Sugar in my milk

Neha Lamba Grover: Hi, everyone. Welcome to No Forks Given. And I have today with me Dilshad Master. is a speaker on resilience, change, and reinvention. She is also an entrepreneur and adventurer who has led treks into high altitude terrains in and Nepal. She's also the first and only female to ever lead a civilian trek to the Siachen Glacier. And she did all this after surviving cancer. For two decades, Dilshad held senior positions in the media industry as SVP and COO for such brands as National Geographic, Star, and UTV. So welcome ⁓ to No Forks Given Dilshad.

DILSHAD JAL MASTER: Hi, Neha, good to see you again.

Neha Lamba Grover: Good to see you. ⁓ And Dilshad is joining us from Bangalore. also in Calcutta today while I'm recording this. And Dilshad, just ⁓ to recap, the objective of these conversations are really to start a dialogue on identity in a slightly softer and tastier way by referring to food. because ⁓ it's a very relevant topic these days, but when you start getting into social identities and discussing how they originated, what the stories are, you see a parallel in the food of those communities. And very often you start questioning what you mean by authentic, what you start meaning by identities, and you start unraveling interdependencies in this world. And so with that background, I wanted to refer to the fact that you're Parsi. And want to start by asking you what that means for people who don't know. mean, the Parsi community in India is a very significant community, but a lot of people outside India do not know what that means.

Dilshad Master: So those people who came and settled on the coast of Gujarat began to be called Parsis. So we are the Parsis who fled Persia and ⁓ came in to settle on the coast of Gujarat. Now, ⁓ which is why you see a lot of intermingling between Gujarati and Parsis. We actually speak Gujarati. We have...

DILSHAD JAL MASTER: So yeah, I think we are significant in terms of our contribution to business and industry, but extremely insignificant when numbers are concerned. We are like 50,000, I think, all over the world now. So we literally need to be considered a tribe rather than a community. But the Parsis were the Persians that escaped. ⁓

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Dilshad Master: We have stopped speaking our own language now for over a thousand five hundred years. Our prayers are still in the Persian language. And a lot of us as children, when we grow up and have our thread ceremonies, what is called the Naufjod ceremony. So we've retained our religion to a very large extent. We've retained our desire not to cohabit with non-Parsi's.

DILSHAD JAL MASTER: from Persia in between the eighth and the tenth century when the Arab conquest of Persia took place. At that time, Zoroastrianism was the state religion of Persia. The fire temples were protected, the priests had influence. And once the conquest took place, Islam became more dominant. Zoroastrians, as in the followers of Zarathustra, that's why Zoroastrians, became a minority. A lot of them were

Dilshad Master: where everything else is concerned, whether you look at food or culture or the way we dress, if you look at the way Parsis dress during weddings and stuff, we wear what is called the chatte palle. The chatta palle is the Gujarati style. So, know, Gujarati of the saree, the Gujaratis have their forward pallo slightly short on the hips and the Parsis have it slightly longer. But so just like that, even our food began to get...

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

DILSHAD JAL MASTER: being forced to convert and ⁓ there was, you know, taxes, a special tax that was created on the Zoroastrian community. It's gradual loss of status. eventually I think there was this large group of people that decided they wanted to retain their religion, did not want to convert. They wanted to be considered as Zoroastrians and they fled to India and landed up on the coast of Gujarat.

Neha Lamba Grover: of Saudis, yeah.

Dilshad Master: know, intermingled with the local flavors and the local tastes. So that's the history of the Parsis. And I think for the longest time, the Parsis have now struggled to retain their identity. I, for example, married a Punjabi. So I was immediately what is termed as excommunicated from the religion. And I get two hoots about that because as far as I'm concerned, I'm still a Parsi. And you you cannot take away my religion from me.

DILSHAD JAL MASTER: So that is what the parses are.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: ⁓ And therefore, ⁓ I continue to, do I practice the religion much? No, I never did even before marriage. I'm not the Agyari fire temple going kind of Parsi, unfortunately or fortunately, but I do, when I cook, ⁓ I love to cook Parsi food. And especially when I feed people, I love to feed Parsi food. Because I think ⁓ that is the unusual part of our

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: culture that nobody has yet been able to ⁓ claim. Let's put it that way.

Neha Lamba Grover: So, you know, there's that sweet story about when the Parsis arrived on the coast of Gujarat, the Hindu kings apparently showed them a bowl or something of milk and showed that it's full and there wasn't any space and the Parsis priests...

Dilshad Master: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. the king sent across the bowl of a glass of milk actually to the priests who had come with the community that had fled and said that, look, we are full up. We have no place for you. And the priests ⁓ put a teaspoon of sugar in the bowl. I don't know if this is a true story, if it's apocryphal, but I love the story. So I love it. Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, yeah. But even as a metaphor, yeah, even as a metaphor.

Dilshad Master: And so they put a teaspoon of sugar into the glass of milk and he stirred it and he sent it back. And he said, this is how we come here to sweeten your community. Basically that is what we were trying to do. We can intermingle, we can become one and yet we can retain our own flavorings. And I think it's a beautiful story of how we have adapted. And I think one of the biggest things about us is that we are

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah, it is, yeah. then.

Dilshad Master: hugely adaptable to any circumstance, you And I think that's the wonderful part. I love that story. And I always hope that it's a true story because it perfectly defines who we are.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. And so over the years, ⁓ I know that the Parsi religious leaders would connect with the Zoroastrians in Iran to make sure that all their practices were in line with what they assumed was the right way of doing things. always assumed. But the letter that went back and forth had very little, little things like, can I use ink ⁓ to write? Yeah, which is made by a non-Zoroastrian and so on.

Dilshad Master: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I've heard of that too. Yeah. Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: ⁓ I think it was more an anxiety around maintaining your identity. at the same time, like Parsi food, given how small the community is, in some sense, is a very distinct cuisine, right, in India. ⁓ And yet it evolved, it evolved to some point and then it became Parsi food. Can you just describe ⁓ what you think or think of as, you know, Parsi food in today's day?

Dilshad Master: Yes. Absolutely, absolutely. Today's day, yeah, I could describe it, but what it was originally would be really tough. But you know, I'm going to give you a little story before that. When I was living in Bangalore as a teenager, we had three Iranians who were living on the first floor. And I think I must have been like 13, 14 years old. And I still remember their names, Jannat, Mostaba and Mosin. And they were students. This was at the time in the...

