What’s the one thing that Parsis love to talk about? Food of course! The occasion was right for celebrating food on Monday evening as Jeroo Mehta spoke about her book consisting Parsi recipes.
The evening was peppered with anecdotes and vignettes about Parsi food and people by the speakers consisting of Jeroo herself, food critic Rashmi Uday Singh who flew in from the US specially for the occasion and conducted the evening in her inimitable style; Vinod Advani who has been a privileged guest at Jeroo’s table for many occasions, historian Sharada Dwivedi and actress Perizaad Zorabian.
Jeroo opened the discussion reminiscing about how she couldn’t cook to save her life till the time she became well-versed enough to pen her experiences.
Vinod and Sharada made the evening informative by sharing information about Parsi culinary habits and customs, especially with Sharada clarifying that dhansak, which is a staple favourite, is actually a food served during mourning, “but that doesn’t stop these gregarious people from eating it every Sunday!” Rashmi, too agreed with her adding her experiences about how a Parsi actually starves for 24 hours to partake the best of a lagan nu bhonu… such is their appetite for good food and such is the excitement that the cuisine creates! That says it all about how delicious it must be.”
KITCHEN QUEEN: Perizaad (looking truly a yummy-mummy of the four month old daughter Zaha) was her smiling best as she confessed “I’m a terrible cook but a foodie and enthusiastic chef nevertheless. My hubby Boman keeps encouraging my culinary experiments and though I have now mastered a few dishes, Parsi food is something I have always preferred to eat from my mum’s hand.”
Original article here