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Shrumal
Alla Posh Mond
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| Pumpkin Flower |
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| Alla Posh |
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| Fritters/Mond |
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Stupid Apple
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| Cooked Green Apple, and not cooked raw Green Apple |
Khar Tsoonth. Stupid Apple. Not to be confused by Bumb Tsoonth.
Paach’e Ras
Trotter soup. In Hydrabad it is called Paaya. In most of North India, it’s called Kharoday. In Kashmir, it’s called Paache.
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kral, 1920s
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| Buyer:Pundit:Seller:Muslim:Maker:Muslim 1920s |
Came across this photograph in cookbook ‘Kashmiri Cuisine Through The Ages’ by Sarla Razdan. It’s a fine book with lots of recipes explained in simple terms and steps, and on top of that the book is packaged in with many beautiful photographs of Kashmir, both new and old (albeit a bit too casually for my taste). But, do not be misled by the title. This book actually offers no clue about the history of Kashmiri Cuisine. There is however a nice little introductory essay by the author that will find resonance with ‘9AM Batta’ generation. Thanks to my early school days in Srinagar, I could relate to it. And the book has me wondering: how come only Kashmiri Pandit women are writing books about Kashmiri Cuisine (one can find about a dozen listed in online stores) but not Kashmiri Muslim women.
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| Tok and Bricks. Jammu. 2012. |
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Buy Kashmiri Cuisine Through The Ages from Flipkart.com
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thought for ancient food
Fish prepared with oil and salt,
ginger, pepper, pomegranate peel,
with walnuts garnished, touched with saffron,
and served on a bed of cool, white rice:
the doer of this act of merit
is bound to go to paradise.
~ Ratnabhuti, only name of this Sanskrit poet is known
In this chilly winter time,
may your cooking pots be full
with paste of lotus stem and root,
bright and smooth as elephant tusk,
with fritters rich in pepper,
and pieces of the shakuni fowl.
~ Bhatta Vriddhi, again only name
Came across these in ‘Subhashitavali: An Anthology of Comic, Erotic and Other Verse’, translated from the Sanskrit Subhashitavali of Vallabhadeva (fifteenth-century CE, Kashmir ) by A. N. D. Haksar.
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Purchase link:
Beautiful Kashmiris on the Wall
On walls of Kashmir corner at Chor bizarre, Noida. Photographers: unknown. Years: unknown.
Here with captions from my mother.
[Update the photographer (of most of these is) famous Ram Chand Mehta]
Here with captions from my mother.
[Update the photographer (of most of these is) famous Ram Chand Mehta]
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| Gujjar Woman and Child ‘gabbi raech’ Shepherd [Note from Man Mohan Munshi Ji: [This is a photograph ] of a Kashmiri Pahal woman Her head dress and silver ear rings are unmistakably kashmiri/ Dress of Gujar women is totally different . More ever Gujars mostly tend buffaloes and not sheep. Herds of Bakarwals or Gaddis consist of sheep as well as goats. Only herds of Kasmiri Pohals are entirely of sheep] |
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| do’ud’goor Kashmiri Milkman |
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| Kashmiri Muslim Woman Beauty |
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| Kashmiri Pandit Woman. 1939. with targa, pootz, lou’ing and wankh |
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| Pandit Man drinking tea in kenz khos.1945. [Previously on art of holding the tea cup ] |
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| Woman making Wagu |
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Do Kashmiris have a sweet tooth?
‘What the hell were they selling in that shop? Did Kashmiris too have a sweet tooth?
I asked myself after I came across this photograph of a Kashmiri Sweet Shop in Margaret Cotter Morison’s A lonely summer in Kashmir (1904).
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“In Kashmir they make a sweetmeat of every thing, not of every kind of fruit, but of the buj or sweet reed which grows abundantly in its ditches; it is used as a preserve, and also as a tonic medicine.”
~ Godfrey Thomas Vigne in ‘Travels in Kashmir, Ladak, Iskardo, the Countries Adjoining the Mountain-Course of the Indus, and the Himalaya, north of the Panjab with Map’ (1844).
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dam’da: a kind of sweetmeat, ginger-candy
dal-masala: a certain sweetmeat made of beans flavoured with the shoots and pollen of the pers
dal-nabad: lake-candy, a kind of sweetmeat made of the pollen of the pets or reed-mace.
batas (lit. filled with wind), a cetain sweetmeat of a spongy texture and hollow within; a kind o cheap brown sugar which comes from the Panjab
batas-wor: a special variety of this sweetmeat
baraph, baraf, barfi: a kind of sweetmeat made of sugar and milk and having the appearance of ice
~ George Grierson’s ‘A dictionary of the Kashmiri language . Compiled partly from materials left by the late Pandita Isvara Kaula. Assisted by Mahamahopadhyaya Mukundarama Sastri.’ (1916)
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Apricots (Tcher) served in sugar syrup.
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Tonight.
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| Phirni. @ Chor Bizarre, Noida |
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Now. I have a bad case of toothache.
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Previously:
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Gucci/Kani’ghitch, the famous Kashmiri mushroom
Finally managed to get my hands on the famous Kashmiri mushroom, known in Kashmir as ‘kani’ghitch’ and in rest of the world as ‘Gucci’, the one that is believed to be found only on high mountain tops but only by one who is white of heart and/or dark of skin. The morel mushrooms sell at a rate almost at par with Gold. Eating it is almost like eating gold. I tell my father this must be the first time even he has held them. He gives me a ‘You crazy! your magaz dalmit!’ look and says,’You have had them before. When you were a kid, I bought them once from Handwara.’
These he bought from someone in Kistawar. The rate there is relatively less.
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| A Kilogram of these go for around Rs. 26000 in Jammu |
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| Smaller in size. These go for around Rs. 15000 a Kilogram in Jammu. |
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kulcha walla
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