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: early 80s when a large population of Iranians had fled to India for education and studies and things like that. a lot of them had come and settled in Bangalore. So one day Janat called us for lunch. ⁓ I was usually fascinated because I was like, let's see what Iranian food is like, because we had no clue. And so... ⁓

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: Jannath laid out this amazing spread for us. But what was the interesting part was, right? In the middle of the dining table was this big, what we call as a patra, a vessel with rice. Now there were three, four, five, six, seven, eight people. So it was quite a lot of rice. Now the top layer of the rice was beautifully dark brown.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Dilshad Master: You know, it was like almost like caramelized rice on top. And ⁓ I remember my mother turning to me very quietly and obviously in complete ignorance. So, know, bless her, but she didn't realize it at that time either, did we? So she said in Gujarati, which means the poor thing has burned her eyes. Okay. And then I watched, I watched Janna proceed to take a knife and no, she didn't do it. She gave it to her.

Neha Lamba Grover: Mm-hmm. safe.

Dilshad Master: elder brother, was like the, you know, she gave him the honor of doing that. He cut the rice into eight triangles and the top layer of that burnt layer of the rice was handed over to each person in a plate. And that's when I realized, I was like, wait a minute, nobody would do that to burnt rice, right? If it was me, I would have flipped it over and I would have served the pulao.

Neha Lamba Grover: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dilshad Master: and at the bottom and try to hide the burnt parts. So I'm thinking, what is this? Now those were days when we didn't have the internet and we didn't have Google and we had no idea what it was. But it was interesting because we went back home and said, ⁓ we ate burnt rice. But I learned later on that this burnt rice is called Tadiig. I think it's Tadiig, T-A-H-D-I-G. And it is a specialty. And ⁓ the mark of a good

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Yes, yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: cook in Iran is the ability to make this beautiful golden brown tadeeg, which is then handed over to every single person sitting on the dining table as a form of community eating. Now I found that very interesting because many years later, and I'm talking about now, you know, in those days, Neha, I was never interested in cooking. I didn't know how to cook. I'll say that very bluntly. My mother was an amazing cook.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: She still is. My mom used to cater for 300, 400 people for Parsi Navjots and She was just an amazing cook. So entering the kitchen, kind of like, why the hell should I do it? I

Neha Lamba Grover: okay. ⁓

Dilshad Master: So many years later, I realized that, you know, when I looked at the Tahdig and I dug a bit deeper into, thankfully now we've got chat, GPT and AI and all explaining it to us. I realized that it was not very different from our Dhanasak rice. So if you look at the way that Parsis eat dal and rice, so we have something called Dhandaar, which is always cooked on

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: auspicious occasions is basically plain yellow toor dal with a little bit of haldi and salt. That's No Tadka, Fadka and white rice. Now when we eat prawn curry rice or chicken curry rice or mutton, again our curry has more like 32 different spices in it I've counted. But again it's on white rice. But why is Dhansa, which is like the the centrifugal force of our food, right? Anybody who knows anything about Parsi food will first mention Dhansa.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yes.

Dilshad Master: And dhansak is always eaten with brown rice. It's never eaten with white rice. If I put white rice on the table with dhansak, my mother's gonna look at it say, assume this is not dhansak rice. And how do we brown it? We brown it with caramelized sugar and browned onions. And that's how we brown the rice. It's not as we take white. We take white rice and we caramelize the sugar and then we pour it into the water while the white rice is boiling and we have fried.

Neha Lamba Grover: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: a lot of spices like your kali mirch, your peppercorns and not cinnamon, yes. So we put all of that and then we put in the onion and then we dark fry the onion. Then we put in the rice and then we put in a little caramelized sugar so the rice becomes brown. And I thought to myself, I said, this is our version of the tadi. Now, isn't that interesting that, you know,

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Dilshad Master: And I asked my mom, said, mama, you remember that what Janad fed us? said, how is this different? So she looked at it and she said, yeah, that's interesting. And we also put burnt onion on top of our pulao, which I hate. I don't like the taste of burnt onion in anything because I think it sweetens the dish. It sweetens the dish, which goes back to the Gujaratis. So it's interesting that we have this little intermingling of different.

Neha Lamba Grover: Because it did, yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Dilshad Master: faiths and different cultures which has brought about our food. So can I say that we have strictly retained our religion to a very very large extent? Yes. But have we retained our food? No, I think we've taken a little bit from everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. And at some point it became Parsi food, right? Because it's a process. it came, you were not eating what you call Parsi food today. And after this, we are worrying that it might be lost. But in between is where it's getting defined as Parsi food, right? After having there's some level of awareness where you become Parsis and not just the rastrians who have fled Iran, right? that, Yeah, yeah.

Dilshad Master: Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Correct. Correct. So this is not Iranian food anymore. know, it's not Persian food. They're not eating Persian food. So I went to this restaurant in Delhi many years ago. ⁓ I think, Jambwa Charloji or something. I can't remember. ⁓ And ⁓ they served Dhan Saab.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: And there were like little cherry tomatoes floating in it. Now the people who were with me were also Parsis and they were like, ⁓ delicious luggage. And my mother and I looking at each other's face and going, you know, we have nothing floating in our Dhanasak besides the meat. All right. So I'm thinking like, what the hell? And then my mom tells me, she said in every Parsis household, the Dhanasak is made differently. Every Parsis.

Neha Lamba Grover: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Dilshad Master: So there is no household in Parsees where the Dhanasak is the same. In our family, because mom and mom's mom were like 10 brothers and sisters and therefore the offsprings have all learned from one person, which is my grandmother. So in my Masi's house in America, in my Masi's house in Yogeshwari, in my Masi's house in Bandra, in my house, in my mom's house in Pune, our Dhanasak will all taste the same.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Dilshad Master: very little difference. Our curry rice will all taste the same. It originated from one person from whom we got all the recipes. But if you go to eat dhansa, it's very different. And in every household, it's very different. And then I ate something else in that restaurant called Beri Beri Pulao. And I'm thinking to myself, what the hell is Beri Beri Pulao?

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Dilshad Master: So my mom is again eating, all right? And mom is very critical, I have to say, because she's one of the finest Parsi chefs, And so she's 89 years old, so she has a right to be critical as far as I'm concerned. So she's eating and she goes, I said, what is this, mama? Very, very Pulao. So what is it? She said, it's not Parsi, it's Iranian. So I'm like.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, books, yes. Yeah. distinction.

Dilshad Master: Yeah, I was like, okay, so yeah, they used to put those berries. can't remember what those berries are. They're very specific berries. They're not available in India. They're actually imported from either Afghanistan or from Iran. ⁓ And they're like liberally put over the, over the pulao. And that was the berry, berry pulao that we were eating. Not my favorite. I don't like anything sweet in my food, especially if it's, ⁓ if it's very obvious. So for example, ⁓ Where does the sweetness come from? I feel a lot of the sweetness we have picked up from the Gujarati food. So you know the mithidaar, the mithidaar as the Gujaratis call it, the sweet dal. They always put sugar, a little bit of sugar in it and the dal is absolutely delicious. But so what we Parsis did was we combined that sweetness with ⁓ our food. So we have what is termed as kato mito kimo.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, yeah. Should go in it, yeah. Yeah. to me too.

