Men Can Cook...

Economists Too!

The Nobel Prize-winning economist says cooking is not rocket science and his newly-launched cookbook, Cooking to Save your Life testifies to that. Boston-based Abhijit Banerjee in an exclusive with UpperCrust...

Text: Farzana Contractor

Abhijit Banerjee totally blasts any stereotype there may be, associated as it were, with economists and social scientists who care-freely and unabashedly also drive down the gourmet lane. Who says economists can't be passionate foodies? Who says just because you are in lectures and discourses all day, on serious subjects like trying to find ways to eradicate poverty from planet Earth, you can't come home, roll up your sleeves, get into the kitchen and cook! Well, Abhijit certainly doesn't think there is much of a song and dance there. Even if the economist happens to be a Nobel Laureate?  Heck, no. No big deal! The man is as cool as it can get.

Talking to him on a Zoom call, I was pleasantly surprised at his ease and simplicity. I was in Bombay, he was in Boston, and Cheyenne Olivier, the woman who has produced some wonderful illustrations for his book just released, was in Paris. No, the book has nothing to do with economics, the subject for which Abhijit was awarded the Nobel prize in 2019, and everything to do with food. It's a cookery book titled Cooking to Save Your Life and that's what we were happily discussing.

Abhijit says he has been interested in food ever since he can remember. That he has been cooking since he was 15 years old. That he must have cooked thousands of meals for hundreds of people. That it was a matter of survival that made him cook. When he was growing up and home alone with his cook, while his working parents were out, he had two choices, either he eats the same boring food being cooked every day or gets down and dirty and does his own cooking. I am glad he opted for the latter. He has never looked back since.

Abhijit Banerjee seriously loves to cook, he is in his kitchen by 6.30 almost every evening, even after a hard day at work. He does not believe it is a mundane activity at all. Cooking relaxes him. And he plans his meal meticulously, even if it is just cooking an everyday meal for himself and family. He and wife, Esther, with whom he shares his Nobel prize, and who can also cook, entertain a fair amount at home. Twice a week for sure. And it's Abhijit who cooks. Taking into account various factors that the evening will bring with it. The guests, of course, their preferences, the stories that will be told, the shapes of bodies around the table, the sound of laughter, the quiet of mindful eating...

Cheyenne is an important link in the Banerjee household. She came into their lives as an au pair, which means she was there to look after the kids. And cooking was part of the deal. So, most evenings she would be there in the kitchen assisting Abhijit, sharing the chores, in between bathing the baby and tossing up a salad.

I wonder aloud, if Abhijit does all the cutting and cleaning and chopping and grinding, or does he have help... "Here in America, there is no question of having help, like in India, that's upper crust," chuckles Abhijit, adding, "Here we do all the work pretty much by ourselves. So, its shared duties. Let's say, if there are four dishes being rustled up for guests coming over for dinner, Cheyenne may cook two of them. Sometimes, Esther is also there helping and my nine-year-old daughter too gets into the fray. It's total chaos!" says Abhijit. Sounds like fun to me.
So how did the book come about? I had heard it was meant to be a Christmas present for Abhijit's brother-in-law. "No, not exactly," says Abhijit, "I did think of putting some recipes together for him, with some text around it and then I found myself sending what I had done to Chikki Sarkar of Juggernaut Books, who has published my books earlier, on economic subjects. She liked it and said, why not! And that's how it started. A book is very different from a collection of recipes, of which I have many, many more."

Cheyenne was pretty instrumental in giving the book shape. Not just by contributing the illustrations, but by giving ideas, discussing the concept and being a critique, too. "Oh, yes," says Abhijit, "For example when I showed her the first cut of the text for the intro before each section that we were planning, Cheyenne was like, ‘This is fluff! Has to be better than that!' She wanted my stories and personal thoughts to come through!" Cheyenne laughs and adds, "So much of the book evolved in the kitchen, right while we were in the middle of cooking.  The intros were essential to bring Abhijit's economic thinking into them. But at the same time, it was important not to make it too heavy. We couldn't take away from the lightness of the pleasure of cooking."  "Right," agrees Abhijit, "I didn't think cookery book readers would appreciate an essay on Marx!" That's Abhijit, for you.

The book itself is formatted most unusually. They made a conscious decision to not use pictures, a trend that most cookbooks follow. Enticing pictures of perfectly cooked food or at least perfectly shot dishes can be quite unnerving. It intimidates people not really experienced enough, or could deter people who can't cook to save their lives, from trying their hand at it. And that was not their objective. Abhijit would like people who say they can't cook to try cooking. He thinks anyone can cook, as long as you follow instructions carefully. Cheyenne worked on the illustrations using colour pencils, keeping surroundings, faces, shapes, food contours and colourings in mind. Creative and abstract, I would say.

