A dish with a fiction larger than itself

Dal Paturi, a vegetarian delight prepared using split pea dal and oodles of grated coconut took off from a grandmother’s spin a yarn nights to live on in nostalgic recollections

Hindustan Times, Mumbai

Dal Paturi (Photo: Rituparna Das)

There could only be four of us. Thammi, my grandmother, was the non-negotiable fifth. Power being in the hands of the adults, the youngest was pushed out of bed in honour of the biannual guest, me. This was a blanket response to any occasion which required a cutting down on numbers till my summer holidaying in Nabadwip, West Bengal, ended. On such nights, Thammi took tours of her past life, magnifying every facet of her memory to spin, as we came to believe, tales of half-truths. Her stories were part of an alternate reality that her grandchildren took with fistfuls of salt. One such tale was about the then prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi. Apparently, during her election tours in the state, Gandhi visited our place in Shyambaati when Thammi fed her Dal Paturi. Since then, the fiction around it has taken a larger persona than the dish itself.

I confess that I never made any attempts to verify her claims. It is one of those things which if touched are forced to confront the prospect of their own extinction. Mellow but distinct in flavour, this dish requires a fine calibration of timing and temperature. I don’t even remember the last time I had it or even how this dish felt on my tongue, but her stories, yes. A few days ago, I hurriedly made it with the same whimsicality with which Thammi built on stories after stories for her grandchildren at bedtime. This is a dish that lingers on me not for its taste, but for its strange fancy, its warmth, which almost stands in for a hug.

Soak your dal overnight. I have used split pea dal for this recipe as Thammi did. Now, take your trusted blender to make a paste of the soaked dal, two tablespoons of mustard seeds, add as much freshly grated coconut as you like, four or five green chillies, a pinch of turmeric powder and salt as per your taste. Take a banana leaf and carefully char it a little. Brush oil on the leaf and add the paste which you have prepared. Fold the leaf to make a parcel so that the paste does not spill out. Now take a flat bottomed pan, brush it with oil and place the banana leaf parcel on it. Cook each side for about fifteen minutes on low heat. Dal Paturi is ready to be eaten.

Rituparna Das, an assistant professor of English at Muralidhar Girls’ College and a PhD scholar at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, writes about her grandmother’s dish for HT City. Her research is on women authored Bengali cookbooks and food writings in late colonial Bengal. Her relationship with food fuels her passion as a writer and as a hit-and-miss cook.