Dilshad Master: Khaatumittu, which is sweet and sour. Now, Khaatumittu kheemo is kheema is kheema and the Khaatumittu kheemo is sweet and sour. So we have something called, yeah, the right balance of sweet and sour. We have something else called Patio. Patio is again sweet and sour made with bright red chilies. That's got a slight flavoring of the sweet and a slight flavoring of the sour. We have something called Jardalu.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. a right balance of, yeah.

Dilshad Master: Salli-boti, Jardalu is basically dried apricots. And that goes into the mutton. And that's the Jardalu. Again, the sweet and the sour. So again, I think that has come from the Gujaratis. We never made, the sweet and sour was never one of the original Persian dishes from what I can gather. I think that has been picked up from the local cuisine as we adapted over the last 2,000 years.

Neha Lamba Grover: Okay. Yeah. It's interesting that Iranian food has had a lot of influence in Indian food in different tracks. In North India, it's almost difficult to separate it. is, you when you go outside and I mean, one of the reasons I started these conversations were because while we have a monolithic view of what Indians are, there's also a monolithic view of what Indian food is.

Dilshad Master: Correct, correct, correct, correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Curry, chicken curry. Chicken curry. Is it good? Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: So it's like, ⁓ there's butter chicken, there's chicken tikka masala, there's biryani and such. Yeah, so chicken, and firstly, what is a curry? And what's a curry flavor? What do mean by curry flavor? But when you start unraveling that and you start talking about it, you realize even the Indians, when you start exposing, there's Gujarati food, ⁓ it's sweet. ⁓ There's this whole... Bengali food is so different, know, and there's a whole dessert, whole set of desserts that are, know, the sweet, the famous Bengali sweet tooth is very different food and so on. But when you start talking about the quintessential, what they think is Indian food, and then you start focusing on different groups and ethnic, you suddenly start realizing what diversity of food there is. But North Indian food in particular, when you start tracing the ingredients, you go beyond the stereotype and say, ⁓

Dilshad Master: Yes, yes. Hmm. Hmm. you

Neha Lamba Grover: How would you describe it? know, butter chicken has tomatoes, there is a lot of spice. know, Portuguese brought tomatoes, Portuguese brought potatoes, lot of these vegetables that we, aloo gobi, gobi came from the British because they were looking at a vegetarian culture, but there were vegetables like eggplant and okra and all that were more native to India, but the ones like beans and all of them were brought in from somewhere else. So when we talk about authentic North Indian cuisine,

Dilshad Master: Yes, yes. Yes. Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: We really forget none of this was there like even 200 years ago, but there was some sort of some basic quality of Indian cooking that just kept adding ingredients but stayed very inherently Indian, you know? Yeah, but but but yeah.

Dilshad Master: Absolutely. Swap. I think we all borrowed from one another. So if you look at it, all of us have the garam masala. Now you can have it in, you can have it like, we don't put much garam masala in our food except as a garnish. So my mother has always taught me that garam masala, other too much in one bowl of dal has to be put at the end and then don't fry it. Just put it at the end, the boil for a little bit and then switch it off. Now.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, got him myself. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: The Punjabis don't make them. They put it in the tadka. so there are different ways. But the base, I think, is pretty much the same. We all use the green chili and the red chili and the cinnamon and the taj and the lavang and those green pods. And all of us use pretty much the same spices. But I think it's done in different permutation combinations. And that's what's.

Neha Lamba Grover: They don't, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I find there's one other correlation I've seen, a difference in the way the Iranian influence is absorbed in North Indian food and Parsi food is, in the North, it didn't come along with a set of people, right? There were either invaders or there was, when the Mughals came and settled, they bought Central Asian food, which was different from Persian food. But when Humayun lost his empire for 14 years, he lived in Persia.

Dilshad Master: You're right. No.

Neha Lamba Grover: He was hosted by the Persian king, they were relatives, and he developed a passion for Persian food and the dining principles of sitting down where all your senses have to be titillated and grain of rice has to be served a certain way, etc. So when he came back, he brought 300 cooks. And I just wonder, because it was just techniques that came back, it got amalgamated because they were trying to say, hey, you know, they were absorbing it. But when it followed a set of people who were trying to define their identity,

Dilshad Master: Right, right, right, yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: it developed into a distinct cuisine like Parsi cuisine. There is a time in which you decided, hey, this is Parsi cuisine. Beyond this, now I'm getting corrupted. Before this, it is not Parsi enough. You know, so I'm just, it is just an observation where it's just a sense of, you know, how identity evolves. And then we start looking at what are the different attributes of that. It's like a brand, right? My brand attribute is a shade of blue and a shade of this and a shade of that. Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: So, know, yeah, exactly. you know, even if you look at Iranian food today, ⁓ I have never been to Iran so ⁓ much as I would love to, but I have friends who have. Now, they say, according to them and according to the older Iranians who are living there, that post the Islamic invasions, Iranian food has also changed. It has adapted. It's become...

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: more of more herbs are being used, which is not something the Parsi is used, not the Persians rather. The food is more acidic, a lot more tamarind and more vinegar is being used. And ⁓ there's no overt sweetness. Now the sweetness we know, so this friend of mine actually, said, you know, if you look at it, the Parsi food in India seems to have retained a lot of its Persian profile.

Neha Lamba Grover: Hehe. Got it. Yeah. OK.

Dilshad Master: Whereas the Iranian food in Iran has now changed from being what we thought and we knew as Persian food, if you speak to the older generation. And ⁓ the interesting part that I heard from a friend who was big into the culture of food, and she said that sugar was considered, ⁓ sugar was considered

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: a form of abundance. was considered as ⁓ that you had money and that you were generous enough to share it. So that's where the sweetness of the food comes from. So when that's what the Parsis adapted to the generosity of the sugar, the sharing of the sugar, as in to say that, know, ⁓ to intermingle with the local population and that we are as giving as you are. So that was where that

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: that's sweet and sour and tangy and jaggery and sugar and all of that came into our... So if you eat our pork vindaloo, for instance, the pork vindaloo I make in my house, very different from the pork vindaloo that you will eat in Goa, or very different from the pork vindaloo that ⁓ some Anglo-Indian Christians would make, because ours is like bloody hell just full of red vinegar. It's like literally khatoo and tikku, spicy and sour.

Neha Lamba Grover: Mmm.

