The first thing I consciously learned to cook, as I set about upon this endeavour: my mother’s Monday dal. It’s the food I’ve taken for granted, been immensely bored with Monday after Monday but which has held me at chokehold ever since I learned to make it. Deceptively simple, it refuses to be made passively or in an unfocused manner, it demands attention, a keen olfactory sense and sharp tastebuds – a veritable balancing act of flavours and textures- which if ignored would render it inedible. This dal which I’ve made every week for over 3 years now, reins me back to my humble learnings as a daughter and a cook.
The cumin seeds in the tadka must be deeply darkly browned but not burnt and never fair, there should be no fewer than 4 (sometimes 5) souring and tart agents, added in at various stages of cooking, a pop of colour in the blanket of the turmeric hued dal with a few fresh bits of chopped tomato, a light brothy but incredibly smooth consistency that my friends have taken to calling “dal soup”, the pungency must come from grassy fresh green chillies and not dried chili powder. All of these must balance against the salt to make it pungent, tart, bright, light and still deeply comforting. From the mundane-ness of Monday dal, I now find myself craving its layered puckering tartness, as the pressures of Mondays set in.
At each of these cooking stages, your senses are your best friends. They must be alive and discerning – the scent of browned jeera versus burnt jeera, the mouthfeel of smooth brothy dal versus grainy or gritty, the aromas or the lack thereof telling you how much more salt it needs to come alive, the underlying acidity of curry leaves balancing against the tart kokum, sweet tomatoes and sharp limes. The moment you choose to take these cues for granted is when the dal is lost.
In this discernment as I cook this dal lies years of passivity, years of uncaring consumption that I must confront. The years of taking simple meals like these along with the labour of my mother for granted. There’s no amount of gratitude that can be enough to thank all the women that came before me, gave up their own nourishment such that I could be whole today. The only way I could even attempt to honour this was by learning how to cook for myself, seek nourishment and renewal from their teachings. In this path I shed every insecurity and inadequacy that was foisted on me by society, I became more of myself and less of Them. The ability to feed myself instilled a quiet confidence in the knowledge that I’m self-sufficient and no matter who comes and goes away from my life, I will always be able to self-nourish.
And if you master this dal, maybe you will too.