The introductions to each section, some long, others longer, I found very interesting. Take for example, the notes on Pasta. They run into four educative pages and start with the origins of chicken tikka masala, to show how food travels. He traces how pasta and 'its Oriental cousin, noodles' travelled the most. How noodles changed their avatar and made their way into India, Italy, Malaysia, Japan and even Egypt. What makes pasta (and noodles) so popular is that it can be made with almost everything. And people do, he says, and almost everything turns out delicious (though he is not yet reconciled to Maggi Noodles, that he spent his late teens dodging!). Like pasta, the other introductions to each segment are just as interesting. Rice for example begins with: "In the trinity of starches, bread is the one that can stand alone as a meal, pasta is always described in combination with something – pasta with figs, canned tuna or cauliflower – while rice often loses itself in whatever it is cooked with; Sindhi Biryani, Morel Pullao or Baghali Polow. That does not mean rice is boring. Not at all. The grains go from pearly white to purple black…" The introduction to Meat is also my favourite but I won't go on. For the rest of it, you just have to get a copy of your own. The book is available in book stores on the subcontinent only. But then there is always Amazon!
Introductions done, the best part, apart from some rather unique recipes, is the humour that peppers through the entire book, whether it's in the foreword, which is called Foretaste here, the author's introduction or the opening notes of every recipe. There are humorous comments even in the recipes! The casual, catchy style of writing used to describe the method of cooking is also rather delightful. The smile tends to not leave the face. Here are a few samplers of smiley Abhijit-speak. "I have been called many worse things than vegetarian," (he loves fatty meat on the bone), "…very tasty but always with a slight hint of cholera," (on eating street food in India).  

But back to the book, the recipes are divided into 10 sections. Hors D'Oeuvres, Soups, Salads, Vegetables, Fish and Eggs, Meat, Pasta, Rice, Desserts and Odds and Ends. At the beginning of each is an illustration, the artist's depiction of action in the kitchen. The characters in the drawings are from true life, family and friends, and I love the way the artist has got the gangly author down, perfectly – to the last curling strand of his hair and the glasses perched on the tip of his nose! As for the recipes themselves, you can see quite clearly they come straight from the culinary life of Abhijit Banerjee. Years of cooking, culling, adapting, tweaking and twisting, modifying to suit his own personal tastes. Influences from his home food in Calcutta, the Bengali-ness is apparent. As also influences from his mother's kitchen, she is Maharashtrian. But South Indian cooking plays a big role in Abhijit's repertoire and he uses mustard seeds and kadi patta very liberally. Hing, too. Like he says, hing is a great booster and the one ingredient which goes into cooking in every state of India. Then there are the international influences; Spanish, French, Italian. Marrying Indian ingredients with foreign ones seems to be something that Abhijit likes to do. Like making a starter with fruits such as peach, plum and nectarines, marinating with chaat masala and throwing in some torn coriander leaves before serving. Or adding ripe mango pieces to a sea bass ceviche. It is pretty obvious our cook here has a deep understanding of nuances of cooking techniques or how to use ingredients, which kind of meat works for what dishes. He guides the potential culinary student along the same way I am sure he does in a class of budding economists. Salt or sugar will not cut excesses of chilli, so don't attempt that, yogurt can curdle, so blend it in gently, acrid will remain acrid, so make sure you roast your cumin seeds on simmer and don't burn it up, onions must be cooked very slowly until they become translucent and only then should you add tomatoes, if you put both together, it will be a total disaster. Neither will cook and you will wonder why… and so on. Nice guidance. I learnt something new, myself. If you heat mustard seeds until smoking point and then cool it, it reduces the sharpness.

The recipes that caught my eye and the ones I will emulate first are Khammam Kakdi, Sesame Crusted Potatoes, Tomato and Strawberry Gazpacho (since I write this from Panchgani and you get the best of strawberries here along with locally grown organic tomatoes), Pomegranate Salad because of the red, white and green in it, since Christmas was here, and lastly khurdi (which I had never heard of until now. It's a winter soup made from mutton and cauliflower). I just have to share Abhijit's opening notes on khurdi. "This is a wonderful 'winter soup' from Gujarat on the west coast of India, where as far as I can tell, there is no winter, besides being a meat soup from an area that is very much the epicentre of vegetarianism in India. It is stylish and rich and easy to make, but it needs someone who likes the rich, sweet, meatiness of cooked lamb. Make it for the weekend TV dinner. And tuck into it with your partner in crime (and taste). You might not need much more to fill you up. But maybe some melting masala cheese toast won't be too much of an overkill?"

To be honest, I can't fully assess the book just yet. There is a lot in there and I am taking my time with it. Going easy, actually reading the book as a book, not flipping through as one does a cookbook, just flagging off pages where the recipe catches your fancy. For some reason, this book feels different, special.

But more on my conversation with the author and the illustrator, I enquire if Abhijit is overall a funny guy, is that his persona or is it that food just lightens him up? "Ask Cheyenne that," says Abhijit. To which Cheyenne replies, "He is light-hearted, easy to get along with. I'm deeply serious, so in comparison, Abhijit is lighter-spirited."

So, what is Abhijit's favourite cuisine? "Er…, ummm…,  let's see…, well… I can't say what's my favourite. It's not even necessarily Bengali, but let's say, I like comfort food; vegetables, dal, fish. I enjoy South Indian food very much, as well as food from U.P. (Uttar Pradesh). But I have to say, the way we treat vegetables in India is way beyond what anyone does anywhere in the world with it."

But Andhra Pradesh food is something Abhijit wants to get more acquainted with, understand better, cook more of.

Somewhere in the book, Abhijit also mentions that he is a gadget man. That his kitchen is equipped with every conceivable machine and that all this definitely makes cooking more pleasurable. So, it seemed only natural that I should enquire, which is the one gadget if it broke down or was misplaced would he feel helpless in the kitchen without. "Pestle and mortar!" He says he just can't do without that. Not some fancy Thermomix or KitchenAid product, or electric carving knife, but the humble mortar and pestle. I was thrilled to bits hearing that. For I am a collector of that very useful equipment. And when I heard he uses granite ones, I spontaneously said I would like to give him a special one next time he is in India. I have some beautiful, old brass ones! He said he would like that very much.