Zafranistan

Episode 3 " Sattu Parantha, tamatar ki meethi waali chutney, kaddu ki sabzi & chokha....Here you go my beautiful Zafran, enjoy the feast! " Peehu giggled. What joy it gave her, to cook for her. Maybe she realised that Zafran has lost something which she couldn't mention in front of her, but this journey which she has started to live will for sure compensate some part of it. " What is sattu? And why is the chutney so pulpy? Chokha? What is that? " Zafran flooded Peehu with a lot of questions. " Sattu is a kind of a flour made from roasted gram. It is our staple for protein. Chutney here is pulpy & tangy because it is made with love by slowly crushing it on the silwatta ( a flat stone bed over which the masala is rubbed by a pestle.)  Chokha being the way the boiled potatoes were prepared. It is mashed with love, flavoured with the temper of mustard oil, cumin seeds, garlic, dried red chilli. Then chopped raw onions and green chilli were ad...

Episode no. 1/2  ( Litti Chokha?) "I can only recall corruption, cows and litti chokha whenever someone asks me about Bihar.", said one of the girls passing by the M block in Connaught Place. "Litti chokha? Is that all you guys eat in Bihar?" asked a young man, who was ironically filming a vlog on the streets of CP on 'Who are Biharis' to a girl. Zafran overheard the conversation. She was naive about the place itself & the culture they attached with their food. She thought the girl must have meant something of existence when she narrowed down the place just to a person and a dish. Her being skeptical about the whole incident led to the inception of an idea. An incident at times is enough to make you realise. So, in order to find out, she decided to go around, observe & learn about the stereotype. And what way could be better than food? She plans to leave on a food quest to find out what's cooking in every bihari household of different ...