Shelf Unbound October/November 2013 October 2013 | Page 26

indian

Biting through the Skin:

An Indian Kitchen in America’s Heartland

by Nina Mukerjee Furstenau

F

University of Iowa Press
www.uiowapress.org

24

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2013

or years, I have been miserly
in what I shared of my family’s traditional Bengali foods.
I kept the door firmly closed
on the story of each dish: the
story created by my family and
the years of eating and preparing it in Kansas, and the older
story from India, from the trees
that fruited and the grains that
ripened half a world away. The
texture of a cooked grain of rice,
firm yet a little pulpy on the
fingertip, the slide of smooth
mango down the throat: there
are many portals to the heart.
If you are lucky, you see connections even in aromatic spices.
Such tiny, brown bits of larger
things are indeed Whitman’s
“journey-work of the stars.” A
recipe is the journey-work, the
template, of culture and family,
as well as tangible evidence of
what we’re willing to share of
both. I read a recipe and see
great expanses of land, cultivars

of grain and vegetable, stunning lengths of history, and I
imagine someone who feeds me,
the dance behind the routine of
cooking, the pop of memory, and
the sizzle of love. Making that
leap, trusting that the people ???)?????????????-????????)????5??????????????????????)????????????????????????)?????????????????????????)???????????????????????)???????????????????????)???????????????????????)?????????????)M???????????????)???????????????????????)????q$?????????????????????)?????$????????????)????????????t)??? ?????????????M????)??%??????-???????????????e?)!???????????9????5??????????????U?????????%???A???????)??????????????I?????????)????????????????????????((0