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Partition food memories that travelled
Summary
The Partition of India led to one of the biggest human migrations in history. Food became a means to hold on to some part of a home that once was. Five people recall food memories that have grown stronger with timeFood is one of the greatest markers of memory—often a single dish encapsulates centuries of sociocultural history, familial recipes and tastes of childhood. As people migrate, their culinary legacies move with them, acquiring new forms along the way. The resulting dishes become a mix of the old and the new—a part of the home left behind and a part of the new land that a community has been forced to move to.
Noted academic and food historian Pushpesh Pant says these food memories become even stronger when communities have been dislocated in a violent manner—be it due to exile, war, famine, floods or forced migration. “The East India Company recruited workers from western Bihar to work on sugar plantations in the Caribbean, 1833 onwards. The labour that was forced to go there wanted to retain some of parts of their food habits. So, you will find Bihari dal poori in Mauritius, but one which is very different from the original, and which is rooted in East Africa," he says.
These kinds of culinary adaptations became more marked just after the partition of India in 1947—an unprecedented migration of people in history. In May 2020, The Partition Museum, Amritsar, spent a week highlighting food memories related to this. On its Facebook page, the museum wrote: “With the influx of refugees came new food traditions, flavours and techniques. A central example of this phenomenon was Delhi, whose Shahjahanabad-influenced Mughlai cuisine was replaced with the bolder flavours, gravies, and Tandoor from West Punjab… The influx of refugees also introduced a Dhaba culture in the subcontinent with many refugees setting up food establishments for survival."
According to Kurush Dalal, a Mumbai-based archaeologist and culinary anthropologist, these food adaptations were a way of holding on to the past, which had been violently ripped away. “Today, there are more Sindhis in Mumbai and parts around it than anywhere else in the country. They came in with their own food memories, which were then shaped by their refugee-hood in India. What they have done with this over time is a fascinating story," he says.
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Dalal cites the Sindhi version of the elbow macaroni—cooked in the pressure cooker with potatoes and spices—as one of the most interesting adaptations ever. “The macaroni was part of the food kits handed out to them at refugee camps in India. What do you do when you have never cooked or eaten macaroni before? You create something new with the flavours that you are familiar with," he says.
The Punjabi families, who moved from various parts of Pakistan—Multan, Lahore, Peshawar— did the same thing with bread, which was a part of the food aid given to them. They transformed it, using the little bit of ghee or butter and sugar available to them into a bread halwa. Since then this dish has become a staple of Punjabi homes. “It stems from a bittersweet memory of cooking something nice for your family with whatever little you have," says Dalal. A lot of adaptations have had long-term impact on food practices. For instance, many Punjabi families in north India are now vegetarian by choice. “They were not traditionally so. When they came into India, they could not afford meat. Hence vegetarianism was a logical recourse," adds Dalal.
Some communities held on to their culinary traditions even in the new land—they didn’t want to miss out on what was dear to them. “In Bengal, refugees who migrated from the then East Pakistan, brought along their own style of cooking and ingredients. Soon, the markets of West Bengal started stocking items that were never seen before. In recent years, we have seen an introduction of East-Bengali dishes such as Dhakai pulao, Sylheti dry fish, and Chittagong meat curry to the Bengali cuisine menu," states the 2020 post by the Partition Museum. In fact, this event led to the famous hilsa rivalry, with those who came in from East Bengal claiming that the Padma hilsa was better. “If you look at it, it is the same fish swimming up the channel. But it symbolises the dish of memory, which was suddenly snatched away. Communities heal over time and food plays a huge role in that," says Dalal.
By Avantika Bhuyan
A recipe for shutki bata from pre-partition times
If there’s one dish that best describes my ancestry, it has to be shutki bata. A sinus-clearing preparation of dried fish that is typically cooked with loitta or Bombay duck and copious amounts of onion, garlic and green chillies, it can stir extreme reactions, mainly due to its pungent aroma.
