Amulya
Joseph
Ms.
Nichole Wilson
AP
Literature and Composition
2
December 2013
Food Memoir
I can’t exactly remember the first time I tasted biryani, but I can recall the
feeling—something like a blind man seeing the light of day for the first time,
or getting married. I knew, as I shoveled down mouthfuls of rice laden with
masala, goat so tenderly broiled that it fell apart on my fork, that there was
no going back to the chapatti of my past.
It was time for a new era, and it was one my entire family has come to embrace
with wholehearted enthusiasm. Biryani is a legend of the Joseph household, a
dish our Indian community speaks about in hushed whispers. “I heard she learned
on the Ganges, from a man who’d been making biryani since he was 12 years old.”
“No, no, it’s a family recipe. Her mother’s mother served it to Gandhi, didn’t
you know?” “You’re absolutely wrong. She’ll throw out the entire batch if a
single grain of rice is broken. What kind of family recipe calls for that?” And
on.
My family is not much better. Idolized
to the point of blasphemy by my siblings and me, its “symbolic meaning has
little to do with the food itself” (Claxton, 1), and much more to do with the
“events [I’ve come] to define through the food” (BBCNews.com). As biryani is
traditionally saved for large gatherings and festivities, my mom makes it on
the days that are truly special around the year: when my dad comes home from a
business trip and when my siblings come back from college and birthdays and
Christmas and Thanksgiving and graduations and anniversaries and whatever else
you can think of.
For every celebration in my life,
every landmark I’ve ever achieved, by my side was my loving family, my closest friends,
and a steaming pot of biryani. “Food is closely connected to that central power
of the human soul, memory” (Resurgence.org), and I can’t recall the fondest
times of my past without the spicy aroma of masala drifting just around the
corner, the crunch of pappadams and cucumbers, and the familiar peculiarity of
the fall-off-the-bone goat meat.
Indeed, it was through the variety
of biryani that my family began to experiment with other foods. Paella became
my mother’s next attempt in the kitchen. Inspired by its success, my mother
went on to serve gazpacho and Sangria and Morir Sonando and whatever other
Hispanic delicacy Google could find her.
It’s because of biryani that I can
brighten when I see those dishes, and wonder at how they’re made and what the
story behind them is. When I see cuisines and ideas and opinions that differ
from what I know, I wonder if it’s possible to learn to love them the same way
I learned to love goat meat and gazpacho. It’s because of biryani that I’ve
come to realize that anything, no matter how different it may seem, has its
merit, so long as I’m willing to try it.
Works Cited
Claxton,
Mervyn. "Culture, Food, and Identity." Culture and Development
6 (2013): 1.
Norman Girvan.
Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
"Eatonville
Restaurant Est. 2009." Eatonville Restaurant Est. 2009. N.p., n.d.
Web. 4
Dec. 2013.
<http://www.eatonvillerestaurant.com/>.
Moore,
Thomas. "Food for the Soul." Resurgence and Ecologist. The
Resurgence Trust,
n.d. Web. 4 Dec.
2013.
Taylor,
Anna-Louise. "Food symbolism: Why do we give food meaning?." BBC
News.
BBC, 23 Jan. 2012. Web. 4
Dec. 2013.
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