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Global Village Idiot: How to build a meal around four mushrooms
So, earlier this week, I woke up at 5
So, earlier this week, I woke up at 5.45 one morning, made chai and strolled around the terrace wondering what to rustle up for breakfast for the family since it was my turn cooking. Okay so it wasn’t 5.45, but more like 6.45, maybe even 7.
The chai is an important part of my day. I think I picked up the habit from visiting amrutulyas around Deccan before dawn, during my work as a journalist - I used to be part of the team sending the paper to the press and then waking up to catch the early morning edition at the newsstands. The smell of newsprint is intoxicating. That was a time when I used to live on wada-pav and coffee (about 50 grams of it during the day). But early mornings were always “chaha” at an amrutulya. Now, I am learning to brew a potent ginger chai and usually have three-and-a-half mugs of it within the first two hours of waking up. It’s rocket fuel.
As usual, I went up to the terrace and started pacing around. The koel came calling at 7.15 and cooed some ideas. A couple of chatty parrots squabbled about their day’s plans as they flew by, while a tiny, deep-blueish sunbird hovered around the railing, waiting to see if I would go away and let her set for a while. Eventually, the sunbird decided to set down on the railing and contemplate since I was pacing around minding my own business. I used to think mynahs were noisy but I realised I was confusing their sounds with that of the parrots. Parrots are really noisy, like cacophony noisy.
We reside in Baner. Till even a decade ago, Baner was a rural, agrarian society. In the past five years, it’s been on a development roadmap as an urban suburb and in the past two years it’s moved up rapidly onto a cosmopolitan hub roadmap.
There’s a lot of greenery in Baner as also a few fields growing vegetables. We have a tiny sugarcane field around our vicinity as well. It’s oddly comforting to watch the cows work the fields, munch on their feed and rest under a sturdy tree when the sun rises high. It’s expected that you’ll find a banyan, mango, or neem tree at regular intervals apart from the gulmohar and even an odd cherry blossom. Papaya trees abound in Baner as do wild tulsi plants.
And so, it isn’t unusual that the birds have stayed in this locality in spite the rapid development of building complexes. I have been working or living in this area for almost two decades now. Baner and Balewadi are erstwhile villages which are often loosely clubbed as Baner in urban speak. Mhalunge (on the other side of the Pune-Mumbai highway) is also often considered as an extension of the emerging Baner urbanscape mostly by builders probably because it allows projects to aim for higher rates. One of the areas I hope city newspapers and portals focus on is the development of grassroots journalism from these emerging suburbs of Pune.
My regular morning routine is the same most days. Though I admit that it is much easier to listen to the birds without the blaring of horns from the incessant traffic of vehicles. Our regular visitors include bulbuls, sunbirds, mynas, koels, parrots, pigeons, crows, among others. We also get a lot of hummingbirds and sparrows as well. I like crows a lot, because they are always up for a conversation tilting their heads to the side to listen to what I have to say. The birds start yapping just before dawn and head out of their trees around 6.30-7. Then they return just before dusk, flying in from all directions and again, they rest a few minutes on the railings, exchanging notes.
Coming to think of it, their day sounds pretty much like mine.
Some days my days are also like that of the bats that abound around Baner. Yep, bats. At dusk when the day birds are returning home, the bats head out into the horizon. By the hundreds. Well definitely by the dozens. They are majestic beings, flying languidly, their wingspan an awesome sight as they fly overhead. And so it is on some days that my day begins at dusk and I work through the night till dawn.
So, what did I cook finally? Well, I usually cook with what I have. And what I had that day was mushrooms. I love mushrooms. In the past few years Pune has seen a sort of mini startup revolution in the organic farming industry, including mushroom cultivation. I remember a February 2022 report that predicted that global mushroom consumption is forecasted to grow to 20.48 million tonnes by 2026. I am not sure how much Pune consumes but we as a family eat up to a kilo of mushrooms a week (about 5 boxes of button mushrooms or oyster mushrooms). I know a couple of people who are thinking about getting into mushroom farming as a couple of others who are already into it. That’s how I learned that the Maharashtra government apparently provides 30% or more subsidy to mushroom cultivators. One of my favourite walks in Pune is the Deccan, FC road, Agriculture college, SPPU to Baner route. A detour towards Mahatma Phule Agricultural college on a lazy day is how I learned that they conduct research and also provide training related to mushroom cultivation.
But getting back to breakfast, I am lazy when it comes to going out to run errands and so I had been holding on to these two boxes of fresh mushrooms I got last week. Sadly, that morning I had only four left. That’s right four mushrooms. Soup, stir fry, mixed vegetables, side dish with roast chicken, buttered sauté were all done last week. I figured I had to use the mushrooms for a breakfast and went looking in the refrigerator and the first thing I saw were eggs. So, the decision made itself and after slicing up a spicy bhavnagari chilly (the long Jalapeno type), a tomato, and grating some cheese, those four lone mushrooms made three very fluffy and rustic omelettes - and such omelettes are a wholesome meal by themselves.
Some times when you have four mushrooms, you can make an omelette without any philosophical twists.
Mukherjee, author, learning-tech designer and management consultant, is founder of Mountain Walker and chief strategy advisor, Peak Pacific. He can be reached at thebengali@icloud.com