My paternal family traces its roots to East Bengal or modern-day Bangladesh, and in between spent a few years in British Burma. My late grandmother or thamma, as I fondly called her, was born in a town near Rangoon (now Yangon). In 1941, the family moved back home (in East Bengal) following rumours of an impending Japanese attack. When Partition took place in 1947, thamma was employed at a school in Dhaka, and was to marry in a few months.
Back in the day, shutki was considered a delicacy. My great-grandmother prepared it with vegetables, as a tawk in a tangy stew, and even as cutlets studded with raisins. Thamma demonstrated the same zeal when it came to cooking for the family. Married and settled in Comilla (south-east of Dhaka), she took on her responsibilities as a wife and working woman amidst growing turmoil that weighed on matters of day-to-day life, including the kitchen. Rations were limited due to the change of political borders. My grandparents were torn between moving out of East Bengal or staying back in their homeland. For many middle-class Hindu families with stable jobs, the decision to continue, did not come easy. Packing up meant starting all over from scratch, and so my grandparents chose to stay.
Thamma cooked shutki like a bata—an East Bengali style of cooking in which the ingredients are ground to a paste using a stone slab and muller and then cooked with spices—during summer with vegetables such as pumpkin, eggplants and water spinach, and in winter with sheem or flat beans. It was a wholesome option.
More than the uncertainty, the promise of a better future got my grandparents to make some tough decisions. By the age of 10, in 1960, they packed off my father to a boarding school across the border in Agartala. Hostel food did not appeal to him. He craved ilish maach, shondesh and his aunt’s shorbhaja, a dainty sweet in which layers of buttery milk skins are toasted on a griddle. Shidol, a salt-fermented fish and a local favourite, evoked a sense of addictive lure for thamma’s loitta shutki.
By the early 1970s, my father landed in Calcutta as a young house staff at PG Hospital (now SSKM Hospital). His maternal family that had settled in a south Kolkata neighbourhood right after Partition, now became home. When he married my mother, shutki was unfamiliar territory for her. My maternal grandparents were not shutki eaters.
But the cravings got real. Finally, a maternal aunt came to the rescue and passed on the heirloom recipe. My mother cooked it for the first time in a modest one-room flat, pinching her nose, and found herself bathed in the strong aroma of the dish. It’s an episode she narrates cracking up.
For her, the ritual of cooking shutki always involved shutting the kitchen windows and lighting an incense stick before heading for a bath. But my olfactory signals gave away the menu for lunch the minute I returned home from school. After a few laughs, we’d relish the brownish mash with rice in silence.
I have been cooking shutki under my mother’s crisp instructions for a few years now. In a small Mumbai apartment, where the smell of the low tide from the Versova coast is my constant companion, I leave the windows open as I go about grinding the loitta shutki procured from my Koli fish vendor. The alliums and chillies release a heady flavour while I strain my rice from another pot. As I light an incense stick, I thank all the matriarchs who ensured its safe travels.
SHUTKI BATA
Ingredients
5-6 loitta shutki (dried Bombay Duck)
3 onions
1 large tomato
1 whole bulb of garlic
2-3 green chillies (depends on your spice tolerance)
1 tsp red chilli powder
Salt to taste
Mustard oil
Method
Grind the onions, garlic and green chillies into a paste.
Cut the shutki into small pieces. After removing the heads, tails and fins, soak them in boiling water for a few minutes. Discard the water, and wash thoroughly.
The raw shutki is traditionally pounded using a stone slab and muller. A mixer grinder can be used as well. Make sure the texture is coarse.
Heat about half a cup of oil in a heavy bottomed wok (shutki requires a fair amount of oil). Fry the shutki with turmeric and salt lightly for a few minutes. Take them out and keep aside.
Now add the fresh spice paste followed by the chopped tomatoes. When the oil starts to separate from the spices, add the shutki.
Continue cooking it until the colour changes to a dark brown.
Adjust the seasoning. Add red chilli powder and more chillies if you like.
Serve hot with plain rice.
By Rituparna Roy, an independent features writer based in Mumbai.
