Who writes the recipe matters

Food writing, culture and the problem with white-washing

Originally published on The Feed

“Why don’t you sell a butter chicken paste?” is a question I get every time I tell someone about my business, Dolly Mumma.

Two years ago, I used to answer with a passionate but disjointed spiel about radioactive orange butter chicken, how it tastes nothing like the real Murgh Makhani, and how I wanted nothing more than to live in a New Zealand where people ate something else!

These days, I reply by saying that an Italian wouldn’t serve you a zucchini pasta and nor would any self-respecting icecream parlour stock banana “nice-cream”. In the same vein, I don’t do butter chicken.

Who wants to eat butter chicken when I could feast on L to R: Akoori, Kheema Pav, Kaju Paneer, Patra Fish, Chutney Pattice

It’s always been easier to give people what they want than to try to educate them.

Especially, if you’re an immigrant trying to support your family in a new country. Which perhaps explains why Indian restaurants in the 1900s served butter chicken and tikka masala. Their livelihood depended on serving something that was relatable.

But in 2023, it’s time to be bolder.

If we want to change the narrative, we need more than just businesses like mine or the handful of newer restaurants like VT station, Shivani and Chaiwala Bhai that serve dishes like Prawn Koliwada, Dhokla, and Bread Bhajiya. We need more Indian recipes and stories in the mainstream media. Not the stereotypical ones. But rather, Sunday inspiration to cook Ravaiya, Aloo Tuk or a simple Dahi Kadhi.
These are the dishes that millions of Indians eat every day both in India and within the diaspora. And yet we rarely, if ever, see them in the media.

It could be that no one is pitching these stories. Or, like author Nayantara Dutta says, it could be because in the West people view Indian
food through the lens of takeout. Since the media often echoes what the public want (or thinks they want), the stuff that gets published has to be “the right level of ethnic. It can’t be too brown or too white”.

Whose story we tell and what we cook tonight can all change depending on what the mainstream media chooses to focus on.

Lagan Sara Istoo, a root vegetable, sweet, sour and spicy stew served at Parsi weddings

How many sourdough loaves and cups of dalgona coffee did you make during the pandemic? Foodies across the globe seemed to develop a love for them almost overnight.

I see the same thing happening now as vegetarian and vegan food rises in popularity. A range of what-looks-like-Indian curries and snacks are surfacing online. But disappointingly, they are almost always removed from their cultural context. I don’t see ravioli being described as ‘square stuffed pasta’ but I’ll almost always see Chole being called ‘chickpea curry’ and dosa being incorrectly called a ‘fermented crepe’.

When we reduce a dish to it’s literal description, we’re not just taking away its history but also the emotion it evokes for the people that have eaten it for centuries. I won’t take you through the internal turmoil I feel every time someone calls Haldi Doodh “golden milk”. Almost every Indian immigrant I know whose food was made fun of has a complicated history with turmeric.

The same goes for every dahl recipe online that’s simplified to ‘lentil curry’, ‘soup’ or ‘stew’. Tarka dahl is not the same as Dahl Makhani. And Parsi Dhandar, tastes nothing like Keralan Parippu. A fact I tried explaining to the white lady in my office who was warming up a can of brown lentils in the microwave thinking she was eating dahl for lunch.

Yes, you can make a curry by blitzing some spinach and adding in garam masala for flavour. But that’s not a Saagwala.

And, you’re definitely not cooking a Dal Makhani if you use brown lentils instead of the mixture of black urad dal and red kidney beans that’s traditionally used. Within the confines of your home, you can combine whichever spice you like with the protein of your choice. I’m often encouraging my customers to try crazy combinations like a Korma Kheema Shepherd’s pie. And, in my everyday cooking, I add ghee to my pasta and garam masala on top of my nachos. It’s “your version” of the original thing.

But, to claim that as the “original” dish is the bit that frustrates the communities the dish belongs to.

It’s not just about who is covered, it’s also about who is writing the story.

In 2015, when I was living in India and writing mostly about Parsi food, an image surfaced in our Parsi foodie group – Nigella Lawson’s Dhansak. Wow! Nigella liked Dhansak? But wait, this had tamarind. And pomegranate seeds. It wasn’t even brown. She also recommended we enjoy the Dhansak with Naan. Do you remember seeing those moments when Bruce Bannerturns into an angry Hulk? As my eyes scrolled through her recipe, that was me.

Ask any one of the 120,000 Parsis alive and they will tell you that there’s no way Dhansak looks like this!

Here was a celebrated chef, a TV star, someone that could afford an entire team of researchers if she wanted, misrepresenting a dish that is the pride and joy of every Parsi. We were so angry that we submitted a group complaint to Nigella’s website. Only to receive a condescending reply that “the proper research had been done” and also that this was “her version” of Dhansak. The recipe has since been taken down and/or renamed. But, some version of this incident will keep repeating until we collectively decide that we will give a voice not just to those that are popular and established in the industry but also to those that have the lived experience.

This may not look as fancy but this Dhansak tastes like it should and looks like it should

There’s space for everyone.

Had it been an Indian writing about dalgona they would have told you that yes dalgona tastes amazing but it’s also a drink people living in Chennai grew up drinking.

Before the tiktok trend we knew it as “fitti hui kaapi”.

Yet currently, that added context gets reduced to “fluff” above the recipe.

What are your thoughts on this topic? I’d love to know your thoughts on the balance between “relatable” vs “authentic”

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