Dilshad Master: And a lot of people can't take that. ⁓ lot of my friends go like, babes, we can't eat your pohvindalu. But that's how we like it. we don't bring in any sweetness. will have a lot of friends who will put in a little bit of jaggery because they think that it's too sour. But that doesn't work for us because then that becomes patio. That's not pohvindalu anymore. So ⁓ we have adapted not just to the local Gujarati cuisine, because most of them were vegetarians, but our

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Dilshad Master: non-vegetarian stuff has adapted to the states that were in and around. And then as we spread out further into the interiors of India, we began to pick up the taste buds of all the people that we were intermingling with. So if you look...

Neha Lamba Grover: So that's why there's a of vegetables where you're adding meat or egg. Gujarati is being primarily vegetarian, right? Yeah.

Dilshad Master: Yeah, so but... Yes, we, you know, Neha, what I find, this is again my thought, not that I have read it or anyone's told. I think we, Parsi food is the perfect balance of protein, lentils, grain, vegetables, and fat. All right, if you look at it, you look at just Dhan Saag, okay? In my Dhan Saag, there is pumpkin, there is jimikand, there is brinjal, there is tomato, and ⁓ onion.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Mm-hmm. True, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: Methi, I don't know what you call Methi in English, there is fenugreek leaves, and there is mint leaves. Now, so we've got the herbs, we've got the vegetables, and then we've got the legume, which is the arhar dal, or the toor dal. Now, can you imagine, and then you put in the meat and that, wow, that's a one-pot meal of absolute delight, and it's got everything you want in it. It's got the legumes, it's got the fat, it's got the herbs, it's got the vegetables.

Neha Lamba Grover: Fennec, I think. Fennec, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: and then you put it on top of rice and done, done. There you go. You've got the most healthy meal. ⁓ I think a lot of us, so, you know, as we progressed, even with the vegetables, we decided we like, we like that bindi, but where's the protein? So then we crack an egg on top or we, yeah, yeah. I call the pari-indu. It's called a pari-indu. Indu means egg, pari means on top.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. an egg go. Yeah. You wrote something on LinkedIn about this piece and yeah.

Dilshad Master: So everything has a parindu on it. I cannot fathom a vegetable in my house that doesn't have an egg cracked on top. Now my husband and my daughter, they were like, what is this? And I'm like, bhaji parindu? They were like, no, no, no, no, no. So my husband would say like, the indu goes here and the bhaji goes here because the true Punjabi cannot in this head fathom that how can the two be mixed together. But that's how we eat it. We eat it on.

Neha Lamba Grover: together, yeah.

Dilshad Master: Okra, we eat it on bhindi, we eat it on beautifully flavored tomatoes, we eat it on spinach, we eat everything, we crack an egg and if we don't crack the full egg, we will take the yellow aside, we'll take the white aside, whip the white up into this nice peak and then we'll spread it all over and then that becomes the higher protein vegetable that you eat. So I've been trying to get my daughter because she loves vegetarian food and she's not an egg eater. So I'm thinking how to get egg into this child, how to get some protein into this child. So I started making this bhaji parindu without the yellow because she hates the yellow. So I would layer this out and you know, again the face will... So she would take the white out, she'd place it aside, she would eat the bhaji first and then she'll just stuff the white down her throat because you know, yeah like medicine. But I don't care, as long as you get your protein I don't care. But that's how we eat, that's how we grew up.

Neha Lamba Grover: Mm. Like medicine. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: I cannot imagine, I cannot fathom a single vegetable in our house that didn't have an egg cracked on it.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. So another interesting thing is the Iranian cafes in Bombay. And why my head was going to that was because I was imagining what you were eating at home. And I was wondering where you would have gone out to eat a meal. you choose like Iranian cafes are not just a way of, know, Parsis expressing their identity. It really has become a part of Mumbai's identity. mean, there are 700 of them I read somewhere in 1960s. Now they're just a handful. And it isn't just the Parsis lamenting.

Dilshad Master: ⁓ yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: their decline but I think all of Bombay does.

Dilshad Master: Yeah, so ⁓ in fact, I was in Bombay, I think in January end, and I went to the Irani Cafe next to ⁓ Metro Theatre. Now this Irani Cafe has been there for four generations. So as a student in Bombay 35 years ago, I had gone to the Irani Cafe and the same one I went again. ⁓ A lot of the things are very similar to what we eat at home. So they're cutlass, as we call them cutlass, ⁓ they're, they're saliboti.

Neha Lamba Grover: Wow. Yeah, yeah. less. ⁓

Dilshad Master: All of that is very similar. I think even the salli, if you ask me, what we call is the salli, which is like very thin strips of fried potatoes. Now that's in the Punjabi, it's called lacha. But we call it salli, but the lacha is thicker. Our salli is very thin and very delicate and it doesn't retain the oil once you've cooked it. And we kind of garnish our mutton with that. We'll garnish our keema with that.

Neha Lamba Grover: Okay. Okay.

Dilshad Master: I don't think that's Persian. That's coming in from somewhere else. And it gives you that crispies, the meat is totally off the bone. The salli is crispy. So when you put it in your mouth with the chapati, you get this burst of texture in your mouth. So we went to this Irani Cafe and all my friends are non-Parsi who came with us. There were like six of us who went together. And there was a line that was 25, 30 people long in front of us. And I was amazed, not a single Parsi, not one Bawa. All local Marashans come to eat.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, yeah.

Dilshad Master: Parsi food. they said, my friend said, we want to eat Akkuri. I said, chalo. Now, Akkuri is made out of eggs for your audience that doesn't know. Akkuri is as famous as Dhanasaheb. All right? Akkuri is eggs and with a lot of spices in it and herbs in it. Now, I have been sorely disappointed with every form of Akkuri that I have eaten in India.

Neha Lamba Grover: Thank you. And Dichha, let me just pause and tell you that I think on Facebook about 8-10 years ago you had literally stopped everybody and said, guys, everything that's just scrambled egg with peas is not a kuri and you had put the whole recipe out and I remember that somehow and because my husband was doing that as well.