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The flavours of undivided Punjab
My parents were born in Rawalpindi in the Punjab province of Pakistan. In 1947, there was a bloodbath there and they couldn’t find any means of transport to escape. The family and the whole pind (village) came to India on foot. They were in refugee camps on the outskirts of Delhi, which is now Rajouri Garden.
Food is one of the many ways to keep alive a family’s traditions and the history of the place they belonged. Many recipes have been lost, but a handful survived. I have fond memories of my dadi (paternal grandmother) making matthi chole (thick flour chips with chickpeas)—a quintessential dish from the Punjab in Pakistan. Chole is a staple in Punjabi homes on both sides of the border. Another favourite is dahi bhalle, a delicacy from a place named Mandi Bahaudin in Pakistan. My grandmother’s recipe book also had saag aur makki di roti (leafy greens with corn flour chappati), desi ghee aate di pinni (wheat flour laddoos with ghee) and gajar halwa.
These dishes culminated into the restaurant Ikk Panjab, which means one Punjab or undivided Punjab. It opened in 2018 in Rajouri Garden. This restaurant is my way of honouring my ancestors, preserving their legacy, and sharing the rich history of Panjab (former name of Punjab) with the world, one dish at a time.
MATTHI CHOLE
Ingredients
For the chole (chickpeas):
1 cup dried kabuli chana (white chickpeas)
1 tsp baking soda (optional)
1 bay leaf
2 black cardamom pods
2 cloves
1 inch cinnamon stick
1 tsp cumin seeds
Half tsp coriander seeds
1 medium onion, chopped
2-3 tomatoes, chopped
1 inch ginger, grated
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp red chili powder
Half tsp turmeric powder
Half tsp coriander powder
One tsp garam masala powder
1 tsp amchur (dry mango powder)
Salt to taste
Oil for cooking
One packet matthi
For serving
Handful of coriander leaves, chopped
Half cup saunth chutney, optional
Half cup sev bhujiya
A lime
Method
Rinse the chickpeas and soak them in water overnight, or for at least 8 hours. To quicken the softening process, you could add baking soda. Drain the chickpeas and rinse them again.
In a pressure cooker, combine the chickpeas, bay leaf, cardamom pods, cloves, and cinnamon stick. Add enough water to cover the chickpeas. The water level above the chickpeas should be about 2 inches. Pressure cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the chickpeas are tender. Allow the pressure to release naturally before opening the lid. Drain the chickpeas, reserving some of the cooking liquid for later. Discard the bay leaf and whole spices. Keep aside
Heat oil in a pan or pressure cooker on medium heat. Add cumin seeds and coriander seeds. Let them splutter for a few seconds. Add the onion and cook until softened and translucent. Add ginger and garlic, and cook for another minute. Mix in red chili powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and garam masala powder. Stir and cook for a minute, releasing the aroma of the spices. Add chopped tomatoes and cook until they become mushy and release their juices.
Add the cooked chickpeas, reserved cooking liquid (as needed for desired consistency) and amchur powder. Season with salt to taste.
Bring to a simmer and cook for 10-15 minutes, allowing the flavours to meld. You can mash some chickpeas for a thicker gravy.
To serve, transfer the chole in a bowl. Place the matthi on a plate. Top them with chole. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves, saunth chutney, sev bhujiya and a squeeze of lemon juice for extra flavour.
By Rajan Sethi, co-founder of the restaurant Ikk Panjab in Delhi.
—As told to Jahnabee Borah.
A Bihar connection in Karachi
M y great-grandparents left India during Partition. We trace our origin to Patna in Bihar—my maternal grandfather was quite young when his family shifted to Bangladesh, while my maternal grandmother wasn’t even born when her family caught the train to Karachi.
On the journey to Pakistan, my great-grandmother gave her young children afeem (opium) so that they wouldn’t cry. The train from Patna reached Lahore first and there was a pile of eggs at the station. She would often refer to it as a pahad (mountain) of eggs. I am not sure why it’s such a core memory: Was it the eggs themselves, were they really hungry, or did they consider it a welcome gesture?
