Timms - Korma, Kheer and KIsmet: Five Seasons in Old Delhi

ALEPH BOOK COMPANY

An independent publishing firm

promoted by Rupa Publications India

First published in India in 2014 by

Aleph Book Company

7/16 Ansari Road, Daryaganj

New Delhi 110 002

Copyright Pamela Timms 2014

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Aleph Book Company.

eISBN: 9789383064571

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

To Dean, Charlie, Georgia and Fergus

without you there would have been no adventures.

And for my mother,

who taught me the value of eating well.

Contents

Authors Note

Although this book revolves around the events of a particular year, it is also the product of the many more I have spent exploring and eating my way round Old Delhi. Of the almost ten years I have lived in Delhi, it is the times I have spent in the old city which have been my happiest; it is an area that never fails to enchant and amaze me. I did not set out to write the definitive guide to every cart and shack, and I know some readers will be disappointed not to find their own favourites here. To them I can only say that this is an account of my five seasons in Old Delhi, a celebration of both the food that means most to me and the extraordinary people Ive met along the way.

List of Recipes

Every morning the newspapers screamed what we already knewNo Respite for Delhi-ites from Harsh Summer Sun, Delhi Sweats it Out, Power Cuts Worsen in Delhi Summerand we wilted a little bit more. By the end of April, for most of the day, the blazing, dusty streets of our South Delhi neighbourhood were desertedthe only movement an occasional creaking bicycle and slow, yellow snow falling from the laburnum trees. Even the otherwise perennially cheerful and bustling sari-clad fruit sellers sat slumped in the shade with their baskets of mangoes, their fruit turning to mush in front of them. We only saw our neighbours in the early morning when they emerged briefly from shuttered and shaded houses to buy vegetables; they seemed to spend the rest of their time compiling data from meteorological bulletins, which they would share the following day. No relief from heat, said one, taking a seasonal break from advising me on whether to buy aubergine or okra. Monsoon is playing truant.

The great fin-de-sicle Delhi writer Ahmed Ali once described the Delhi summer as the season of unending noon. Now its a time of endless Facebook screenshots of temperatures heading towards fifty degrees centigrade and accompanying descriptions of physical and mental meltdown. Surprisingly, despite this annual thesaurus of scorch, no one ever quite nails the sheer life-sapping feeling of being trapped inside a tandoor for three months of the year.

We tried to beat the heat by getting up while it was still dark, at about the same time as the early morning call to prayer from the mosque on the corner, and by 6 a.m. we were walking our dogs in Lodhi Gardens. Many had the same ideaeven at that hour the parks walking track resembled the Outer Ring Road as hundreds snatched a few moments outside before the daytime air-conditioned purdah. Senior civil servants, trailed by hapless flunkies and their chorus of haan ji, sir ji, marched alongside Lycra-clad runners and ladies in flapping kurtas; youngsters were making the most of the school holidays, playing cricket and football; and the yoga class in the rose garden was in full swing. Near the Bara Gumbad, servants were laying out tablecloths and unpacking picnic hampers from their bicycles for the group of distinguished elderly gentlemen that meets every morning to put the world to rights over breakfast. The park dogs kept a lazy eye on proceedings from the cooling pits theyd dug for themselves, while the flaming tops of the gulmohar trees forecast the discomfort of the day ahead.

One morning we bumped into Mr Lal, a canine-friendly senior civil servant who plies our dogs with treats and is always happy to spend a few moments discussing the weather. The onset of summer seemed to have made him philosophical. The hot weather, he told us, despite driving us to the brink of insanity, was actually a good thing. It develops certain characteristics, he said. With that he plugged himself back into his iPod and power-walked off, leaving us to wonder what he meantprobably fortitude, determination and a backbone as upright as his own. I thought about Mr Lals words one Sunday a few weeks later when I decided the characteristics the summer had developed in me were the first signs of madness.

I was sitting in a tiny meat shop in Sadar Bazaarone of the citys least photogenic spotsas dust, dirt, flies and diesel fumes swarmed in from the street outside and stagnant, fetid air trapped every passing smell, fragrant and foul. The butcher, Mohammed Gulrez Qureshi, was perched on top of the shops counter, cross-legged behind a huge slice of tree trunk. Next to him sat a young apprentice on a tomb-sized slab of marble from which hung a fluffy tail, a defiantly lively tuft still attached to the rear end of its recently skinned and dismembered owner. Both of them seemed oblivious to the searing heat, which was testing even the marbles resolve. The shop was about the size of a large cupboard into which had been crammed, apart from the two butchers, half a dozen fresh goat carcasses, an ancient set of scales and a shelf of ready-made masalas. In front of the counter, almost nose to tail with the meat, and giving the impression of an audience waiting for a performance to begin, sat my husband, Dean, two men I had just metMr Goggia and his nephew, Anujand I.

Qureshi looked over to his customers, quietly awaiting instruction. Old Mr Goggia muttered a few barely audible words. The butcher selected a shoulder and rack of mutton, placed it in the centre of the tree-trunk chopping board, slowly sharpened his well-worn cleaver, then reduced the whole lot to a neat pile of pot-ready chunks. With a few more samurai blows he created a mound of minced meat, then slid it all into a plastic bag and handed it down. Mr Goggia took the bag and started to walk towards the door but I was still staring at Qureshis blade as if it were the Holy Grail, jotting down the exact size of the pieces of meat, scrutinizing the tree trunk, grooved and gashed by generations of use, even assessing the precise angle at which blade met flesh.

What was I doing in Mr Qureshis shop that day, obsessing over pieces of mutton with assorted men named Goggia and a husband denied his Sunday lie-in and air-conditioned brunch? The short answer is that I was researching a street food dish I had eaten a few months earlier. The long one begins with a rickshaw ride through Old Delhi in 2010.

I had arrived in Khari Baoli, Asias largest spice market, in time to watch the start of one of the worlds greatest pieces of street theatre. The flower sellers, as always, opened the show, slashing open their vast sacks and letting a tricolour of marigold, jasmine and rose tumble out on to the street. Then, as the spice vendors shutters flew up and hundreds of small pyramids of dried fruit, nuts and spices appeared, a cast of thousands began to emerge. An army of sweepers cleared mountains of debris from the previous day and threw up clouds of dust with their twiggy brooms while chai wallahs crouched over their stoves, hurrying to make the spicy brew that would get the market moving. Portly spice merchants started to stroll in from their homes in the suburbs, tended to their pujas