Intro

When I think of my mum I think 'food', when my friends think of my mum they think 'food'. They have said many a times 'your mum's cooking is amazing'. I love my mum's cooking.

A little more oil than any nutritionist's recommendation, onions sizzling, chopped garlic included in absolute abundance, five, six, seven different kinds of spice liberally tea-spooned in, the wait for the spices to mingle together and the sauce to cook before the meat, fish or vegetable is finally added. 

I remember my mum getting up five o'clock in the morning, leaving the house at six to work in a cold factory, coming home at five after a long laborious day, dozing on the arm chair for an hour's break before entering the kitchen to cook. Never an oven cooked pizza or chips would do for an evening meal. It would always have to be home-made Bengali dishes, a dhal, a vegetable dish, a meat or fish dish with freshly cooked rice. 

To this day my mother doesn't use any rice cooker. She boils the rice, holds the edges of the cooker (with any piece of cloth that can be improvised into an oven-glove of sorts) and turns it partially upside down. Balancing the upturned pot and lid on the colandar, enough so that excessive carby boiled water can pass through but not grains of rice. She is that old skool.

Food has been so much more than sustenance for us. Food has played a key role in our family relationships. It has created another level to our family dynamics. My sisters can be in the midst of a family feud with mum (I don't fight with my mum so much) but will cave in and go over to see her at the thought of home cooked comforting meals. The food always wins. 

For my mum food is the medium via which she often communicates. If she is happy to see you and wants to treat you she will make you something delicious. Extra care will be taken over the cooking. Fresh ingredients added in. If my mum is in a mood she will still provide food but in a passive aggressive way - maybe leftovers from two days beforehand or - worse still - small portions. 

She can also use her cooking to manipulate as well. I remember once she cooked me a superb big portion meal just so that she could convince me to meet some optometrist who she wanted to set me up with. That didn't go according to her plan but I ate her food anyway. 

Years down the line, I jokingly asked my husband whether he has married me for easy access too my mother's cooking. His response was a matter-of-fact 'yes' closely followed by 'why don't you cook like your mother?'. 

My mother doesn't speak fluent English and my husband speaks Bengali sparingly. In my mother's kitchen you can find my husband eating my mother's food energetically, enthusiastically, gratefully whilst my mother is hospitably spooning more food onto his plate. What she lacks in words she makes up in food.  

So now I am  here trying to capture all her amazing recipes, her legacy from the home country. Soul food - but with the Bangladeshi twist.