Sevian: Food Memories and a Tribute
Sevian. This wasn’t what I had planned to make yesterday. I already had figs soaking in honey for my refined sugar free festive dessert. But when I heard the news, I found myself walking to the bookshelf to pick out the cookbook I’d been gifted almost two decades ago. I looked at the note scribbled by the author on a page that was now a pale shade of ivory. It took me back in time to the summer of 2000. As a student liaison for the Memphis In May festival honoring India, I was put in charge of escorting the chef who was flying in from New Delhi with his team. A bit in awe, I wondered what a recent graduate and a celebrated gastronome would talk about. But his easygoing demeanour and effortless charm put me at immediate ease. We spent a few days discussing everything from the nuances of Indian cuisine to the ingredients of barbecue sauce.
I’m getting old, I suddenly realised. The icons of my youth are slowly slipping away. As I leafed through the book, I glanced upon this recipe. And I decided to replicate it. In the memory of a gentleman whom I had the opportunity to get to know. Our last meeting was a few years ago when he was in town to curate a Punjabi food menu. Over dinner, we chatted about Memphis and Delhi and food and the years that had passed. Articulate and witty as always, he was wheelchair bound and more frail than I remembered. His beard and whiskers had greyed, but his generous smile still curved up to meet the twinkle in his eyes in a manner that was familiarly endearing. The figs could wait. I called in for supplies. Golden vermicelli was fried in ghee and simmered in milk redolent with cardamom and sweetened with sugar. Although the sevian were not hand twirled, there were no healthy substitutions attempted (he wouldn’t have approved). Sevian recipe adapted from the late Jiggs Kalra’s “Prashād; Cooking with Indian Masters.”
