One problem with moving to a village with a population of 41 is that there are no shops for miles. And while we can freeze meat, bread and butter obtained after a shopping expedition in Wareham, some eight miles away, obtaining fresh vegetables was a problem. Luckily, the lady wife has asked a local farmer to deliver a box of vegetables to the house every week. I say ‘luckily’, even though I mostly eat salad and veggies under duress. This, of course, is a result of my gosht-khor, or meat-eating, upbringing in Pakistan. As I once wrote in an article on Lahori food for an anthology about the city compiled by Bapsi Sidwa, vegetarians visiting Lahore do so at the risk of starving to death.

Having said this, I was quite pleased to learn a new recipe for a simple, cooling salad from Karin, a Slovak friend who has been helping with our move. Best of all, it is ideal for summer and quick to make. All you do is shave or grate a couple of cucumbers into a bowl, add a pinch of salt, a tablespoon each of white wine vinegar and sugar, and mix well. And that’s it. The sugar and the vinegar tone down each other’s flavours and combine to make a delicate salad.

Another veggie dish that has been a long-standing favourite is a good ratatouille. This rustic French dish is best eaten a day after it has been cooked, and at room temperature. You begin by slicing a few bell peppers (large Kashmiri mirch) lengthwise and scraping out the seeds and the white inner lining. A medium-sized aubergine is similarly prepared. Quarter a couple of large tomatoes. Next, chop three or four large cloves of garlic. Actually, you can use almost any non-root vegetables like zucchini. The more the merrier. Getting some colour into the dish is always a good idea.

People buy huge numbers of these lavishly illustrated books not to cook from their recipes, but to salivate over the beautiful photographs.

On a gentle heat, soften the garlic and then add the vegetables, starting with the hardest and ending with the tomatoes. Let the vegetables cook for an hour or so, stirring now and then. Add a couple of pinches of salt and freshly ground pepper. When all the vegetables are limp and cooked through, take off the heat and check the seasoning. Once it has cooled, cover and refrigerate overnight. Serve cold as a side dish with a roast, or on its own. It’s best eaten with a chunk of fresh brown bread to soak up the juices.

The Guardian of August 18 carries an article by the well-known chef and food writer, Prue Leith, on the subject of cookbooks. According to her, people buy huge numbers of these lavishly illustrated books not to cook from their recipes, but to salivate over the beautiful photographs. When they actually want to cook, they download recipes from the internet. Most people don’t want to get grease and gravy spots on their expensive, decorative books by opening them in the kitchen, and tend to leave them on their coffee tables.

Actually, many of my cookbooks bear signs of being opened next to the stove as I cook. But one — not technically a cookbook — is unmarked. This is a Folio Society edition of Alexandre Dumas’ Dictionnaire de Cuisine. Written shortly before his death in 1870, the dictionary was translated into English in 1978 by Alan and Jane Davidson.

Dumas is, of course, far more famous as the author of exciting novels (The Count of Monte Cristo; The Three Musketeers) than as a gourmand. But his dictionary shows a man who loved food and was very knowledgeable about it. But there are some hilarious errors as well, as for instance, in the entry for bamboo, under B: “… Bamboo shoots, with vinegar and mustard make a pickle which is named after its inventor, Achar.”

Under the same letter, the entry for barracuda informs us that this ‘very voracious and greedy fish’ eats everything, ‘even the fruits of the manchineel tree’, making it dangerous to eat the flesh. Dumas advises that before cooking it, one should make sure that ‘its teeth are really white and its liver perfectly healthy’.

Who knew? Having barbecued many barracudas at my old hut at French Beach outside Karachi, I’m glad I survived despite never having examined the fish’s teeth or liver.

I’ll be sharing a few more nuggets from this culinary dictionary from time to time.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, August 23rd, 2015

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