I grew up at my mother’s side, mainly in the kitchen.
In this blue-tiled kitchen I memorised my math tables while Dhandar bubbled on the stove and spent many days helping my mum create yet another set of thermocol fairy wings for the upcoming fancy dress competition. Throughout the years, I’ve seen her make circle-shaped sandwiches (because I hated the square shaped ones), home-made chutney’s, curries to warm the soul on a rainy night and out-of the box attempts at dessert.
In fact, I am sure this love for creating food runs in the family as my maternal grand-mom, or ‘mamaiji’ as I used to call her spent her life catering for others and making packed lunches/dinners. I remember as a wise little 8 year old telling her that I could possibly not continue living if I didn’t have her red coconut curry atleast once a week – “Before you die, make me a huge pot of curry so that I don’t miss you too much“, I think were the exact words.
However, despite my love for eating Parsi food – or bawa delicacies as they are colloquially called – I grew up only learning to make European/International flavoured food. Pre-marriage, I was called “Miss Continental Cook” by all and sundry because at any dinner party I’d be the one experimenting with nachos or steak or shepherd’s pie; leaving the sumptious prawn pulao, kebab, dhansak etc to my mom a.k.a. “Mrs. Parsi Cook”.
And now, here I am 26, a freshly minted Bawi Bride, away from my mom in another country with no idea how to cook the Parsi delicacies my man (and ofcourse I) grew up with.
I realised though that I am probably not alone. The love for Parsi food, I think is conversely proportional to the size of our community. Despite this love, there are hundreds of brides each year in a similar situation as me with no idea how to cook the food we love as the recipes that were always passed through the generations are hard to get/learn as we move away thousands of miles away from our parents. So, as I learn to cook my Parsi favourites by wading through the Jamwa Chalo Ji’s of Katy Dalal and my hastily scribbled food notes (made thanks to midnight Skype calls with mom) I decided to document my journey.
The hope is that all us Bawi Brides can learn to cook these traditional delicacies together. Follow me on my journey and share your Parsi favourites too so we can leave back a legacy of our traditions for the next generations of Bawi Brides to follow. Something they can Google this time around.
Keep up the wonderful work. Will share more such tips with you dear daughter
Mum
Perzan, Great to see the entrepreneurial spirit in you coming out 🙂 I can see a huge following in time to come, Well done, and keep going! Lv, Namalie
Great and keep it going dear with your good entrepreneurialship within you… best wishes always !!
Will share some tips with you too !!
Malsoo and duvah to and have a HAPPY MARRIED LIFE !!
Love to all at home, Benifer and Porus Irani
Hi Perzen, It’s wonderful to read and learn about you yearning to practice the bawa cuisine that we all swear by!! Will look forward to reading grand Mom’s recipes here…All the best!! F
Hi Perzan (did I get the spelling correct?),
The Parsis are not the only ones benefiting from your posts….there are 100s of us out there who will read each post with delight!!
I am Bengali, have a great lineage of awesome cooks in my family…..Mom, aunt, grand-aunt…..and now my daughter…AND I have the befit of growing up and living in a wonderful Parsi town……Jamshedpur!!!
Waiting for your next share!
All the best, Shonali
Hi Shonali,
Thank you so much for reaching out and also for your encouraging words. Do share your favourite Bengali recipe with me and I will try to Bawa-fy it 🙂
Regards always,
Perzen
Dear Perzen, Congratulations on starting your Bawi blog :o) I look forward to your mum’s recipes and your delightful writing style. May I share an idea that I’ve had for some time? The entire Vividh Vani – 2 volumes- HUGE 32 MB files – is now available for free download on the internet. Someone who is comfortable with reading Gujarati and can decode the old weight system of ‘ratal / seer / chattank’ could do us all a service by translating some of these priceless recipes into English with modern measurements! If you set up such a section on your website, your readers can all contribute a few translations at a time, starting with me. I’m quite fascinated by ones like Brinjal Akoori!
Best regards. May our tribe increase ;o)
Hi Zarine,
Thanks so much for your kind words and also for the suggestion! It is certainly a great idea. I will get in touch over email to take your suggestion forward. Do keep following and share your thoughts and ideas always.
Regards always,
Perzen
Hi Perzen,
My father was a Parsi and my mother was not and I loved my Aunt Perin’s cooking so very much. But, alas, she has passed on also! So, you cannot know how much it means to me that you are sharing this information. I really want to know how to make Dhansak (sp?) and poori. Also, please do a rice kheer recipe! If you like, I could share a few recipes that are not Parsi, but that Parsi’s seem to like…like eggplant parmegianna. My father-in-law, Noshir Kharas loved it.
Hi Noel,
Thanks so much for your comment. I will be posting the Dhansak recipe this week so stay tuned. For the rice kheer, I will have to hunt one down but i will definately try. Finally, please do share the eggplant parmegianna recipe – when I am not cooking Parsi food I am a big fan of italian so this would be perfect. Thanks for dropping by and I hope you will continue to follow the blog.
Being a Bawi myself I don’t know squat about Parsi food. I know I love to eat it. Hehe My blog mainly consists of Continental dishes. Would be nice to learn some Parsi cooking. My magnum opus will be dhansaak with kebabs and kachumber. 🙂
Hello Miss Hungry Hungry Parsi, thanks for dropping by and am pleased to let you know that the magnum opus will be revealed this week. Kebabs and Kachumbar is already online ofcourse 🙂
I love eating dhansak,with kababs, crab curry etc etc…but i would like to learn desserts as we parsis love to do mitthoo monu after dinner.Thank you very much .
Hi Kashmira,
Thanks for stopping by! Crab curry I need to hunt down a recipe and then figure out how to buy/cook crabs too so it may be a while. However, Dhansak will be coming up shortly and so will Mithoo Monu. Do keep following and sharing your awesome feedback!
Great work, well done. Mum passed on your website details and I can see you have done a wonderful job. After missing a generation we now have the young ones who have got the great entrepeurship which we had in the good old days like the Tatas and the Wadias. Long may this continue and grow.
Thank you so much for the encouragement Bilkish aunty. If you have any signature dishes of yours for young Bawi Brides do share them with me 🙂
Well Done Perzan!!! What a wonderful concept. Happy to see all these delicious Parsi-dish recipes, reaching out to not only parsis but enjoyed by other communities as well. Shernaz(your mum) is so proud of you as we all are. I have great faith that our younger generation will keep the Parsi traditions alive. In the future maybe you might like to include traditions(tarikats) that we have for various occasions. It is heartening to see the youth like your self are proud to be a Parsi.
I can see you going places with this website. Good Luck and God Bless.
Thank you so much Bini aunty for the great words of support and for stopping by the site!
Absolutely loved the Rum n Raisin Meringues you made and looking forward to having your Parsi cuisine….enjoying reading your blog!! Well done!