The Macaroni that Defined my Sindhi Grandmother's Kitchen
In her grandmother’s kitchen, there ere two one-pot dishes that stood out to Aakriti Mandhwani. One was the Sindhi kadhi, and the other, the humble macaroni.
I’ve lived in only four cities in my entire life.
Delhi: My parents, and I were born here, and my grandparents unwittingly found themselves forced into during the Partition.
London: I didn't think much about what it meant to be living in, and to be from, this city, until I moved to London and lived there. It was quite unlike the fox rabbit and gerua-ridden paradise of Gurgaon my parents moved us to when we were very young.
It was in London that I tried to find food that I didn’t know I was going to miss. While she was alive and able, my dadi, Pammi Mandhwani, made sindhi kadhi. She made it just as frequently as my brother asked for it. My brother thrived on the kadhi, but I suspect he really was after the thick, sugary, sticky toxic-orange coloured boondi — fetched from the halwai — that accompanied the kadhi. Some copious conversation ensued about where this boondi was to come from — was it going to be that shop in Rajinder Nagar market, or was it going to be the Peshawari on Shankar Road?
I left for London in the autumn of 2014. My dadi died in the summer of 2015. A part of her special language of affection and authority, which was cooking, had died some years ago because of an aggressive onset of dementia. In the couple of years leading up to 2015, her husband would attempt to feed her the kadhi, mithe chawar (sweet rice), sai bhaji, koki and other familiar food, by hand. This was perhaps his first (and last) visceral contact with food in relation to her, his wife of more than sixty five years. All her life dadi had eaten only after her husband had.
Food in London became a reminder of home, and of loss. It became the automatic cue with which to mourn my grandmother, who had spent much of her time in the kitchen of a really tiny kitchen in a really tiny house in the refugee colony of Old Rajinder Nagar.
I honour Pammi Mandhwani through two of her signature dishes. One is Sindhi kadhi. The Pammi Mandhwani kadhi, for instance, needed some important components, like fried long bhindi, shelled peas, some cauliflower and, most definitely, some potato. Apart from the crowd pleaser, the Sindhi kadhi, Pammi Mandhwani also loved to make macaroni.
To us, macaroni was as Sindhi as Sindhi kadhi. Dadi learned the dish from a friend of hers. I never asked my dadi questions about the macaroni when devouring it. Dadi’s macaroni was made in a pressure cooker, with salt, pepper, garam masala and tomato. There was no concept of cheese — in any case we only knew Amul cheese. I can still see the macaroni freshly glisten once it emerged from the pressure cooker.
A few years ago during the lockdown, long after dadi had died, I discovered the comforting world of Pasta Grannies on youtube. These pasta grannies were robust, firm, cantankerous and mostly over the age of eighty five, were breaking all the pasta rules that my Italian friends had taught me. Much of this pasta of grannies was rooted in innovation — in prosperity and in pain.
Some historians of food interested in the Sindhi macaroni phenomenon have hypothesised links with itinerant nature of Sindhis. Apparently, Sindhi traders travelling the world bought the macaroni back for their wives to cook with. Other historians of food mark the entry of pasta into Sindhi households through the history of commodity control — pasta was one of the carbohydrates available at the ration shops and Sindhi wives shaped it into Sindhi food. The latter seems more plausible in the case of my pasta granny.
My bua’s recipe for my dadi's macaroni because my mother refuses to provide the recipe (makes 2 generous portions).
RECIPE FOR MACROLI
Ingredients
A cup of elbow pasta
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 small tomatoes
Salt, pepper to taste
Garam masala, to taste
Any odourless cooking oil
Method
Use a cup of generic macaroni elbow pasta of any brand.
In a pressure cooker, sauté a the onion, garlic, tomatoes, salt, pepper and garam masala in generous amounts (or to taste) of any kind of odourless cooking oil.
Add the macaroni and water. Some people also like to add potatoes at this point, but dadi didn’t see any merit in the potato.
Pressure cook to perfection. Perfection equals more wilting pasta, not al dente.
Aakriti Mandhwani is Associate Professor of English at Shiv Nadar University. She is the author of Everyday Reading: Middlebrow Magazines and Book Publishing in Post-Independence India.
ALSO ON GOYA
