Boston

You know that scene at the end of Ratatouille when Anton Ego eats the food and is immediately transported back to his childhood? Food nostalgia and the joy I get from revisiting and recreating food memories is why I started writing about food. As I think about it, I also have many more little stories than I would have ordinarily recalled. More often than not, my food is not going to be as good as the good ol’ days but it’s fun trying and reliving.

I immigrated to America in 2016. My parents and brother now live here too and but most of my food memories (as I’m sure you’ve noticed) are from my life in India. Since I left India, I’ve lived in Virginia, DC, Boston / Waltham, Salt Lake City and now New York. Boston is where I went to graduate school and was the first place I really lived away from my family so was clinging to anything and everything that made me feel safe and comfortable. I searched for this feeling in food – the only thing that I could really control. I’ve always loved cooking but growing up, I did very little. I helped with the chopping but the kitchen was one of my mother’s domains. She may have preferred to work alone or I may have been a brat but we rarely cooked together. My brother and I usually baked and when we were old enough to cook by ourselves, it was only ever pasta. When I moved out, the only things I wanted to eat were dosa and rasam – two things I’d never made before.

Before I left India, my grandmother sat me down and helped me write out the recipes for rasam and vathakozhambu – essentially two lentil based gravies we ate very often at home and two things she know I wouldn’t be able to survive without. I too am like this now that I’m very comfortable in the kitchen but no one that cooked around me ever used a recipe and for things they’ve been making for 30+ years, they don’t need one. My recipe notebook had vague instructions…

Safe to say, my initial attempts were not up to snuff. In fact, my rasam made me so upset because it paled in comparison to anything I’d had before, that I stopped trying until recently.

I only dared to try again in the midst of COVID when I needed the therapeutic effects of rasam to guide me through these unchartered waters. In my head, the issue with the Waltham rasam was the tamarind concentrate I was using. Every time I tried vatha kozhambu (the other thing my grandma taught me how to make and that had a more concentrated tamarind flavor) always came out fine. The real issue was that I was less generous with the rasam powder and didn’t boil it nearly as much as was necessary. But do you blame me with a recipe written like that? Yes, you should blame me. My grandma can do no wrong and I should have asked more questions.

As I navigated all the new around me, I craved routine and habit. I got this from food too. Pongal is a celebration food to me – mushy rice and lentils made on every Tamil Harvest Festival. I participated in a competition at school once and the only thing I wanted to eat after was pongal. A post leaving India feature at every celebration for me was wine so the two were unwittingly paired together and they didn’t want to be seated at the same table but alas…

Religion and spirituality were also a big part of growing up. I’d lived right by a temple for so long that not having access to one was not something I’d ever thought about as being a problem. I remember calling my mom on an auspicious day once and asking her how to make sundal – my favorite prasadam (offering for the Gods). In hindsight, it might have been the easiest thing I attempted. It’s just dry chickpeas and coconut but somehow that tasted off too.

Giving up was not an option though. Slowly and steadily, I learnt from my mistakes and got marginally better at cooking Indian food. I also got marginally better at dealing with the circumstances and being away from home. I had amazing roommates and a great group of friends. We started making new memories and new rituals. My roommates and I would watch the Bachelor every Tuesday after class and work with a bottle of wine each and Thai food from our favorite restaurant down the street – Tree Top Thai. Now , every time I think of the Bachelor, I want Pad Thai and feel the need to be wasted (the latter may not have anything to do with ‘Tuesday Night Bachy’). I spent every Friday on my friend’s couch and she would make rajma chawal (beans and rice) – something I’d had a million times before but had never tasted as good as when she made it.

Through the people and food around me, I was now safe and comfortable in the present.

I visited Boston recently, something I try to do every year, and even three days after my return, I’m still buzzing. This lead to a realization. When I started working three years ago and moved constantly between Salt Lake and New York, I knew deep down that I’d moved continents and these moves shouldn’t have been as big a deal but they were equally, if not more challenging and I still craved safety and comfort. Only now, I was searching for what I had in Boston. I was searching for rajma chawal and Tree Top Thai. As time passed, I’ve grown comfortable with where I am now but this most recent trip took me all the way back and the nostalgia now gives me peace.

It also helps that I now make a bangin rasam.

Dedicated to 24 Highland Street, Longview Apartments and the people within. Boston is love and Boston is you.