Introduction

The story goes that when the family elders were seeking an alliance for our father, they would always visit the backyard of the potential brides house. Confounded with this behavior, they were asked why they were doing this. Turned out they were looking for the quantum of chicken feathers that were strewn around to reflect how much non vegetarian food was consumed in that household.

Obviously my mother’s family met the standards and the wedding happened. My mother moved to Vakadu and had to take charge of the household that had no other woman.

She learnt cooking, ran the household, managed the finances and entertained the continuous stream of guests at the open kitchen.

As our Father went from teacher to college correspondent to his various positions in public life, Amma, was the constant who handled all at the backend with great dignity and aplomb.

Our father let all of us be who we wanted to be and let us evolve over the years. He gave us access to progressive education and let us choose our careers. We were never dictated to and never ever got a harsh word from him. He was a great inspiration to all of us as a parent in private life and as a prominent public figure, always with immense affection for all of us.

We miss you ‘Nayana’ and this book is as much a tribute to you as it is for Amma.

Food has been an intrinsic and indispensable part of our family fabric and bonding. A large, or should I say an endless part of our day was spent going from one meal to another, and we still do the same on vacations, a carry over of our habits from home. We always had an open house to people visiting us, and the perpetual stream of guests could never be sent away without being fed.

Also, the reality that all the children were sent off to boarding school and our palates could not handle the regular spicy Andhra food, meant that the cooking had to adapt to more flavours than just spice.

We have tried to capture some of our favourite dishes that we grew up with and still ask our mother to cook for us when we visit.

She has managed to balance her multiple roles as housewife, mother, public figure, head of family with her undying passion for cooking. Our mother has always made cooking look so easy, so simple, so quick and yet so tasty – in a nutshell, an effortless, innate and enticing art form. From someone who had never entered the kitchen before marriage to the sublime dishes she could churn out could only happen with an immeasurable dollop of love (for cooking and for the family).

We hope to capture some of that unique magic in this book for future households and cooks.

This truly is a tribute to our ‘Raji’ (as dad would call her), “adiseshamma’ (as her mother called her), ‘athamma’ (as the daughters in law call her), ‘peddamma, chinnamma, nani, madam’ and all other monikers.

To and from us, this is to our remarkable ‘Amma’ and the amazing food she has given us over the years.