In ‘Ammi’s Kitchen: Heirloom Recipes from Rampur’, Pernia Qureshi shares her family’s kitchen legacy

Recipes evolve and proliferate as they traverse timelines and borders. Every hand leaves an imprint, even as the actual creators of recipes remain shrouded in anonymity. It is therefore worth applauding that Pernia Qureshi has decided to share the recipes of her grandmother, the indomitable Musharraf Begum, a generosity that stems from the matriarch’s desire to teach her specialties to members of her family and house help.

Like all women of her generation, married and sent off to a new home, Musharraf Begum was transposed from the small town of Chandausi to the erstwhile princely state of Rampur. One can only imagine how daunting it must have been for the young girl to take the place of the fourth, and the only living, wife of an older and rich Abdul Majeed Qureshi, with stories of his earlier wives lurking in every corner. Yet, she created space for herself by marrying the flavours of her hometown to that of the culinary tradition of Rampur. Being a Rampuri, I know how protective we are of our cuisine. The tempering of daals and the masala mixes are almost cast in stone. An erring element in a dish is enough to seal the culinary reputation of a daughter-in-law. Yet, going by the recipes Pernia describes, Musharraf Begum dared to edge in tomatoes and chaat masala into curries, kebabs and roasts.

We food writers and historians believe that authenticity is a fraught term, as recipes are reimagined and amalgamate varying influences in kitchens. Having said that, I was surprised to see scrambled eggs in chapli kebabs and tomatoes in qorma — two instances in which I can hear loud protests from the Rampuris! Can there ever be a seekh kebab without golden fried onions? Or a ‘chicken nihari’, when nihari is supposed to be cooked through the night?

Still, Pernia presents the recipe of a nihari masala that promises to elevate chicken curry to the grandeur of a nihari and advises us to sprinkle chaat masala over ‘nargisi kofta’ and ‘ishtew’. I can see the bold, adventurous spirit of Musharraf Begum, which was instrumental in setting up Rampur Kitchen in Delhi’s Khan Market and a catering business during the Covid lockdown.

The recipes are simple and easy to follow, and someday I hope to try them out. After explaining the masala mixes — garam masala, chaat masala, nihari masala — at the beginning, it is disappointing that some recipes still call for store-brought qorma and kebab masalas. It is heartening to find some Rampuri dishes in the collection, though the hallowed Rampuri urad daal khichdi goes by the name of ‘bina happa’.

We also encounter ‘urad gosht’, ‘Rampuri daal’, ‘chana daal karela’, ‘yakhni pulao’, ‘taar qorma’ and ‘saag gosht’. Though the recipes differ from Rampuri recipes, the contours are familiar. Someone looking for true blue Rampuri fare might come away disappointed, but others might find delight in these interpretations.

The beautiful outlay and photographs of dishes and Pernia’s ancestral Rampur house enhance the cookbook. One cannot but feel touched by her labour of love in collecting and preserving the recipes wrought by her grandmother through hours of cooking with her faithful sidekick in her kitchen.

The enduring image is of a feisty lady organising a catering business at 90 and sleeping with the day’s earnings under her pillow.

— The reviewer is a food historian