Nostalgia in a bowl kill

Food invokes powerful memories. Memories which lay curled up in some realm of forgetfulness, become all vibrant and alive as if it happened just yesterday. Few weeks back we went to a Bangladeshi restaurant in Brick lane, somehow whenever we are in a London we get attracted to it like moth to flame. As my eyes skimmed over the traditional Bengali dishes spread out, I couldn’t take my eyes off a bowl of green beauty. One glance led to an avalanche of childhood memories. My father loved his greens. With a gunny bag in his hand, he would set off for the Sunday market like a pirate on an adventure to the high seas. And ma would sardonically say, here he goes, only heaven knows when he will be back. He couldn’t control the surge of adrenaline at the sight of the sprawling Sunday market. The market was a sea of greens, fresh from the fields, from the mundane to the off beat. A modicum of haggling, a little bit of prattle and the bags were bursting to the seams with vegetables. When he came home late afternoon, he was exuberant with success, beaming as he laid out his prizes. Sometimes, he would get kochur loti also known as colocasia stolons. Now this was not easy to cook, this slender stem gave you an stubborn itch in your throat, however there was a work around to get rid off it. I would watch ma smear oil on her hand and then peel off the fibrous skin meticulously. Then she would boil the stringy stolons in water with salt and turmeric and then rinse off the stolons in cold water. Mostly, it was niramish ( veg) preparation with zingy mustard and green chilli paste, but then sometimes she would make it with dry fish( sutki) and that day I would polish off my plate without Ma having to harangue me to finish off my food.

I don’t remember when I last ate kochur loti, so when I saw kochur loti with sutki on display it was like food nostalgia in a bowl. Packed with fierce heat, the lotti melted in the mouth as I sweated and flushed to the last morsel of rice. It said that if you ate too much of stolons, you were sure to get searing stomach cramps. But for this time I had to throw caution to the air!