Travelling through food
Memories can be triggered by so many different things. Music, scent, an article of clothing... but perhaps my favourite way to throwback is through food. So eating phirni (ground rice pudding) takes me back to Agra -- home of the Taj Mahal and also my paternal grandparents -- where the fridge always seemed to hold neat rows of individual clay pots filled with the creamy goodness that is phirni. As a young teen on a hot day, I'd take out a cold pot -- sometimes 2 or 3, which was remarkable because I wasn't a child with a sweet tooth.
While the pairing of phirni and Agra might seem a natural cuisine-destination combination, other dishes transport me to less predictable places. For instance, chicken liver pâté isn't about a little French boulangerie for me, rather it takes me to Bangalore circa 1991, when my mother taught me, and two of my childhood buds, how to make her popular party hit in our kitchen. And when I think of that quintessential Egyptian dish molokhia (a green leafy soup), I'm actually remembering the first time I had it... in Hong Kong. Even Greek food now, for special reasons, first conjures up an evening in Dubai -- even though I've been to Greece more than once. Ultimately, food memories aren't just about the best version of a dish or cuisine you've had but what the event or moments surrounding that meal meant.
So this weekend, when I made my first attempt at Mediterranean breakfast dish shakshuka, I was really thinking about this fantastic version I'd had in New York when I still lived there, over a decade ago, at a little Turkish restaurant in Soho. Being confined the past 2 months has made me nostalgic, so thinking back to that sunny, carefree Manhattan afternoon brunching with friends makes that shakshuka memory particularly poignant.
Shakshuka, for those who haven't had the pleasure of this entirely comforting, healthy and delicious dish is essentially eggs poached over a spiced tomato base. The recipe I followed, and modified some, was by Melissa Clark over at New York Times Cooking -- and included feta, which is really what sold me! I had no bell peppers, so I simply sautéed half an onion till soft in a skillet, added in lots of thinly sliced garlic, sweet paprika, cumin powder and a pinch of red chili powder; when fragrant, in went a can of chopped Italian tomatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper, and when thickened, added the feta and then the eggs, which cooked covered in 10 minutes (because I like them firm). Voila! Shakshuka that transported me from a sunny day in my flat in Dubai to an equally blue-skies day sitting outdoors at a little restaurant in Manhattan, which used to be a place I fondly called home.
For now, with food memories being the best way to "travel" while the world remains somewhat topsy-turvy, I imagine I'll be eating more poached garlicky-tomato eggs out of a skillet!
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