sixty-four courses of vegetarian food, eight varieties of eight different curries. Sixty-four. And then a further eight desserts. Nice. Traditionally served on a banana leaf, dishes are served with almost mathematical precision, each area of the leaf having a designated curry type. One is meant to sit cross-legged on the floor to eat. As the maître d’ and head waiter and sommelier accompanied me to my table, I felt a little self-conscious at the thought of my oversized arse having to somehow negotiate its way floorward. Luckily the hotel had dispensed with that requirement of the Sadhya meal and I allowed the waiter to lay my crisp, white linen napkin across my lap. I appeared to be the only diner in the beautifully appointed dark-wood dining room. The smell of jasmine drifted on the air.
A banana leaf sat before me, nearly three feet wide and eighteen inches in depth. It had already been adorned with mango pickle, mango chutney, salt and a banana. It was like the start of a surrealist food gag. Then the onslaught arrived. Wave after wave of rice, daal, vegetables, more rice, papads, daal, yoghurt, coconut rice, more papads … I don’t know about you, but I can eat loads. Really. Within an hour and a half I was languishing under my own body weight in lentils, yoghurt and vegetables. Languishing, but not yet happily full, not yet content in the stomach department. Finally dessert arrived. Only three of these, each sweeter and richer than the other. I was replete. Good and proper.
I stole myself off to my room. I had planning to do. I had to decide on a meal to cook for the executive chef, Arzooman, and his crack team of sous chefs. I lulled myself off to sleep that night with thoughts of beautifully roasted chunks of lamb in an anchovy and garlic sauce and found myself dreaming about creamy, buttery mash and perfectly seasoned broccoli with a tangy hollandaise sauce.
The following evening I wandered through that same dining room, nodding familiarly to the maître d’, the head waiter and the sommelier. This time I continued past my table and beyond the door that separates the world of the guest from the world of the kitchen. I had been told that I had the run of the kitchen; it was a massive hotel and having read through all the various menus for all the various restaurants and clubs I had appraised myself fairly well of the ingredients available. I couldn’t help but feel nervous. I had no excuses, nowhere to hide. Arzooman knows what good food tastes like. And the thought of being back in a commercial kitchen was both thrilling and terrifying, hampered as I was with English as a first language. That and the fact that I knew all the staff would look at me like some freak of nature.
‘Why does the slightly overweight Sikh man from Britain want to come and cook British food in our kitchen?’ I could almost hear them asking.
I didn’t have a ready answer.
For a moment I’m genuinely not sure why I am here and what I am doing. What do I seek to achieve by cooking for these people? Are they any more likely to understand British life after a plate of my food? Did Glaswegians feel any more knowledgeable about the history and culture of India after a chicken bhuna and a peshawari nan, with a side order of aloo gobi? And it’s not like the food I am cooking will be anywhere near the standard of the food Arzooman cooks. I steel myself, reminding myself that it’s only food. What have I got to lose apart from my credibility, my reputation and my way on a journey that has only just begun. That calms me right down. I head down to the kitchen.
I’m handed a purple apron that clashes terribly with my pink kurta top. My attempt to articulate this fashion faux pas is greeted with stony silence by one of Arzooman’s sous chefs. It’s going to be a long night. And suddenly I realise that Arzooman has dedicated his entire continental kitchen to me: a kitchen completely open to the public gaze, a kitchen where my every mistake can be publicly witnessed. Marvellous.
I remind myself that if this evening goes badly and I manage to cock the whole thing up, lose a finger and poison a commis chef, then I am entitled to plead the defence of valiant failure, repack my wheely case and return to Britain. I explain my quest to Arzooman. He understands that I want to travel the country of my forefathers, that I wish to explore my heritage and free my mind of the preconditioned opinions I had of India as I was growing up. He is also very acutely aware of the tension that exists in my dual identity, but seems perfectly comfortable with my sense of Britishness and Indianness. Perhaps that is because he has travelled much of the world; he trained in Chicago and Switzerland. He knows something of being an outsider. The only thing he doesn’t get is my desire to cook British food.
‘It’s bloody hilarious, man!’ he says after I poke and prod my way through his superficial politeness.
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘Listen, man,’ he explains. ‘These guys, Indians, are obsessed with food, but only Indian food. I cook hundreds of meals here every week and they are mostly eaten by foreigners. Indians rarely come and eat here. Which is fine because we are an international hotel.’
I take a moment and look around the restaurant. It is early, he is right. There are very few Indians eating; and those who are here seem to have ordered from the Indian menu. I’m in trouble. Deep trouble.
This is my first dish in what promises to be a long and winding road through India. The Indians are not well acquainted with British food, less so Scots food. But I have decided that my opening foray into the education of the Indian palate should be something straight out of the heart of my childhood; a plate of food that by its ingredients and history alone tells the story of where I come from, the story of Scotland. I need to be bold, uncompromising, resolute. I must embrace my quest and deliver to Arzooman and his chefs a dish that epitomises all I am, all I hope to be. I will give them stovies.
You’ve probably never heard of stovies. They are utterly delicious – delicious and quintessentially Scottish. It is a peasant dish, said to have come from the gentry handing leftover meat from Sunday lunch to their workers. The workers would then combine this meat with potatoes and onions, frying the mixture in dripping, thereby creating ‘stovies’. This would last them the week, until the next Sunday. Much like my mum and her two pot method. Every Sunday night my mother would cook one pot of meat or chicken and one pot of daal or vegetable. By Wednesday of that week both pots would be almost empty. So on a Thursday evening both pots were combined giving us innovations such as lamb and cauliflower or chicken and daal. This was the two-pot method.
The stovies I grew up eating were mince stovies. Another common thread between the Punjab and Scotland is the combination of mince and potatoes. The Punjabis have keema, curried mince with quartered potatoes, the fl oury potatoes mashing down into the rich, spicy, minced lamb which would then be enveloped in a hot buttery chapatti. The Scots love their mince and tatties. We got stovies at school, once a week on a Tuesday. It was my favourite meal of the week; it was also my elder brother Raj’s favourite meal of the week, because it was the only lunch that was bereft of vegetables.
So I feel stovies somehow speak from both sides of my heritage. And if I am to find myself on this culinary adventure around India I must be bold, uncompromising and resolute. I must be…
But suddenly I am meek, compromising and irresolute. I can’t cook a plate of stovies in a five-star hotel for an internationally trained chef and his team. It would be mental. How could I possibly convey to them the myriad reasons for what is effectively a plate of carbohydrate-heavy brown sludge that tastes of comfort? I can’t do it. So instead I choose to cook something really poncy and European.
I pitch the idea of an Indian pesto to the not-altogether-convinced Arzooman. I explain that while it seems part of my culinary journey is bringing Britain and Europe to India, I am also trying to take a little of India back to Britain and Europe. I choose not to even mention stovies. Instead I suggest a pesto with coconut, coriander and paneer.
‘Coconut, coriander and paneer?’ The stress is all on the question mark. His face is deeply quizzical.
He thinks for a moment.
‘Not paneer, man. It’s too… grainy. Not smooth enough for a pesto.’
‘Oh,’ I respond, trying my hardest to look simultaneously unflustered and knowledgeable. ‘Yeah. Paneer. Too grainy.’
The usual cheese used in a pesto is either pecorino or parmesan. Arzooman doesn’t