Kasheer-e- Dastarkhawn
Volume 3 | Issue 7 [November 2023]

Takbeer Salati

Volume 3 | Issue 7 [November 2023]

---

I was about ten years old when we heard a knock on the door.  A few men stood near the gate, asking for food. We were not rich. The coming of such strangers was a common thing in Kashmir at that time.  Mostly they were bearded men with weapons. I remember their demand: Kokur (chicken), Maaz (mutton), Rogan Josh and Zumroo Thool (egg curry).

Militancy was at its peak. Everyone asked for shelter and food. When my mother ran out of milk and my father was out of town, she crossed the lane where firing was on, only to request our neighbors for some milk for me.  During Ramadan, when Sahar Khan, the man who beat the drum for waking up people at suhoor, would come into our house, and have fried nadre-monji te haakh, lotus stem and lettuce.

Kashmir during Ramadan was heaven. Though we kept our fast the whole day, at dusk every item would be spread on dastarkhawn. It was gluttony: babri beul (basil seed) a drink made with milk, dates, phirni or gajar halwa. After the Maghrib prayers, rice, with two kinds of curry, was served every day. This spirit of cooking and serving after a whole day of fast was appealing to our Kashmiri spirit for thirty days.

My mother came from uptown Srinagar and my father from downtown. In winter, both united in their time and space and allowed each other to unite with food. My mother used to store a few vegetables which would be later used to dry in summers.  Garlands of turnip, circles of tomatoes and brick of Kashmiri Mirch were made to use them in the summers. The kitchen would smell of pickles- mixed vegetables, stored in huge jars ready for the summer sun. Nothing could match this excitement as a child.

Come Eid, my mother loved cooking Yakhni for us. On the day before the festival, she would spread the contents used in Yakhni. She would first put the curd into a utensil and stir it with a huge wooden spoon. Then she would add dry spices like elaichi and dal chini – the curd would smell therapeutic. To me she looked like a Russian peasant girl with her scarf tied backwards.

On the day of the festival, before the prayers, my mother would serve us samovar kehwa: a hot brewing beverage made of water (Aab), dalchini and elaichi and stored in a large kettle. Sometimes, if we wanted a flavored kehwa, my mother would add a hint of saffron. This was followed by a kulcha, a round namkeen biscuit added with poppy seeds, with julienne almonds in between. Lunch was predictable: Yakhni and five kinds of mutton.

Kashmiri copper kettles/ samovar

My father loved to cook as well – his favorite phirni, gajar ka halwa, suji ka halwa, and beverages. To make ourselves aware that it was Eid, we were motivated to have a barbeque at night – meat with akhrot (walnut tchoet), walnut chutney or gande tchoet, onion chutney.

I was the only member in the family who didn’t like to cook. My parents forced me to make walnut chutney. My recipe was to break a few walnuts and put them into a traditional chutney maker. Then add some onion, green chilies, and salt. I would beat them together with a wooden tool and add curd to the paste.  I was often told that the chutney reminded them of Wazwan’s chutney, Kashmir’s original cuisine of 34 plus delicacies.

My mother was always deciding what to cook on Sundays. It was a day when all of us would gather around the dastarkhawn. It was a tehri day – yellow rice added with fried and salted onions. Its distinct yellow color would be because of the turmeric powder added to it. It would be decorated on a trami plate; trami glasses would be used, with names of each member of the family engraved on copper.

Trami Glasses (Copper Glasses)

Cooking was always taken to be a spiritual ritual in my family. Kashmir doesn’t yet have Swiggy or Zomato services. During winters, especially, I was often offered Harrisa, a minced mutton dish that resembles Hyderabadi Mutton Haleem, with Girda, Kashmiri tcheut. I would always eat it with Kandur Tcheut, in a German silver bowl would be served dry fruits along with hot kehwa or namkeen chai, tea made with salt and milk.

Girda with almond kehwa

A German silver plate full of dry fruits

There was always a sense of comfort in my father’s cooking. While he used to cook and pretend to be Sanjeev Kapoor from Khana Khazana, I would listen to his anecdotes of how he wanted to join the army but ended up being a lawyer. His traditional yet unique recipe of tchir tcheout, Kashmiri pizza, made and prepared from rice bread and omelet is a treat to the eyes. He would cook tomul tcheut, rice bread, to check whether he still remembers his mother’s recipes. He would first make us taste a bite and then, after receiving the first approval, the quantity would increase.

Come summer, during weddings, every household in Kashmir smells of Wazwan. The food is spread on a copper plate, everyone is offered water in tash naeir to wash their hands. On the trami are served kebabs, chicken, methi and shami kebab. The cook, called waza in Kashmiri, serves thirty-four delicacies, only two of them vegetarian – tchamin or panir and haakh, lettuce – to groups of four people sitting around the trami.

Copper Tash-Naeir (A kettle used for hand washing)

*

During summers, we developed a unique fascination for vegetables. My mother, who knew to cook lettuce in two different ways, was always keen to explore other recipes. My favorite among them was the lettuce made with green chilies, with lots of soup. I later learnt that this was also called Bhat-e’ Haak, Pandit’s Lettuce, its name deriving from having originated from the Kashmiri Pandit’s kitchen… My mother had an amusing relationship with rice. As a child she was told eating raw rice would make the breasts look big and eventually increase their size…

There’s also Kashmiri street food. In front of every shrine or mosque is a masala tcheot person who stands and prepares it fresh for his customers. It is bread made of lavasa and chickpeas masala, garnished with coriander and onion tcheot.  There’s orange halwa made of pure ghee served with huge round parathas so that the people flocking the shrine and the mosque can relish the food. Apart from these snacks, we also find fried nadre or lotus sticks, til kar, fried chickpeas, and fried fish served in stalls throughout the city.

Masala Tcheut (Chick peas roti)

In summer, Kashmiris like to serve a traditional falooda, which is a cup of ice cream topped with sewayain and sugar garnished with nuts and dry fruits. Even when its eaten long before, the taste remains as fresh as a scoop eaten a few minutes ago. As the seasons change, so do the culinary cravings. To all the chaos of long power cuts, the memory of changing food and its fragrance becomes remnant of each other’s love.

Winter mornings begin with Ma trying to prepare Kangri, a hot pot for the family, while she dashes into the storeroom to collect the coal that is stored all throughout the summer. She picks them with a tong, sorts them and lights them with the help of a burning paper. She then hides it inside her pheran: Kashmiri invisibility cloak. Every family member gets their own hot pot throughout the day, as the freezing temperatures of the winter go from bad to worst. The winter mornings smell of an Iranian borrowed dish called Harissa brought from a famous special shop in Downtown, Alikadal and is decorated on a dastarkhawn, on which we all eat together. The shop is built in a way that it has a huge hearth in the middle of it where a good amount of fire is lit to bake the breads that go along with the minced meat dish. As the icicles hung from the roof top, I remember Ma propped against her cushion, knitting a Woolen sweater of chocolate brown color, her personal favorite.

As the evening drops to  0-degree temperature, I remember singing songs: Wanwun, a Kashmiri musical genre,  to welcome the coming of the winters and telling stories of the wai wouf (Kashmiri mythical witch, who lives in the forests) who returns to Kashmir, especially during the winters. As we tuck ourselves into warm quilts, hugging the kangri, we are bewitched by an inexplicable emotion when we sip tea from our hot nun chai that has been brewed in the heirloom samovar.