Vivek Singh’s Indian Festival Feasts

Growing up in India in the 1970s, my memories are of food being the centre of every event. With India being a country that is full of diversity, be it a religious festival, a family occasion, a birthday of a friend or wedding of an acquaintance, each of these meant being surrounded by lots of people.

India’s festivals are as diverse as the country’s landscapes and as lively as its people, bringing together a blend of cultures, religions and understanding for people to celebrate. Celebrations often have long, drawn-out preparation, with weeks and months of planning; I recall women, especially of my mother’s and grandmother’s generations, getting together in each other’s kitchens to prepare the ever-important Diwali snacks. And with many days of preparation would come several days of recovery, post-festival.

Looking back at those events, and in writing this book, I can’t help but notice that food was an expression of the sentiment, the emotion that people would feel for the particular event. Indian food is as diverse as India, so the kind of food that would be served would vary from festival to festival, family to family, region to region. Nevertheless, food is at the heart of these celebrations, regardless of numerous cultures and religious nuances. Often, food was traditionally incorporated into the festival as an offering to a deity, and then communities or families would gather to share in a feast, so indeed one may say that these festivals are incomplete without food. It is often said ‘we eat to live’, but here, more than anywhere, it seems like ‘we live to eat’! Somehow, almost miraculously, the food element of festivals and celebrations would evoke similar emotions of happiness and joy, and bring friends and family together in a way that would be unique to that occasion.

This collection is an effort to pick out some of the most favoured celebrations from my childhood memories. Weaving through the calendar, I dip in and out of festivals (trust me, India has more festivals and celebrations than there are days in the year!): from al fresco picnics on Makar Sankranti in my father’s colliery town to Saraswati Puja (the veneration for the Goddess of Knowledge) in the middle of January, or from vibrant Holi, Easter, community weddings or Dussehra all the way through to Diwali or Christmas. The festivals included here are just a beginning; it’s probably true to suggest that if an Indian were to engage in all celebrations, they would have no time left for anything else in life.

Each of the occasions included here is marked by the unique kind of food that is prepared and served at the event. With some of these dishes only being eaten once a year during the festival, the preparation and presentation tell a story of celebration in India; a combination of colours, energy, music, communities and, of course, flavours and styles of cooking.

Fast forwarding from the celebrations of my childhood, today’s modern society has become even more of a cultural melting pot; there is now so much interest, understanding and interaction between various communities. As a result, in India, the festivals and the feasts are more and more being shared beyond the initial boundaries of the festival, with neighbours of different religions being invited to share the celebrations. And even beyond India, festivals such as Holi and Diwali have become increasingly familiar in London and across the world; celebrated with immense fervour amongst people of all backgrounds, extending much further than just the people of the festival’s ethnic origins. Indeed, at The Cinnamon Kitchen in central London we host ‘Play Holi in the City’ and invite Londoners to join our celebrations with paints and Holi-themed cocktails and canapés – it’s a joy to be part of it.

This book shares a collection of recipes for the kind of food that is enjoyed at festivals and celebrations in India, combined with regional nuances and religious differences in the subcontinent. These carefully chosen recipes, in their own unique way, paint a festive picture, and a sense of sharing and being together, through their vibrant colours, special ingredients, big feasting platters and unique flavours. For example, in the Holi section you can expect to find samosas and chaats of various combinations, alongside cool lentil dumplings in yoghurt dressing. Other recipes like malpuas and thandhai will just finish off the meal... If you’re looking for ideas for a wedding meal, skip to my collection of Bengali wedding dishes for ideas, including a rich and creamy prawn curry redolent with cardamom, sweet spiced slow-cooked mutton curry and a punchy fish curry with mustard. The community pot of biryani and seviyaan – a rich dessert of fine vermicelli cooked in milk – are simply not to be missed at Eid.

As a result of travel, migration and globalisation, various festivals are being celebrated in places far away from their place of birth. It’s good that people are able to stay connected to their culture and tradition through continuing these celebrations in faraway lands; however what is not so good is that as these festivals move away from the place of their origin, the ingredients, the menus and, with them, the expression of the festival change beyond its traditions.

As I see it, there are both positives and negatives of India, and indeed the world, turning into a melting pot. I am sure this has been happening all the time, but when I speak to my friends in Delhi and ask how they celebrate Vaisakhi, when the response is ‘we have vodka and chicken sandwiches in the club’, something suddenly dies inside me – it is not the celebration that I remember.

But then I think about how relatively recent some of our favourite ingredients and dishes are, and I’m amazed at the pace of change. I think of tomatoes, which are no more than 150 years old in India; potatoes and chillies, both brought to India by the British and the Portuguese respectively; and rossogolla, Bengal’s favourite sweet, which was only invented less than 500 years ago. I think of a tandoor and its myriad offering of kebabs coming in from Persia and Central Asia with the Mughals – yes, domesticated chicken was an Indian invention but tandoori chicken was an innovation – and India’s favourite curry, the butter chicken or Murgh Makhani, was only invented in the 1940s to use up leftover tandoori chicken. Chaat – the epitome of Indian street food that has recently gained so much popularity all over the world, owing much of its success to its wide array of components that allow for incredible flexibility of choice and potential for customisation – was only invented in the early seventeenth century when Shahjahan moved the capital to Delhi and established Shahjahanabad (now old Delhi) on the banks of the River Yamuna. It was believed that the water in Yamuna was not drinkable and would lead to all kinds of illnesses for its population. The royal doctors prescribed using heavily spiced food cooked in large amounts of fat (ghee) as an antidote. Now, this was fine for those that were meat eaters, but for the vegetarian population, they invented chaats, which could be deep-fried potato cakes, samosas, crisp wheat biscuits, etc, all served with an array of sharp, tangy and spicy sweet chutneys, spice mixes and dressings.

As is becoming abundantly clear, the cuisine of India has been greatly shaped by the influences that various rulers brought with them at different points of time in history, and so have the festivals and feasts. And both will no doubt continue to evolve.

One note of caution though: not all of the recipes listed in this book are ones that you will immediately fall in love with. In actual fact, some sweets and Indian desserts can require quite a specialised skill and takes years of practice to get right. Others, though, can be recreated with just a couple of practice runs! You will notice some festivals use very limited ingredients but use them again and again in different proportions to create an illusion of a banquet! Feel free to substitute ingredients you can’t find with similar alternatives, or even to mix different dishes from various chapters to create your own personal Indian feast.

Our society has always been receiving, sending and sharing new influences and new ideas in all walks of life, and our cooking, cuisine and celebrations are the same. Even today, the influences and exchanges continue with migration, through movies and, more recently, through social media. The role that Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook have played in spreading awareness of celebrations that were once limited to specific parts of the world is mind-boggling. The world was always fluid, as it is now, but now we have truly turned into a melting pot with ideas being exchanged almost instantaneously. We’re connected with the world all the time, which in essence was the point of these festivals and celebrations.

I, for one, am all for evolving and adapting with the times, and staying connected to the roots but not chained by tradition. I also realise that our role is not to fight change but to merely be a connection between the past and the future. I feel extremely fortunate to realise that there are so many festivals, so many celebrations, so many religions and yet food is the common expression of them all. So what if the offering changes with time – that is inevitable. I would love for food to remain at the centre of these expressions in the years to come.

Vendors sell flowers for the festival of Pongal at a market in Bangalore. (Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty)