zaphya's food diaries

23, india/ kitchen + thought experiments wrapped in one! find me @ justeggscuses on instagram

[soracities]

“All bread must be broken so it can be shared. Together we eat this earth.”

— Margaret Atwood, from All Bread (via wishbzne)

[seaoflove]

♥️ a love letter to trees:

i think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree (...) a tree that looks at god all day, and lifts her leafy arms to pray …

— joyce kilmer

when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy.

— herman hesse

when I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. i would almost say that they save me, and daily. i am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often. around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “stay awhile.” the light flows from their branches. and they call again, “it’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”

— mary oliver

earth's the right place for love: i don't know where it's likely to go better. i’d like to go by climbing a birch tree, and climb black branches up a snow-white trunk toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, but dipped its top and set me down again. that would be good both going and coming back. one could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

— robert frost

in the revealings of such light, such exceptional hour, such mood, one does not wonder at the old story fables, (indeed, why fables?) of people falling into love-sickness with trees, seiz’d extatic with the mystic realism of the resistless silent strength in them — strength, which after all is perhaps the last, completest, highest beauty. (...) how strong, vital, enduring! how dumbly eloquent! what suggestions of imperturbability and being, as against the human trait of mere seeming. then the qualities, almost emotional, palpably artistic, heroic, of a tree; so innocent and harmless, yet so savage. it is, yet says nothing.

— walt whitman

in some native languages the term for plants translates to “those who take care of us”.

— robin wall kimmerer

we dreamt an orchard this way, furrowing our brows, and hauling our wheelbarrows, and sweating through our shirts, and two years later there was a party at which trees were sunk into the well-fed earth, one of which, a liberty apple, after being watered in was tamped by a baby barefoot with a bow hanging in her hair biting her lip in her joyous work and friends this is the realest place I know, it makes me squirm like a worm I am so grateful, you could ride your bike there or roller skate or catch the bus there is a fence and a gate twisted by hand, there is a fig tree taller than you in Indiana, it will make you gasp. it might make you want to stay alive even, thank you.

— ross gay

[deathvsthemaiden]

this is not our world with trees in it. it’s a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.

— richard powers

[soracities]

the trees constitute a presence. they maintain—each according to its species—an extraordinary balance between movement and stillness, between action and passivity. and in this balance, all the while being regulated, their presence is palpable. that they held up the roofs of houses for so long is not surprising. they offer company.

— john berger, and our faces, my heart, brief as photos

[justeggscuses]

#eidweek day 1 - masoor pulao (pictured alongside a gur thepla cookie hybrid!)

i grew up as that kid who would sit by her mother's side during naandi - i'd aggressively whisper and point at what i wanted, an entirely inappropriate affair, as some baimas were quick to point out.

masoor pulao isn't a uniquely khoja invention, for a quick google perusal offers you a few hundred recipes. this rendition isn't even the kind with mutton kheema - just wholesome pulao with masoor dal (red lentils!). i asked ma, "what is masoor pulao, really?" an inquiry far too vague and inconsequential to interrupt her nap for, but a sleepy momma replied, ever helpful, "masoor, rice, cooked like a biryani." "a biryani? like, with dum?" "yes, and sometimes, there's kheema (mince) of some sort."

there aren't too many cookbooks on "khoja food". cookbooks in india have emerged as means through which dominant caste groups have been successful at asserting their own identity, whilst also offering wistful, poetic representations of the Other (and the food they consume) while laying down "exotic" and "unique" recipes. in an article for the hindustan times, meenakshi iyer describes khoja food as the “lesser-known cousin of bohra cuisine”, “known for the simplicity of its flavours” and that khoja foods “are more liberal” in comparison to its bohra cousin, “just like the community” (hindustan times, 2018). a certain impression of the ismaili khoja is articulated through such constructions, then, especially one from a reliable outsider. The “liberalness” of ismaili khojas will be explored in the next section, where i offer a brief history of the evolution of ismaili khoja identity in contemporary times (as distinct from other variations of present-day satpanthi identity).

[justeggscuses]

eid week - food, identity and the ismaili khojas

This project is an excursion in the study of food - a reflective activity in what is pieced together in our kitchens, what ends up on our dining tables, what seems like a unit of survival but also transcends boundaries of mere sustenance. Food, as a cultural construct, offers impetus for cultural identification, one that allows for selective categorisation - those units of people around us whom are ours, and those who are not, based on what they consume and how much it aligns with our pattern of consumption.

What drew my interest to the study of food, and more specifically, the study of Ismaili Khoja food, was the peculiarity of nomenclature. More specifically, it is the nomenclature of muthiya - one, that if you do a quick Google search, will offer a multitude of recipes and images of green steamed dumplings. The recipe on Tarla Dalal’s website, just three searches in, starts with a description of this dumpling. It is, “a fist-shaped steamed snack that is much loved by the Gujaratis” and “doodhi (gourd) and onions when combined with an apt combination of semolina and flours (...) yield delicious Doodhi Muthias”. The muthiya I’d grown up with, however, looked awfully dissimilar, for what I’ve grown up turning my nose up at, and what my mother has called muthiya, is a particular kind of meat stew from Western India. A stew, and this I realised only two years ago, that is called by a different name by Hindu Gujaratis of Surat - undhiyu. Undhiyu is essentially the same, just without the meat characterising the Ismaili Khoja version of it. A search of “undhiyu” on Google yields a few hundred results - muthiya with meat, and various iterations of that do not lead to a recipe of the dish I’m familiar with. 

I attempt to pose questions regarding identity, fluidity and belonging through this project. Who are the Ismaili Khojas of Gujarat, and how does their historically multivalent identity translate to the kitchen? What about their food is so distinctly “Khoja”? What about their food is so “Gujarati”? In a constantly evolving world, in the light of evolving cultures and essentializing identities, how does food play a role in community solidarity? These are questions that have guided my line of inquiry. 

Documentation of this nature implies a sense of static, immovability of culture. Khoja identity over the past hundred years has evolved drastically.  An oft-used methodology in studying food as a critical method for examining broader sociocultural questions is combining ethnography with a review of historical literature, methods I’ve used as guiding tools for my project.  

Specifically, I’ve attempted a formulation my argument using well established theories from the field, like that of Sidney Mintz’ in his critical study of food and cuisine, Arjun Appadurai’s analysis of cookbooks in India and Tony K. Stewart’s translation theory, which historian Ali S. Asani utilised in describing the evolution of Satpanthi from Khoja (and which I will also build upon in my review of pre-existing literature). I will attempt to highlight the role played by oral transmission of recipes, fluidity of caste identity and the role of rituals as opposed to a recognised coherent cuisine, and their significance in the construction of a distinct Ismaili Khoja cuisine for women of the community, who’ve lived in the cities of Mumbai and Pune, two cities with a prominent Ismaili Khoja population.