Dadi’s Lunch
By Imtyiaz Shariff
For a portion of my summer from the ages of six to 14, my parents sent my sister and me to our paternal grandparents’ farm in Stockton, CA. I was thrilled to see my other cousins, but not enthralled by the work that was to follow. Still, the food made up for the tiresome labor in the beating California sun.
I suspected my parents had several reasons for sending us to the farm, about an hour and a half from the Bay Area where we lived. They didn’t want my sister and me to become spoiled brats, they wanted time away from us, and they wanted us to learn the meaning of hard work, and to be close with our grandparents.
I can still recall the rooster waking us up in the morning. I wanted to eat that rooster so bad. My grandpa was already in the field working away. We’d have to be out there within an hour of that crow.
Soon we’d be tending to the vegetables and fruits and plowing the land. Our favorite part of the day was the afternoon when we got to tend to the animals. We had chickens, goats, ducks, sheep, an occasional bull or cow, pigeons, and peacocks. But before we headed to the animals, we had our lunch break.
My Dadi (grandma) is the cook in the family. She prepared elaborate lunches and dinners. But it was her Dal Bhat aur Fired Machali, which in English means lentils and rice with fried fish, which I craved the most. She made it once a week. I used to disappear from the farm and come inside to watch. She had already skinned and cut the fish and let it marinate. The mixes of yellow and orange lentils were soaked in a pan. The aroma of spices and aromatics hitting the sizzling oil consumed the kitchen and parts of the living room.
Soon the fish would sizzle in the fryer. Then the lentils were added to a medley of carrots, onions, ghee, turmeric, mustard seeds, garlic, whole chilies, and spices mixed together in the pressure cooker. The Basmati rice was slowly simmered on the stove.
I loved the time spent with my Dadi. She would tell me stories from Fiji, where she and my grandfather were born and raised. She’d also yell at me about cutting a vegetable the wrong way – she abhorred waste.
She spent most of her days preparing things that were grown on the farm. She could boil and pluck five chickens in an hour. She was nimble and precise with everything she did.
She attended to the fish carefully, lifting them out with a tong and dropping them into a bowl lined with paper towels to absorb the excess oil. She carefully unlocked the lid of the pressure cooker and let me stir the dal. Every single lentil was perfection — fluffy and moist.
When lunch was about finished. I quickly walked back to the farm from the porch next to the kitchen, pretending to pluck some cherries or grapes along the way so that it looked like I was working. My cousin, Azeem, would find me, reminding me it was lunchtime. By the time we got back the table was set, the dal was poured into a clear glass bowl, and the fish was, too. On the table would be achar, pickled vegetables or fruit, like carrots or mangoes. Tea was always served to my grandfather who never knew how much preparation it took to produce a meal, aside from producing the meat from the animals.
We’d serve each other. First a mini-mountain of rice which the dal would be poured over, and then the fish next to it. Lastly, a couple achars plopped onto my plate. The dal melted in your mouth with the vegetables. The fish was flaky and perfect, but we all had to watch out for the tiny bones, which we became extremely skilled at avoiding it with our teeth.
They all knew I skipped the farm to be with dadi in the kitchen. My grandfather never said a word. It was our special time together. I can still taste and smell it and the voice of my dadi yelling at me in Hindi for doing something wrong. I haven’t seen my dadi in years. Families sometimes drift apart, but her memory is ever present. I can still see her cooking away in her kitchen.
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