On Making Mango Pickles and Memories

Everyone I know seems to have childhood memories of pickling sessions, of mothers and grandmothers, aunts and grandaunts gathering around hills of mangoes or other seasonal fruit or veg, vast quantities of spices, acres of muslin, big, beautiful ceramic jars and glass bottles, sunny balconies and terraces, gossip, natter, and a whole lot of fun.

I had none of these memories - we didn't eat pickles in our house, my grandmother didn't make any, neither did anyone in the extended family (at least to my knowledge). If neighbours or friends gifted us some it lasted forever. Pickle was never a big deal.

Once I was older, in the last couple of years at school and then in college, I started cooking. Simple meals, basic stuff. I'd often make lunch for myself and plain rice with daal was frequently on my menu. This is where I discovered pickle. Bedekar's mango pickle became the backbone of many of these solitary lunches. Hot rice with daal, a dollop of ma's home made ghee, and spoonful of tart and spicy mango pickle. Till today Bedekar's mango pickle is my favourite mango pickle.

I first encountered chhunda when I was in college. A classmate often brought theplas with chhunda and it was a revelation for me! Love at first bite - as cliched as that sounds!

Later, when I moved to Pune for the Master's in Archaeology I discovered myriad pickles from around the country - olive pickles from Assam, more chhunda, vadu manga and avakkai from the south, Punjabi mixed veg pickle, and of course prawn pickle made by my soon-to-be mom in law.

As you can see, I entered the pickle game pretty late in life and I actually made my first pickle only after I was married. My mother in law had a slew of Parsi pickle recipes and I spent many a happy afternoon helping her make pickles at home - prawn, chicken, various mango pickles, brinjal, and quite a few others.

Then Rushina called me to tell me about celebrating Indian foods and the concept of dedicating days to specific Indian foods and food preparation. So like macaron day, doughnut day, nutella day, etc., why not have aam achaar day and a few others like that? This appealed to me at many levels and I was sold. Since I didn't have any mango pickle making experience I volunteered to make kaancha aam'er chatni, a favourite in Bengali homes in the summer.

And just like that in a couple of weeks we met at the APB Cook Studio and there we were, making pickles! We had everything - the piles of mangoes, the mounds of spices, the bottles of oil, and of course, the gaggle of chattering, laughing, gossiping women!

Small mangoes for vadu manga

Grated and salted mango being squeezed of excess liquid

Instructions, chit-chat, anecdotes, gossip!

Catch them young!

All hands on deck! 

Me making kaancha aam'er chatni 

You can't make pickle without tasting! 

The picklers! 

For me, it was the wish for a memory come true. I finally had my pickle making memory. I'm so looking forward to the other Indian food days we're going to celebrate...
Rushina, thank you 💖


Photo credits - Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal, Suunil Murudkar, Rhea Mitra-Dalal

A Tour of NE India Through Food at the APB Cook Studio

Mumbai is seeing a growing interest in the regional cuisines of our vast country and I have been fortunate enough to sample many of these not so easily accessible cuisines at various events and, sometimes, in private homes. We've been seeing food festivals emerge as a trend in the last few years with the Koli festivals, the Pathare Prabhu food fest and, very recently, the CKP food festival. There are also big dos like the annual Upper Crust Show and the Good Food magazine event where food professionals and businesses from across the city showcase their products. And there is the band of home cooks who are now having pop ups, custom designed private meals at their own residences, and sometimes they do a special event at unique venues like the APB Cook Studio.

North Eastern cuisine, like the term Indian cuisine, is a complete misnomer. There is such diversity in ingredients, cooking styles, influences, and food preferences that one simply cannot class the cuisines of the seven north eastern states of India under one banner. The Cuisines of the Seven States of the NE Demo and Dine event at the APB Studio today gave me a glimpse of this incredible diversity. With Gitika Saikia as our guide, we were taken on a culinary tour of the entire north eastern region The sheer variety of meats, herbs, local vegetables, cooking and preserving processes, and styles left me amazed and hungry - hungry for a deeper knowledge of what seems to me a wonderful world of food.

The menu for the event was -

An apertif made of amlakhi (amla) and hilikha (haritaki).

Pasa - A soup from Arunachal Pradesh. A flavourful broth of herbs and lightly cooked fish, this soup was one of the highlights of the meal for me.

Dohneiiong - Pork in Black Sesame paste. A Pork preparation from Meghalaya.

Eromba - A vegetable and fermented dry fish preparation from Manipur


Bai - A wonderfully light clear soup of assorted vegetables, bamboo shoot, lime leaves and rice, this delightful one pot meal is a staple from Mizoram

Akhuni or Axone - A chutney made from fermented soy beans. This is from Nagaland. Naga cuisine has loads of different chutneys that are pounded fresh just before the meal and I was fortunate enough to eat many varieties in the hostel in Pune, thanks to my Naga friends.

Mosdeng Serma - A chutney of fish, tomatoes and local herbs, this one was from Tripura.

Dau Jwng Sobai - Chicken cooked in urad or kaali daal. This is an Assamese preparation that had minimal ingredients, was slowly cooked, and ultimately tasted really good. This dish had 'khaar' or alkali extracted from the banana plant as one of its ingredients and the taste of the khaar was distinct, yet not overwhelming.

This was served with sticky rice, and an assortment of pickles for extra zing. The rice was served bundled neatly in banana leaf packets.

This is what my plate looked like piled up with food! The mash you see in the foreground is Eromba, of which I don't have an individual photo.

Dessert is not a traditional concept in the region and it is only in recent years that the trend of serving dessert at the end of a meal is slowly picking up.

Gitika served a simple flavourful dessert that was basically khoi, a variety of puffed rice, cream, and sugarcane jaggery layered in a bowl.

The session began with Gitika demonstrating two recipes, the Dohneiiong, and the Dau Jwng Sobai. Gitika is a naturally ebullient person and as she took us through the recipes she also told us about her experiences visiting various tribes in their villages, invading kitchens and shamelessly begging to taste whatever was being cooked, and even wheedling goodies to take back home!

As we ate our way through the cuisines of the Seven Sisters we were aware that this was just a mere glimpse of all that lay in that magical world in that mysterious corner of our country.

Marathon Bloggers Project 52