'THE SOUL IS WHAT THE SPOON FEEDS'

Tabinda Jalil Burney’s new culinary memoir is aS much a cultural and linguistic history as itis a tribute toa family's food heroes

- Vangmayi Parakala

A culinary memoir is no longer a novelty. For almost a decade, Indian food-based memoirs have consistently found readers, with the likes of Aparna Jain, Saee Khoranne-Khandekar and Padma Lakshmi writing books that weave autobiographical vignettes into recipes and introduce their readers to different lives and cultures. The latest entrant to this genre is Tabinda Jalil Burney with her book Fabulous Feasts, Fables And Family: A Culinary Memoir.

The book stands out, however, in how the food is hardly the main focus of its narration. This is despite 10 of 11 of its food-focused chapters being named after a dish made by a specific person from the author's extended family, like Naseem Khala's Extraordinary Firni, Shahida Chachi's Spectacular Rasawal or Abba's Favourite Kali Gajar Ka Halwa.

Each is an invitation to experience more than the dishes.

They recall a way of living, spontaneously bursting into song, poetry and funny sayings and idioms, and preparing for and participating in social and religious gatherings. The rest of its eight chapters retell fables that Jalil Burney heard from her grandmother-like Bandariya Bahuriya, The Ghost Who Lisped, or Raja Bakarkana, The Goat-Eared King-some of which may also be familiar to the reader.

In an interview with Lounge, Jalil Burney, a doctor with the National Health Service in London, talks about the heart of the book and why these otherwise ordinary-sounding dishes are special to her. Edited excerpts.