Dilshad Master: Yes, Yes, because we are watching and watching and watching and the way it stirred and the way it stirred and the way the chula, you know, the stove is reduced and then again you pick it up and then again it has to be creamy and it has to be fluffy and you cannot allow the protein to break down then that becomes watery so then so I have ordered a kuri in every single Taj hotel with this fervent hope that Taj hotel owned by the Parsis, kahina kahin there must be some chef over there who knows how to make, no. It is the most, I just had a kuri at the Taj Hotel in Calcutta, the new one that's come up. Horrible. A kuri in ⁓ the Bombay one, superb. That guy knew how to make it, but everywhere else, crappy. So Irani Cafe. The boys, all my friends said, let's have a kuri. I said, okay, let's have a kuri. I didn't expect anything out of it. And it was the most tepid a kuri I've ever eaten. It was tepid. It was yellow in color. And I looked at it and the texture wasn't there. And it wasn't the creamy that we are used to. Where was the green chilies? And where was the coriander and the coriander leaves? And I didn't see any of that. I'm like, boys, this is not a kuri. Forget it now. We're never going to get a kuri from your house. I said, you're going to have to eat a kuri from my house. We freaking know each other for 40 years. I cannot believe that you all have not eaten this. my Akuri. This is not Akuri. This is scrambled eggs disguised as Akuri. All right. So ⁓ I'm solely disappointed. don't, Akuri, everybody says to me, Dilsha send us the recipe. It's not in the recipe. It's in, it's in the way you cook it. Yeah. It's the technique, which is why I put up that video on Facebook 10 years ago. You want to see how Akuri is really made. This is how you make it. So I have taught my cook now.

Neha Lamba Grover: technique or something. Yeah. I remember that.

Dilshad Master: she makes it wonderfully every once in a while if she's distracted even for five seconds if you're distracted the protein will break down the Akuri becomes watery or the Akuri becomes like Burji now that's my point I'm always saying this is not Akuri this is Burji it's not Akuri but I don't know when you come on my when you came on my trek did I feed you guys Akuri because that's one thing I always do I always enter the kitchen I enter the kitchen and I make

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. No, we didn't have a kuri. no. Or I, yeah, no. Or did I? No, no, ⁓ I would have remembered this because of the video that the big deal or it was quietly.

Dilshad Master: So I usually enter the kitchen and make a kuri for our guests. There 15, 14, 13, 12 of them. But the team has to be told right in the beginning, the logistics team has to be told that make sure there's green chillies, make sure there's dhania. So if you're at an altitude of 4,000 meters, the dhania has become completely, the coriander is so wilted that you can't make anything.

Neha Lamba Grover: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: So I try and make it within the first day itself so that everybody gets their fill of the next day. They'll say you're making okuri again. I was like, no, this time I'm making okuri again. Because I make a dish this big. then it's something I like. I like feeding people. It's very strange. I started to learn how to cook when I was in my late 20s, mid to late 20s, only because I was studying in the US and I could not.

Neha Lamba Grover: Best. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Dilshad Master: to eat one more slice of pizza or fish and chips or whatever burger or sandwich I was like I cannot eat this food anymore so then you know those calls to mommy in those days phone calls were so expensive so mama sent me recipe mama can't eat this food now so mama would type out and she would you know put them in an envelope which would take two months to reach me and then I started cooking so even today I'm not a I don't love to cook

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: But I love to feed. And I like to feed people who appreciate good food. So that's what I love. I make other things as well. But when people come to my house, I cannot tell you how many times this has happened that one day I decided I'm going to make Chinese. So a full spread of pan fried noodles with chicken, and I made ginger chicken and fried rice and

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. But does it have to be Parsi or would you make other things as well? Yeah. They're expecting, Yeah

Dilshad Master: And you should have seen the look on my friends' faces. They were like, what is this? And I'm like, come on guys, you can't come home and eat Parsi food every time. They were like, we're not coming to your house to eat this. So I was like, that's so unfair, know? And Chinese food is harder to cook because everything has to be cooked immediately, right? It's not something that I can cook and keep aside. I said, it's all done on the spot. All the stirring is done on the spot. They're like, no, no, no, no, we know what. Please stick to Parsi food. So now I have...

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.

Dilshad Master: really nearly just stuck to Parsi food, but then I tried to make every time I invite, will go, Dhan Saab. I'm like, no, I'm not making Dhan Saab. You you guys have to know that there is something more than Dhan Saab. So then I'll, you know, I'll pick up. My mom has written this recipe book. Let me tell you about this. And ⁓ she has threatened me never to publish it. The recipe book is for my brother and me. And I, because her logic is that

Neha Lamba Grover: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Dilshad Master: No food on the table should look the same. Now if you start sharing your recipes, what's the point of it? That's her point. So she's got, I think about 250, 300 recipes. And I start digging through that. It's a Microsoft file. And I keep telling her, mama publish it, mama publish it. No, no. And then she said to me one day.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow.

Dilshad Master: If you publish it after I die, I will haunt you for the rest of your life. So I'm like, all right, fine. So I'm hoping to God that my daughter, Saira, at some point of time, like my bati jalode after 26, I'm hoping that someday she will, know, the book can go to her. But my brother and I, we are staunch followers of the book. And every time you feel like cooking something different, we'll rifle through the pages and see.

Neha Lamba Grover: If you want Saira to adopt it, think you can send her abroad to study because I find, I don't know if you followed that little story recently. And it coincided with, my son Shouria is now in college, right? And he started ordering outside all the time, Indian food. he like, then I got some auntie to deliver to him. And he was like, and I'm like, Shouria, it's very expensive. I'm already paying for your, know, Dom food, He's like, mama.

Dilshad Master: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, Huh. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.

Neha Lamba Grover: I'm going to become, you know, some JNs have got exceptions to eat and order from outside. And just the week that he and I have this conversation, there's this huge article that comes into mainstream or on juggernaut or whatever about Stanford. How such a disproportionately large number of Indian students have just opted out of the meal plan where it's compulsory on religious grounds, claiming they're JNs because they just cannot eat.

Dilshad Master: Okay.

Neha Lamba Grover: you know the food and it's not it's good food I've gone and eaten it but they've come from India you know the Jains as a part of India are like less than a percent but 17 to 20 percent of Indians there in Stanford were just like I'm a Jain I'll get you a letter I'll get you a letter I need to eat off campus so it became an article you know of this whole like what's going on with the Indian students and their food and I think this is just yeah and I

Dilshad Master: Yeah, I can understand that. Yes, yes.

Neha Lamba Grover: I'm on this little group as well of some Desi moms who are, you know, we're trying to help each other. And the main topic food, my ⁓ child can't eat, starving or she's starving or whatever. So I don't know what the obsession is with food with the Desis. ⁓

Dilshad Master: Yeah. I think it's a, I don't think it's an obsession. Tell me something now, when you travel around the world, know, I'm now almost 60, I'll be 60 this year. Now, if I look back at the 40 years of traveling that I have done. My memories of a place are always related to the food I eat. I don't know if that's unusual, but ask yourself, what is it about a place that you remember? So in Italy, it will be that fresh pizza that came out fire oven. If you're looking at Himachal or if you're looking at a lay or Ladakh, it'll be the tukpa that we ate. For me, every travel memory is related.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Dilshad Master: to food. I have come to that conclusion about myself. Every travel memory is related to food. And I ask a lot of people that they're like, no, come on, we saw that beautiful thing. saw, I mean, like, huh, all that we saw, that was all on the pictures. And you can go through the photographs to revive those memories. But the food, it's always that. So I have noticed that with Saira, my daughter. We went to Croatia, all right, the last April, and Greece. She doesn't remember the island name.