My father died when I was eight. My mother and I moved in with my maternal grandparents. I was exposed to Bihari dishes because of my grandmother, who had learnt them from her mom. There are Bihari staples with savoury snacks such as bachka (channa fritter) and nimki, and sweet treats like pua (sweet flattened fritters), shakkarpare (lightly sugar-coated fried dough) and mehboobi (layered, fried sweet with a thin sugar film). Some recipes were tweaked and adapted due to unavailability of ingredients, like that of the bachka.
My grandfather talked about bringing home jhingri channa, branches of green gram, which are abundantly found in Bihar. This channa was used to make bachkas. In Karachi, you don’t get jhingri channa, we have replaced it with black channa as well as green peas. Well-made bachkas are nice and crispy, the channa or peas pop in the mouth.
One wouldn’t find the famous litti chokha in my kitchen and I haven’t seen it in homes of the Bihari community here. The most popular culinary import is the Bihari kebab. Unlike most kebabs that have ground meat, the Bihari kebab is one long strip of meat with a skewer inserted through it and cooked over coal. The unique aspect of the kebab is the way it is cut like a long strip from one chunk of meat. My grandfather was an expert at slicing it, while my grandmother was particular about cooking it. She would say “paani nahin chootna chahiye" (the meat shouldn’t become dry), and it would be slathered with ghee to retain moisture for tenderness. It is eaten with paratha, raita and salad. Any leftovers are paired with rice and dal the following day. The Bihari kebab is everywhere and well loved.
Home food is incomplete without condiments like guramba and kairi ka kuchla during summer. The sweet and sour guramba has unripened mangoes cut into pieces, mixed with jaggery and spices and cooked. Kairi ka kuchla has grated unripe mango and chillies mixed with mustard oil. Both are eaten with dal-chawal for a soulful meal.
Certain foods that have a culinary link with Bihar are served on celebratory occasions. One of them is ghugni topped with raw onions and eaten during Ramzan. My cousins and I like to pair it with fruit chaat and crisp fried chiura (flattened rice). At weddings, we have the gulgule (a flour-based sweet). There is a ritual, rat-jaga, where the family stays up all night and gulgule is specially made for this occasion. Of all these foods, bachka is a family staple. It is cooked so much that it has just become an important part of my Bihari identity.
BACHKA
Ingredients
Half kg rice flour
One-fourth kg green channa
1 tsp black pepper powder
2 tsp cumin powder
Salt to taste
Two-third cup mustard oil
Method
Add water to the rice flour until it has a runny consistency. Add salt, black pepper and cumin, and mix in the green channa. Leave it to rest for 30 minutes.
In a kadhai (wok), heat oil. Pour in a ladle full of batter. It will spread out like a thick disk. Cook until the sides and edges are golden brown.
By Duaa Amir, a student of medicine in Karachi, Pakistan.
—As told to Jahnabee Borah
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A touch of Maharashtra to quintessential Sindhi fare
Sometimes, when you try to trace the evolution of a dish, you find yourself falling down a rabbit hole. The quest to find how the Sindhi kadhi—a quintessential dish for the community that was based in the Sindh province of Pakistan—has acquired many flavours and dimensions over time and has led me through intersections of familial and political histories.
The paternal and maternal sides of my family have had very disparate journeys. Partition forced my father’s family to move from Larkana in Sindh to Kota, Rajasthan, after which they shifted to Pimpri, near Pune. The latter was one of the colonies in Maharashtra where the Sindhi refugees were resettled. Some time later, they moved to the Pune municipal corporation, where I grew up. The family adapted to the produce of Maharashtra, especially the souring agent kokum.
On the other hand, my maternal great-grandfather used to live in Sukkur in Sindh, where he ran a business of dry fruits and nuts. Just after Partition, he moved to Agra, where he had to start work from scratch—this was true of many Sindhi families, who had to move very quickly, leaving everything behind. He started as a banana seller and gradually got into the trade of selling cloth and textile. My mother grew up on typical north Indian fare, and yet the Sindhi kadhi was made the traditional way, as was typical in Sindh, with besan (roasted gram flour) and seasonal vegetables such as okra, potatoes and certain gourds.
