thick, hearty and wholesome – a smattering of legumes, red, black and borlotti beans, chick peas and some brown lentils and quinoa in a seaweed flavored broth. it comes served in shallow bowls with a drizzle of olive oil on top.

after the soup we have friselle, a summery salad of tomatoes, basil and really good olive oil on moistened bread. friselle resemble bagels split around their middles and baked till they are very hard. because of this they have to be moistened in a bowl of water before they can be eaten. before putting them in water they are rubbed with a clove of garlic. friselle should only be moistened to the point that they are slightly soft; the bread should retain its shape and not disintegrate at all. i had halved cherry tomatoes, tossed then in olive oil and roughly torn basil leaves which were piled onto the bread.  to finish off, we ate last night’s tiramisu and went off for a walk to build an appetite for the night’s meal.

nonna's cooking

there are three generations of women at the table – vociferous and full of life. there is incessant translation from italian into english and vice versa. here is a sketch of a meal prepared by nonna, i’s grandma.

on the hob is a silver saucepan in which i mixed full cream milk into mashed potatoes, the heat reducing them to a perfect creamy consistency. in the pot behind that is home made pasta known as trofie being done to al dente in water at a furious simmer. on the counter sits a bowl of jewel green pesto along with grated parmesan. much as we all would have loved to take our meal in the kitchen i’s grandmother has taken out dinner china and set the table in the dining room. i’s grandmother has catered specially to my needs by making a tuna salami which is to be eaten with the home made mayonnaise that i’s mother had just made before coming. for i, there is tongue. i watch nonna take the boiled tongue and peel it carefully to reveal a dark reddish brown meat.

when the pasta is done i drains it reserving a couple of tablespoons of the water in which it was done to mix into the pesto. the drained trofie is placed in a shallow serving dish; the pesto is mixed in with a generous number of tablespoons of fresh parmesan. this is our first course for the night. dinner discussion at this point is about the etiquettes of eating bread with pasta. i’s grandmother uses it to secure the pasta on her fork. i’s mother maintains that bread is to be used to catch the remains of the pesto but only with the use of a fork. i and i rather unceremoniously use a piece of bread and wipe our plates clean.

the second course is boiled tongue accompanied by fluffy mashed potatoes and tuna salami (a roll of tuna bound with potato and spread liberally with home made mayonnaise). now i am not a tongue eater. or not at least in pakistan where the meat is a pallid color and looks far from cosmetically appealing. nonna’s tongue is far from that. it is a beautiful brick red and sliced like a roast. feeling adventurous (as well as well intentioned) i decided to sample some. i retrieved her camera to have a kodak moment of my first tongue tasting. the tongue tasted sublime, rich and meaty and tender together with the comfort of mashed potato.

a short pause after the second course led us to dessert - fresh strawberries dipped in sugar and an oblong cocoa powder dusted tiramisu. the strawberries were the soul of summer, sweet and flavorful, good even without the sugar. the tiramisu was in a league of its own. layers of light mascarpone and sponge fingers soaked in coffee and rum finished with a dusting of sweetened cocoa powder. it was heaven on a plate.