Neha Lamba Grover: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: We went to Nafplio and then we went to... I can't remember the second island and then we went to Croatia and we went to Dubrovnik. She doesn't remember any of the names. She doesn't remember... She has vague memories of having swum in the ocean at 16 degree water temperature. But she remembers the food. Mama, you remember the banana split ice cream? Mama, you remember the shawarma we ate in Dubrovnik? Mama, you remember that fish that came out with the lemon and the herb? That's how we remember our trips. Every trip.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Dilshad Master: We remember like that. So even when we go to Kashmir, if you've ever been skiing with us, the first stop we make is at this restaurant called Downhill, which is right at Tanmark. All right. And what do we do there? The phone call has already been made when we've landed at the airport. Kabab tayar rakhna, gujtaba tayar rakhna, rishta tayar rakhna. So it's all, the food is on the table. And that is our, that's how we start our trips. For me, every trip I have made is related somehow or the other. to the food we eat, always. what triggers the memory and then you can think of other things. But food for me has always been the center.

Neha Lamba Grover: Because I think it involves more than one sense. No, it's also because food, the experience is, you you smell it, you taste it, you see it, and there's, you know, textures, et cetera. It's a full experience in itself. and in the case of, but even in the case of Indians, when I was growing up, my parents thought they were adventurous with food, but that they weren't. You know, they were just, it was just North Indian. They were primarily vegetarian. My father would eat.

Dilshad Master: Absolutely. Yes, you should. I think so.

Neha Lamba Grover: some non-veg, would be out of the house. He tried to introduce me to it, but I just kind of, because it wasn't, you know, it took me a while to start eating non-veg. Going out was like, oh, let's eat dosa, very adventurous, you know, a little bit of Indian Chinese and that's about it. So when we traveled down south, my parents wasted so much time looking for

Dilshad Master: Hmm. Hmm. ⁓

Neha Lamba Grover: Indian food, you know, and I'm talking about in the eighties, it was, and, I feel like lot of the middle-class families earlier were like that. The restaurant culture wouldn't take off. There were of course all these.

Dilshad Master: Right.

Neha Lamba Grover: Even before that, a cast related to Bruce about kisne banaya, who's eating, who's touched it, who served it. know, there a of hardcore people who used to do that, which made, created an issue. ⁓ My son was talking to me about an Indian origin kid he met from somewhere like Singapore or something, who was sort of bragging about the fact that when his grandfather moved to Singapore, he carried his Brahmin cook. And I was just like, hmm, you know, ⁓ if you've got that, yeah.

Dilshad Master: Right, right, right. Yeah. ⁓ So, Neha, sorry to interrupt, but even today, today I'm talking when Gujaratis and I will specifically say Gujaratis and I think to some extent the Marwadis, when they travel, group travel, know, like there are these huge travel agencies that only take these people, 30-40 people in groups. They travel all over the world. They take their Maharaj with them.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they do. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Because they got, yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: They will ⁓ stay in little rest hotels where they take over the whole kitchen for three months and then they run these groups back to back, back to back, back to back and the Maharaj is cooking the food that they will eat.

Neha Lamba Grover: No, I'm aware. I'm absolutely aware of it because otherwise they're not able to travel. So these things are catering to that and it's to do with the taste even now it may not even be taboo of who's touching it as much as but I mean my son is very grateful for so many of his the Gujarati kids that have gone from India. They've carried all these theplas and all he said mama I am desperate. I'm good. He's I'm going to go and ask somebody to just heat up that tepla for me or you know like he's still he's born and raised in the US but he's looking for Indian flavors. I just find it so bizarre.

Dilshad Master: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. ⁓ the thepla! Yeah absolutely! and they will learn to cook but that's how they will learn to cook they will learn to cook like that only yeah yeah

Neha Lamba Grover: And I was like, you're looking for Teplas? Yeah, so that's what... If you're craving it, yeah, he has started cooking a little bit now. He's saying, I'm making Tawa Chicken, I'm doing this and that. And you know, Dadi's there. Dadi, show me how to do this. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my brother, my brother left ⁓ India long before I did. I think more than eight years before I did. My brother is an amazing cook. Now, he's not big into Parsi food, but he's, again, he's like me. He loves food. I like all forms of food. So he will make Mexican, he will make Chinese, he will make a beef steak, he will make, you know, a pork, a pork roast.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Dilshad Master: He's a fantastic cook. And his wife is very happy because she says, I've got a Parsi husband who loves to cook. What more do I want? So the cooking is left to him to do. And that's how he also learned. says, yeah, how much of this pizza and burgers and fish and chips and salad and how much of that can you eat eventually? Finally, you really want to crave your own taste buds. So I think we all learn. So I'm also thinking.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the... And it goes back to the whole thing about food and identity because you're holding onto it somewhere. mean, my son has always liked Indian food. He spends his summers here. So it's not surprising that he's craving Indian food. I made sure we had an Indian meal for dinner, freshly made, whatever they ate for lunch or breakfast, you know? But he had not had Gujarati food till college and he's...

Dilshad Master: Yeah. Yum, yum, yum. and

Neha Lamba Grover: found commonality on it and with all his Gujarati friends. And I think that's the change that's happening. But I had interviewed a gentleman called Neeraj Singh earlier. He's of Indo-Fijian origin. He had made fish for us in UK, which tasted authentically Indian to me. was his mother's recipe from Fiji. He grew up in Australia. And he said, no, it's absorbed from Fiji, et cetera. But I was like, it could taste like anything from Kerala too, because he thought he had added

Dilshad Master: Yeah. Hmm. Hmm. ⁓

Neha Lamba Grover: coconut milk because ⁓ his parents were North Indian. But there's something, you're holding on to that memory and passing it on. And it's, find...

Dilshad Master: Right, right, right. Yeah, and I wouldn't be surprised if his descendants were, if his antecedents were Indian, because a lot of Indians landed up in Fiji at some point. ⁓ there you go. Yeah. Yeah. So there you go. Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: No, they are Indian. That's why they left. He is Indy Fijian. He says he's Indy Fijian. And I said, how have you retained the Indian part of it? But here's the difference. Communities that I've noticed that were torn away from where they were are more diehard in holding onto it somehow. And those that have willingly had to go to some extent are more consciously looking at, we are here.

Dilshad Master: Yeah, of course.

