Thread: Bengali cooking
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Old December 18, 2007, 08:06 PM
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shaad shaad is offline
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What I've noticed about many of us probashe Bangladeshi lads who came abroad for college is that very few of us used to know how to cook, being in general our mothers' chokher moni, kolijir tukra, etc., i.e. spoiled brats, who only went into the ranna-ghor to sneak a sample from the dishes being prepared.

And initially, what with the cafeteria and fast food outlets available, this wasn't an issue. But time passes, and then you start getting nostalgic about your mother's bhajis, bhortas, machh bhajas and jhoals. You know that the tripe served in "Indian" restaurants is just that, items that Westerners might find exotic, but not at all satisfactory to any discerning Bengali palate, so the next time you go home on vacation, you watch your mother cooking and you try to take notes. And you fail, because she's one of those old school chefs who cook by instinct, not using measuring spoons or cups, gauging just the right amount of salt or spices to add as if by magic. So you buy some of Siddiqua Kabir's books and take them back with you. And you practice, and you experiment, and you buy yet more books. And because you are a perfectionist, at least when it comes to Bengali cuisine, you improve, you get better and better. You develop your own cooking instinct, knowing, as if by a sixth sense, what to add where, and when. No, you are never going to be able to cook like your mother, but your cooking is good nevertheless -- it has a style and flavour all its own, it's recognizably Bengali, and it's adored by all your friends.

So Parisa, if the boys nowadays are anything like those of my generation, you don't have anything to worry about: they're likely to be excellent chefs themselves. Still, it's a good skill-set to acquire. Siddiqua Kabir has some books In English (if you aren't that comfortable with recipes written in Bengali). Now, I personally think she goes overboard on the amount of salt, but that's just my personal opinion.
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