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Calcutta on Your Plate - A Conversation with Nilosree Biswas
Her latest book, Calcium on Your Plate, published by Rupa, is an insightful journey through the everchanging landscape of Calcutta's food and cultural milieu, peppered with authentic recipes and intriguing historical accounts. She joins me in conversation as we take a deep dive into the layered culinary fabric of Calcutta. Hello, Nilastria, and welcome to swell. Your book calcutta on Your Plate is focused on the evolution of the Calcutta palette through time. What got you interested in pursuing this idea for your book?
Nilosree B
@peachtreespeaks · 3:06
People love eating. I mean, for most of us, a meal of our home food which could be fish, curry, different kinds of vegetables, rice, meat based dishes and sweets are equally and also most comfortable in sitting down with another kind of food. Maybe a plate of a biryani or a kabab or noodles or hakka mean. I think this plethora and the variedness of the food prompted me to kind of ask where all these food came from and became a part of the same palate
Thank you so much for sharing that. It's really interesting how Bengalis have been open to experimentation when it comes to food, as is evident from their recipes or their eating habits and flavors that have transcended boundaries in the creation of of something new. Do you think any other regional cuisine exhibits the sort of hybridity that the Bengali cuisine does?
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Nilosree B
@peachtreespeaks · 3:25
I do not think that any other place other than Kolkata and the two other British residencies, maybe to some extent Bombay and Madras may have hybridity in their cuisine, but nothing beats Kolkata's hybridity. It's absolutely mind boggling that so many people have shared their food with what was pre existing and what then went on to form what we know today as Kolkata's food
Let us talk a little bit about the Avdhi legacy of the city that goes way back to the exiled Nawab Wajid Alisha, also famously known as the person who put the potato in the biryani. While there is a debate as to whether it was indeed the nawab who introduced the potato in the biryani, I'd really like to have your take on his influence of the cuisine of Kolkata
Nilosree B
@peachtreespeaks · 5:00
One, that he was a man who was fond of experimenting, experimenting every fine thing which he was attracted to, for which he had fancy. That means that his food has to be variant and he has to have new foods on an everyday basis. So the potato went into the Pulao is what the lakanawis, or the Avadhis, like most. The most common understanding is that possibly everybody loves biryani. No, that's not the case. The Avadhis are more fondly
Nilosree B
@peachtreespeaks · 1:45
And what best would it be then to kind of push the new product via Nawab, who was maverick and brilliant and absolutely inclined to finer things in life, open to experimentation? I think that is how, actually, the potato went into the Royal Pullout, the Royal Avadi pull out that the Royal Kitchens had been making for some time for the Nawab. And today it's absolutely unthinkable to even have a plate of Kolkata biryani which doesn't have that chunky piece of creamy potato right in there
Thank you for that. The past decade or so has drastically changed the food scenario of almost every city with a culinary heritage. With new restaurants and buzzy cafes coming up, many of them giving tough competition to the older eater, is incorporating new flavors and tastes with time. So much so that changes in the food culture have led to the closure of many such heritage eateries. In your opinion, how has the popularity and the gender attitude towards heritage food fed in Kolkata?
Nilosree B
@peachtreespeaks · 4:32
Only that with the popularity of new experimental food or fusion food, these food, these hugely enormously popular food, for example, maybe a kebab or maybe egg chop or maybe a prawn cutlet or a chicken kobiraji. All these kind of foods are consumed during the durkapuja or any kind of festivity. Or maybe when one is going out with friends and family to enjoy that kind of food
I must say that all this talk about food has really made me hungry now so Nilosree. Thank you so much for taking the time out to be a part of this conversation and for giving us a very delicious sneak peek into what went behind the scenes of calculus that are on your plate. I have absolutely enjoyed having this chat with you and would definitely love to have you back on for more conversations around history, culture and your work in filmmaking
Aayan Banerjee
@BasTalk · 4:59
Think of a Peter Cat. Think of, umber and some of these restaurants which have been there forever, they haven't done much either buying, upgrading a window AC to a split AC, and I'm generalizing apologies for that, but you get the drift, right? There hasn't been any noticeable major difference. The cuisine, the menu card largely remains the same. Why? Because there is a set of audience which thinks of it as tradition
Nilosree B
@peachtreespeaks · 4:27
I haven't had the food there, but what it appears from their Instagram feed that they are doing some terrific fusion work. But the fact is that whether these new restaurants have been the reason for the closed down of the older restaurant, which was my host question, is not really what I agree with. And in my main answer also, I have stayed the same. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to the podcast
Kaveri Bhatt
@kaveri_bhatt · 2:34
My guru says that everything which has arrived, anything which you know, which has arrived, has its fall. And I totally agree. But again, if something which has fallen down can rise again. I'm waiting desperately for Kolkata to rise. I hope I did not offend anybody through this well. But we Bengalis need to reconcile our thoughts on what we want become a little selfless
Nilosree B
@peachtreespeaks · 4:50
I as an author of Calcutta on Your Plate, I would like to respond to the first half of your comment and of your difficulty in finding vegetarian foods, vegetarian dishes. And I have a reason, I have a historical reason or a rationale behind it. And I would like to share it with you and everybody who had been listening to this podcast. Vegetarian food, which is also an integral part of Bengali food, or Amadir Kabar, is unfortunately a very less discussed area of Bengali foods
Nilosree B
@peachtreespeaks · 3:18
The rest of the comment that you have made are not going to have my remark on that because that is a very personal opinion. I thank you for listening to this podcast and I also thank everyone who had so warmly listened to this little discussion that we had, me and Ramya, my host, who has conducted the discussion in a very uninteresting manner. It's very organic the way we have discussed food and Kolkata's Food. Kolkata is a city which is liked by almost everybody
Kaveri Bhatt
@kaveri_bhatt · 2:17
Because we kind of people like us who have taken some initiation, we tend to feel that the same pathways being used for cooking the vegetarian stuff also initially we adjusted to it, but then probably this was one reason we moved out of Kolkata and settled in Bangalore where the very options were much more. Thank you. Thank you so much for responding. And please keep writing. Please keep swelling also because that way we can connect. I can learn a lot from you. Have a good day. Bye
Nilosree B
@peachtreespeaks · 1:45
If you have any questions am all reachable out here in this feed in this well talk to join you in a discussion on food about Kolkata. Thank you so much. Have a lovely day ahead. Bye