Every morning recently I have been having milk and cookies for breakfast. My brother Gopal has a surplus of milk at the moment and he calls every morning to make sure I come down to drink my portion. Today instead he arrived here with the milkman in tow. The milkman wears a wonderful technocolour turban and carries a tin milk can. Gopal has a plate of food.
“Today is a special Mata ji (Mother Goddess) festival,” he says. “Eating special food. Nothing hot.”
I take the tali from him, on it is an assortment of snacks and sweets, some pickle, some dried vegetable and a sweet porridge dish.Ok so what story is behind this festival I ask he heats the milk and the milkman lights a beedi. He prevaricates a little, today is some kind of woman’s festival and so no cooking. “Yes but there must be a story behind it,” I insist.
“Arre yaar, it’s a very old tradition taken from when people were very less educated.” He explains. “The educated people who knew the science of health and longevity knew that people should adjust their diet at the change of every season. Instead of telling people this is good for you, they made up a story and made this festival so that people would change their eating.”
The food on the plate is all the Ayurvedic balance of cooling food. The porridge is cooling and so is the cumin used to flavour it. Sugar, jaggery, all the local ingredients that are both cooling and non aggravating to the digestion. There is a lot of chewing involved and as with every festival involving food in India, people have been arriving all day with plates and piles of similar food. It’s a wonderful interplay of storytelling, food and science! Food as medicine and medicine as food as well as a day off for the cook!