Neha Lamba Grover: spirit of like I've got to absorb ⁓ and that's the general theme a little bit. ⁓ But yeah, it's interesting. But you know,

Dilshad Master: Hmm. And I think if you even look at Parsi food, the usual suspects are dhansak, kolmino patio, ⁓ dhandar, ⁓ that fried chicken. what patrani machhi. So we have this concept called lagan nu bonu. don't know, have you ever attended a Parsi wedding? So lagan means wedding, nu bonu means food of a

Neha Lamba Grover: That path running, Mati. Yeah. No. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: of a wedding. So, Lagannu Bhunu is a very standard and interestingly, it is served on a green patra, banana leaf. Right, it's never served on plates. It's served on green. That's the traditional way that we serve our Lagannu Bhunu. It's put on these green banana leaves and it starts with an achar and some crispy and then comes this big piece, double chopped chicken leg, deep fried. Then comes the

Neha Lamba Grover: Leave, yeah, okay, yeah.

Dilshad Master: the mutton pulao and daal and then comes the salli boti and then comes the patrani machhi. So for the vegetarians, it's like really nothing to eat besides the daal which has got no meat in it because the meat has been put into the pulao. And it's hard. It's hard for the vegetarians to even appreciate lagannu bhunu because there's nothing there that's without an egg. Even the rice will have a...

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Mm.

Dilshad Master: fried egg on top, your dessert will be lagannu custard and that custard is made out of egg. yeah, you know, so a lot of Parsi, I don't even know if they exist, but I'm sure they do Parsi, vegetarians do exist, be such a contradiction in terms, I think it's like an oxymoron, but ⁓ they do exist. And I often wonder what they eat, because you know, even the dal has got the chicken broth in it.

Neha Lamba Grover: Hmm, egg, yeah. Hmm. this project.

Dilshad Master: or the mutton broth in it. That's why it's so bloody delicious. Otherwise that dal will taste like nothing, you know? And I often wonder, what does a Parsi vegetarian eat? just like, I don't even, they exist. I know they do, but I often wonder what they eat because I cannot imagine anybody eating Parsi food that's vegetarian and not even egg. So the other day.

Neha Lamba Grover: far see it. I didn't do it. ⁓

Dilshad Master: So the other day, let me tell you, there's a nice Parsi restaurant here in Bangalore. It is actually called Figs or Fins or something. And underneath, very small, it said Parsi and more. So my eyes went straight over there, I'm ⁓ Parsi and more. So I asked my friend, said Prashanth, what is this? He said, damn good food, damn good food. So I said, let's go. So he said, come, let's go. So we went. So I saw there was of course a very long menu of traditional. know, Italian continental QG. It was a small section of Parsi food. I was very, I was kind of like, you know, why would they combine? Then I realized it was owned by the Rustamji's in Bangalore, which is a very famous contractor, you know, the builders and one of their kids, think their daughter-in-law, she's the chef. And so she was cooking the Parsi food.

Neha Lamba Grover: Mm. Perfect.

Dilshad Master: So then I told my friend, said Prasanth, you have to eat the bhava food. You can't come here and order pasta for heaven's sake. It's just not happening. So he said, what do I order? So I saw bhaji parindu. So I said, order this. So he says, what is this parindu? I said, masala spinach, and on that they crack an egg. And his face was like, why? I was like, will you just shut up and eat it? And it comes with these delicate. thin chapatis which are the typical Parsi chapatis. We don't eat that roti phulka, know. Our chapatis are very thin and they're fluffy and ⁓ so I said get me two chapatis and get me bhaji parindu for him. My god, he loved it so much. He said now you have to teach me how to make it. So, see he's a vegetarian but he eats eggs because that's the only protein he gets. So now he's cracking an egg.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: On every sabzi that he's making. was like, you know, there's a way to cook the sabzi as well. You can't just keep cracking an egg on everything. But that's the first time. said, I can't believe. Yeah. So he said, I can't believe at the age of 60, I finally learned there was something called parindu. I was like, well, you need, you know, that is what Parsi food is all about. And I ordered ⁓ fish cutlets because for me, fish and minced cutlets are the hallmark.

Neha Lamba Grover: Hahaha! Thank Yes.

Dilshad Master: of a good Parsi cook, all right? It has to be that stringy, fluffy, the meat has to be perfectly cooked, not very spicy. The right amount. It was delicious. And I was like, ⁓ God, thankfully there's one Parsi restaurant that I finally loved the food. The chapati was beautiful and Patla and thin. And I was like, all right. So I step out and ⁓ I see this very old, very lovely gentleman.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yes.

Dilshad Master: And he looks at me and I look at him I say, hello uncle, how are you? And he goes, you're a Parsi? I said, yes, I'm from a Parsi. he said, I think he called himself, he said, Noshir Rustamji. So I said, ⁓ this is the Rustamji's restaurant. He said, yes, yes, my daughter-in-law is. Daughter or daughter-in-law is the chef or granddaughter, I don't know. So I said, ⁓ lovely, so what is your name? I said, Dilshad Master. So he looks at me and he goes, are you Nargish Master's daughter? And I said, yes.

Neha Lamba Grover: Wow.

Dilshad Master: ⁓ my God. And then he called the chef out and he called the chef's sous chef out and said, this is Nagesh's daughter. Do you know who you just fed? And I called up my mom as soon as I got out. said, do you know that after 35 years, somebody still remembers your cooking? And I think that is what Parsi food is all about. You know, that's what it's about. And, and it was really yummy. I said, you know,

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Wow.

Dilshad Master: I'm coming back here because now I realize I may not, if I'm dying to eat good Baba food, I'll just head out to the restaurant. I don't have to cook it on my own. Yeah, I found the place finally where the tomatoes are not floating on the Dhan Saad dal.

Neha Lamba Grover: You found the place, yeah. have to try. You know, I got introduced to Parsi food very, late in life because of this whole like everything that's unfamiliar, we wouldn't eat. But, but, you know, thank you so much. No, I eat everything now. I've also evolved over time. And I have, you know, I didn't, it started a fairly vegetarian. My brother, my brothers ate chicken. wasn't that I wasn't, you know, chicken is the only meat, a lot of so-called meat eating, but not North Indians actually just eating chicken, right?

Dilshad Master: Yes. But you're a vegetarian, no? Mmm. Good. Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: Even if you go to Punjab, the first time I went to Amritsar, they were like, ⁓ meat-eating Punjabis. And I was like, no, it's all cooked everywhere and maybe one Amritsari fish. And I don't know where the fish is coming from because there's no water body. Yeah. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: Yes. ⁓ So I make chicken dhansak at home and my mother's like, margi no dhansak? Margi is chicken in. I was like, dhansak is always mutton. I was like, but mama we don't eat mutton. I don't eat red meat. So suck it up. This is all you're getting. And she was like, okay, I mean, if there's no choice, I'll eat it. But very hesitatingly, she'll eat the chicken because dhansak is always made with

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. made a certain way.