The two stories came together when my parents married, and my mother moved to Pune. She was introduced to the tweaks to Sindhi kadhi made by my father’s family. My paternal grandparents, by then used to Maharashtrian flavours, made liberal use of kokum in this dish.
For my newsletter, Sindhi with a dash of Hindi—which is about unscrambling my Sindhi heritage and tracing the food of my ancestors—I have been speaking to a lot of families and listening to podcasts.
From word of mouth, I know that tomatoes were introduced to Sindh in the 19th century. And that is when a certain group of Sindhis, the Shikarpuri Sindhis—who derive their name from the city of Shikarpur in Sindh—started adding tomatoes to the kadhi to give it a certain tartness. It is only when certain families moved to Maharashtra that they started adding kokum as well.
Today, we add a very generous dash of tomato puree and a small portion of tempered besan to the kadhi. That is combined with kokum. Our version of the kadhi also features curry leaves—something that didn’t find a place in the community’s dishes pre-Partition. Perhaps, this is another Maharashtrian adaptation. If you travel to a different region, you will find other adaptations of the same dish. For instance, I have been told that the Sindhis who moved down south, add tamarind to the kadhi. I find it odd though that all the tweaks have been made to the kadhi, and not so much to other dishes such as the Sindhi dal.
For my newsletter, I have been talking to my maternal grandmother as well, and she mentioned a recipe that she used to cook for her mother-in-law during the Ekadashi fasts. She would combine rajgira millet with lotus stem and potatoes. Now, Sindhis have a soft spot for lotus stem and eat it as a side dish or a steamed-charred version as a snack. But traditionally this sort of porridge-like concoction has not been made. The inclusion of lotus stem in the recipe surprised me. However, this porridge is no longer made ever since my great grandmother passed away. I want to explore whether this was a dish in its own right or was eaten only during fasts—given that it is simple and offers sustenance during fasting periods. Perhaps it has to do with having been based in the north—it combines a little bit of the new homeland with memories of the old.
SINDHI KADHI
Ingredients
Puree of 6 medium tomatoes
10g okra, horizontally slit
10g cluster beans, horizontally slit
10g moringa drumsticks, washed and peeled (optional)
A handful of curry leaves
A quarter of an inch ginger, grated
1 green chilli, horizontally slit
5 tbsp chickpea flour
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder
A pinch of asafoetida
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
2 dried kokum flowers
6 tbsp of ghee or oil of your choice
1 cup of water
Salt to taste
Chopped coriander
Method
Put a medium-sized pot on high heat. Add ghee, and as soon it melts, add the mustard seeds. When they crackle, add cumin and fenugreek seeds.
Add the chickpea flour and keep stirring it on a low heat. As soon as the mix changes colour and gets to a silky-smooth golden brown, add the curry leaves, chillies and ginger to the pot.
Take it off the stove and add the chilli powder and turmeric. Pour in the tomato puree and place the pot back on the stove on medium heat.
Add the okra, beans, and drumsticks. Place a lid on the pot and let the curry simmer for 15 minutes.
The best way to make sure that the curry is ready is to check if the cluster beans are soft. Add 2 kokum flowers, let the curry boil once and turn off the flame.
Add coriander and pour the curry into a bowl. It is best eaten with steamed rice, tuk aloo and papad.
By Harshita Lalwani, a Pune-based food writer-researcher and freelance marketer.
—As told to Avantika Bhuyan
Desi Punjab with a British ambience
"Masra di dal kyun chadhaiye (why are you making masra dal again?)," my nana (paternal grandfather) would always tease nani (grandmother; see picture) in Punjabi during family lunches because she regularly served her favourite dal, red lentils.
It was a ritual, everyone was supposed to share a fun anecdote, a poem... and my grandparents would banter over the dal. There would be to be 20-25 people, who would sit in the veranda of my nana’s house in Queensway Lane (now Janpath Lane, Delhi). The adults would be drinking beer, smoking, sharing laughs, and the kids, including me, would play with Minxy and Mixy (the two pet Pomeranians).
