A Culinary Tribute From Daughter to Mother
A Culinary Tribute From Daughter to Mother
With tons of 'hand-me-down' recipes that are the greatest treasure a daughter could receive, Ammi is more than a loaded cookbook. Author, Prasanna Pandarinathan takes you into her life, page by page, ingredient by ingredient
Text: Farzana Contractor
The title of the book which says, Ammi and has a dedication on the cover, ‘An expression of love… from the kitchen of my mother, Nirmala Pandarinathan’, could easily mean the author has titled the book after her mother. But no, Ammi in Tamil is short for ammi kallu, what the cover picture portrays, a grinding stone. We love it. The pun and the beautifully chiselled sil batta. There are many in the office of UpperCrust, who still have a grinding stone in use in their kitchen. So, we approve. Grinding masalas on these stones certainly retains all the beautiful aromas and doesn’t burn out the ingredients being ground, as it does tend to in fancy food processors.
That said, let us tell you what we think of the cookbook. It’s fabulous. The content has indeed been put together by author and daughter, Prasanna Pandarinathan with as much love and thought as her mother cooked for her throughout her life. “This cookbook is about cooking for one’s family and friends as much as it is about eating with them,” says Prasanna, who was once a model, called Pressy with love, and you do learn more about her in the afterword written by another model and friend, Malaika Arora who once adorned the cover of UpperCrust and is certainly a foodie.
Clearly this book is a project and product of love. Both ways, from mother to daughter over the years of exemplary cooking and feeding, and daughter now, after her mother has passed away, putting together the book, seeped in nostalgia and gratitude for the love she received.
Glancing through the recipes, you think, ‘Ah, this is quite an exotic mix’ and then you understand why. Born into a Tamil business family, the creator of these wonderful recipes grew up in Singapore, amidst a melting pot of culture and cuisines, since these were Colonial times; Indian, Malaysian, Chinese, Indonesian and European influences.
Once married, at the age of 19, she moved to London to be with her husband who was completing his master’s in Engineering at Imperial College. With time at hand and Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in the vicinity, a novice at cooking at the time, young Nirmala, actually made her debut in the kitchen rustling up Continental cuisine! What more could a new cook want than learning the basics, based on French cooking! A very sound start, indeed.
But at heart is always home-cooking and soon Nirmala was calling her cooks in Singapore for inputs and she got into cooking traditional food, too. From there on it was a free run and a super new cook was born!
“That’s where her saga of expressing love through cooking came about and continued throughout her life; at first for her husband, then children and then grandchildren!” says Prasanna.
The book has 108 recipes divided into nine sections; Vegetables, Eggs, Poultry, Meat, Seafood, Bakes, Roasts & Grills, Rice and Noodles, Pickles & Chutneys and Desserts. The repertoire of recipes spans the entire gamut of places where Nirmala has lived and been influenced by. So from a snacky Sandal and Banana Blossoms Vadas from Chennai, you have grilled chicken called Singapore Ayam Panggang Chicken which, though a local favourite in Singapore, is actually a dish from Indonesia! Then there is a Lankan Chicken Curry, an Irish Stew and Shepherd's Pie, no doubt influenced by the cook’s days in England. Since Nirmala’s mother hailed from Rameswaram you find a fish recipe called Pamban Fish Curry, in memory of her ancestral home and the local Pamban fish market, which would be her first stop when she arrived there. The simple notes that Prasanna has added at the start of each recipe add to the charm, but if only she had captioned the numerous family pictures interspersing throughout, the book would have lent more meaning. Clearly, this is a very informal and homely kind of cookbook, where the person compiling it has also indulged in her own sense of being a photographer, footloose and fancy free. A palm tree, a field bathed in dawn, a fisherman casting a net, egg shells and onion skins, a deity on the beach… Prasanna is a model-turned-photographer – she did a short course in photography in New York, where she lives, especially to help herself compile this book. Food was cooked and shot at the home of a chef-friend there. An effort worth appreciating, all for the love of Ammi.