Dilshad Master: That's the traditional Namsap.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, I've done variations of musaka now with chicken, which I started with lamb at home and just evolved to make it lighter and, you know, like healthier. And because then my family, they will eat goat more than American lamb. They find that it's gamey and smells. And I find that the Americans who come here and eat mutton go back and say it's chewy. So, you know, that's what they're used to. Like I've had Americans who come here and then say, I attempted mutton, don't want to try it again. It's a little chewy. And I'm like, really?

Dilshad Master: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How polite! ⁓

Neha Lamba Grover: You know, so yeah, and after my family will go back and say, not this lamb, you know, if you can't find mutton, so we moved to chicken. And yeah, that's, that's what it is. evolves.

Dilshad Master: ⁓ Yeah, yeah, yeah. I frankly didn't know the difference between the two for the longest time. I had no clue what the difference between mutton and lamb was. I discovered it much later when I actually started cooking in America and then I realized like, why does this... I asked my mom, I said, visru visru laget, you know, and she said, what do mean visru? I said, yeah, it's like an off taste. And she said, ⁓ you must have been eating lamb. And I was like, ⁓ okay. I didn't know there was a difference between the two. But yeah, yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: No. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even the chicken, and again, I eat everything, but I didn't grow, I grew up more vegetarian, so it's more to me, like, you you might have meat and then accompanied with vegetables for me, it's the reverse. I'm eating vegetables and I'm adding a bit of protein or meat or whatever. So I'm less discerning. But the other three members of my house, very staunch about, you know, big meat eaters, the kids and everything.

Dilshad Master: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. And now with the recent thing about protein, because it's big deal, know. I'm obsessed with protein, so I eat it in everything.

Neha Lamba Grover: So. ⁓ Yeah, there's a that's what I've started looking at. So sometimes it's tofu also. There's a lot of tofu getting made at home now. I'm not don't feel like eating meat then. ⁓

Dilshad Master: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't eat tofu because I have hypothyroid. So I don't eat any goitrogens. So tofu, soya, all of that is a no-no for me. So I'll end up having breast of chicken mostly. Yeah, eggs and chicken mostly.

Neha Lamba Grover: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then you have to rely on exit needs a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you so much. I really enjoyed our chat. I just want to sum up that I find it very interesting that this, you know, the Parsi experience to me is like very, very

Dilshad Master: I did.

Neha Lamba Grover: interesting and something that requires a focus in today's day and age because it's an example of a community immigrating to another country, very meat eating, going to a very vegetarian part of India. Everybody's happy, everybody's co-existed, different cuisines have evolved, a sense of identities have overlapped and it's part of a larger Indian identity. So ⁓ I wanted to use Indian food

Dilshad Master: Absolutely.

Neha Lamba Grover: and put a focus on it, the layers of that onion to show that there's more to the Indian identity or any identity when you start looking at it, at all the micro elements of what makes it what it is and how we just crib over things that are unnecessary and things evolve when they need to and they stop when they don't need to and so on. ⁓ So thank you so much.

Dilshad Master: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just like to add, I just wish that some people would, not some, people would realize that there's more to Indian curry. There are like hundreds of different versions of the curry. And when I see this menu in London which says chicken curry, and I'm like, my first question is what kind of curry? And then I get this puzzling, like, what do mean what kind of curry? There's only one kind of curry. I'm like, no, no, there isn't. But anyway, we won't go there. Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 30. No, and I started using some of these meal kits in the US to make my life easier because I wanted fresh meals and I would get a curry powder. And I was like, no, no, no, I, anybody who sends me a curry powder, that meal kit is out. You know, that's not happening. Curry powder. Yeah. The British started this concept, right? And they went back to the UK and they were trying to bottle that experience. And in order to feed these, they started doing it.

Dilshad Master: Yeah. Yeah, that's highly suspicious. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yes.

Neha Lamba Grover: fine you were trying to combine some essential ingredients but it's not just the essential ingredients there's a sequence in which they are fried you know there are a lot of things that happen in trying to capture that that and dhansak was one of those things that yeah and you were talking about garam masala earlier right

Dilshad Master: Yes absolutely yes so if you look at my No, I said, if you look at my mom's cookbook, very clearly, she very, yeah, like my mom's cookbook, she will very clearly tell you which spice goes in first, because which one burns faster. So, you know, a lot of people put haldi, but haldi burns, turmeric burns really, really quickly. So that's the last spice that you need to put in before you bung in the water, because otherwise you've got burnt turmeric, you know, and that changes the flavor of your food. And the garam masala, which is a mixture of

Neha Lamba Grover: Yes. Yeah. Close, yeah. Breaking it up. Yeah.

Dilshad Master: I think five or seven spices depending upon who's making it is always put in the end because that's the flavoring. That's not supposed to be the essence of the food. That's only the garnish on top after you've finished making everything. So yeah, there is definitely a systematic approach to which spice goes in first, coriander, cumin, which one burns faster. No, no, no.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, you can't just grind them and sell it. I was saying that to everybody else, you can't just grind them into a powder and call it curry. It's not, it's not going to work. Yeah. Every home is different. Every way they cook it is different. And you know, the emphasis is also different. My mother's family from Rajasthan don't brown their onions a whole lot. I never noticed the difference. I just ate and enjoyed what I liked. But my

Dilshad Master: Yeah, absolutely no, it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Right.

Neha Lamba Grover: Punjabi in your side, my husband is very particular. He'll say, ⁓ the onions are floating. I had never noticed them before. ⁓ they must be browned, et cetera. Now that I'm looking into the history of these things, I realize this browning obsession has come from Iran. You know, this whole brown the onion, the birinj part of the biryani. And then even the onion, the onion birinj, which is North Indian, came with the Persian influence in North India and in Punjab, where they have to brown the onions and lasan and all.

Dilshad Master: Right. Hmm. Yes, yes, yes, that's what I said, that Tadig, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's...

Neha Lamba Grover: may not have gone all the way down to Rajasthan where when now I'm trying to explain to them and this is how it's done then I I've realized I can't tell them how it's done that's their food you know that's how it's done for Rajasthani food

Dilshad Master: Yeah,

Neha Lamba Grover: is no Pan ⁓ cuisine or identity for that matter. ⁓ ⁓ there's a lot more there when you start learning about it. Every home has a different way they cook things even within every community. ⁓ ⁓ every person in that sense is also ⁓ and unique.