The star of those Sunday lunches, though, was papaji da meat (meat curry): my nana would sit on a cane stool with a glass of whisky or gin and leisurely cook the mutton for 7-8 hours. He was very particular about the masalas, even the way the vegetables for the gravy were cut. In fact, during weekdays, at lunch, he would make his own red chilli tadka and put it in the dal, all fresh at the dining table.
Then, at the Sunday lunch, there were also lamb chops, dal, cucumber salad, dahi bhalle, desi roast chicken, chicken pulao and stuffed tinda for the vegetarians, and lemon tart or bread pudding for dessert—all made under the strict guidance of my nani.
She used to hate cooking but was absolutely particular about how the food was made. So much so that she gave diaries to her daughters during their wedding, with handwritten recipes. From papaji da meat to khatte chhole, mayonnaise, fruit pudding, paneer chaap, masra di dal, furniture varnish (to keep furniture clean and shining, not to be eaten!), Queen’s pudding, pancakes, even churan for better digestion, she covered some 30 recipes in each of those diaries. I use my mother’s diary every now and then to cook something. The only thing she ever made was her famous bibi da pulao (chicken pulao), and that started after my mother forced her to cook something one day.
Food was always a big part of our lives, both on the maternal and paternal sides. And there was a lot of Western influence because my family came to Delhi from Lahore after Partition and both my dada and nana were public servants, so that erstwhile British club/party culture was quite strong.
My nana was a district magistrate, and he was in Amritsar a year before 1947 and they never got a chance to return home. Dadaji was posted in Shikarpur district and his family was in Lahore when 1947 happened. So, in one car they stuffed whatever little they could.
Unlike my nana, who was more relaxed and laid-back, my dada was strict like a British man. Every morning, at our house (dada’s) in Delhi’s Nizamuddin, we would have grapefruit sprinkled with sugar, followed by eggs and butter toast. On Sunday mornings, my dad would get fresh kaleji (goat liver) from the nearby Bhogal market.
It was the 1950s, there were no refrigerators then, so you had to buy fresh meat. Then, she would spend some 2 hours making that kaleji with vinegar, onions and we would have it as a spread on toast. Desserts were again cakes, tarts, pudding, but my dadi used to make chawal ki kheer (traditional rice pudding) a lot and offer me ₹5 as a bribe to finish five bowls. That was her way to ensure that I didn’t forget my roots.
BIBI DA PULAO
Ingredients
1kg chicken, curry cut
500g Basmati rice
300g onion
150g ghee
5g Green cardamom
2g cinnamon
2 bay leaves
5g clove
1 tbsp yellow chilli powder
1 tbsp red chilli powder
250g curd
15g green chillies
2 black cardamoms
10g ginger paste
5g garlic paste
50g cream
Half tsp kewra water
Half tsp rosewater
Method
Slice the onions and fry in ghee till dark brown. Keep some for garnish and make a paste of the rest and keep aside. Soak rice for 15 minutes. Slit the green chillies. Make a powder of green cardamom and cinnamon powder.
In the pan, heat ghee and add the ginger garlic paste. Add the brown onion paste, two sticks of whole cinnamon, four cloves, four green cardamoms, two black cardamoms, bay leaves. Add chicken to the pan. Mix yellow chilli powder, red chilli powder in curd and add it to the mixture. Add salt as per taste and let it cook. Add water as per need.
In a separate pan boil 2 litres of water, add the rice. Boil with lemon juice, salt to taste. Add 3-4 cloves and bay leaf. Once rice is al dente, drain.
Assembling the ‘pulao’: In a heavy-bottom pan, add the cooked chicken, green chillies and add the dry spice powder made in the beginning. Add the rice on top of chicken in the pan and sprinkle a little kewra water, rose water. Pour melted ghee and cream mixed with rice water on the pulao. Layer on top with fried onion and cover the pan with a heavy lid and leave on a hot plate for 10-15 minutes.
By Gautam Anand, president of IIHM College of Distinguished Fellows.
—As told to Pooja Singh
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