Thirty egg yolks and four cups of sugar. No, this isn’t a recipe for a wonky science experiment, but the main ingredients for the classic Malabari Muslim (Mappila) dish mutta maala. This ‘egg garland’ is an integral part of every Mappila celebration. The sunshine-yellow threads of yolk, simmered in sugar syrup, is a fixture at feasts, and is just as firmly entrenched in every Mappila heart: a prospective groom coming to visit? Ghee rice, mutton curry and mutta maala are likely to be on the menu. A wedding function for 1,000 guests? Mutton biryani and mutta maala are what every self-respecting wedding host will serve.

And to bring it full circle, the naming ceremony for a newborn will also most likely involve mutton in some variation and, of course, mutta maala.

Considering the importance of this dessert in celebrating all the monumental events in our family life, you would think that the enthusiastic cooks of the Mappila families would have this recipe down pat. However, surprisingly, most Mappila cooks are not familiar with making mutta maala. Not the women in the family who spend their days cooking elaborate meals, not the Masterchef-watching, food blog-devouring 20-somethings who are comfortable in the kitchen otherwise. The truth is that besides a few older women who have watched their mothers make this dish countless times in the old days, mutta maala remains strictly a caterer’s dish.

There are many reasons why dishes like mutta maala are no longer at the fingertips of every Mappila cook. For one, there’s the matter of tediousness — carefully separating 30 yolks from the whites is no joke. Then there is the issue of having the right utensils. A ladle made from coconut shell is used to pour the yolk in thin strands into the bubbling vat of sugar. But as I stood next to my aunt, while she showed me the right way to crack an egg without breaking the yolk, I felt like I was being inducted into a secret society. It felt monumental in the way that picking up a new skill or learning a new language makes you feel. Like I had access to a part of my culture that is slowly slipping away.

At home everywhere

I’m ashamed to admit that when I first started cooking, it was crispy latkes, and airy, light-as-a-cloud soufflés that interested me rather than the food that I grew up eating. That didn’t change until quite recently when my extended family decided to compile a family cookbook. As we were putting together a list of the recipes to be included, listening to the elders discuss curries and appams they hadn’t eaten in decades, it became clear that there was a wealth of information that we stood to lose if we didn’t systematically collect and record. It became clear why this family that usually guarded recipes like state secrets would want to put their minds together to come up with a cookbook — to ensure that the younger generation, even as they moved away from families to start their own lives, could carry a piece of home with them.

Family cookbooks have carved out a niche for themselves in the food world over the past decade or so.

Some of them are heritage cookbooks and share recipes that have been part of the family for decades, while others are eclectic collections of traditional recipes that sit alongside ones that have more recently made it into the family repertoire.

The most engaging of these cookbooks are the ones that give you a peek into the everyday life of the family, and make you feel like you are at the table, sharing a meal with them. The recipes are often accompanied by a few family stories and photographs to give you context.

One of my favourite family cookbooks is Olives, Lemons & Za’atar by Rawia Bishara, who left her childhood home in Nazareth and settled in Brooklyn with her family. Her book is a celebration of Palestinian dishes she learnt to cook from her mother back in Nazareth, and which, thousands of miles away from her hometown, provides her with a lasting connection to her roots. It is, as you would imagine, tinged with nostalgia and childhood memories.

Unlike Olives, Lemons & Za’atar, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s The Settler’s Cookbook focuses on the recipes that her family concocted on moving away from India and settling in East Africa. Many of the recipes, which have their roots in India, provide a clear map of their travels, and have been modified to include local East African ingredients — plantains with peanut curry; posho and rice.

Although technically a memoir, it has all the ingredients of a great family cookbook, in that it helps you better understand a family through the food they cook.

Know your own

It turns out that it is possible to better understand your family even through the process of writing a cookbook with them. We set up a committee to take charge of collecting and organising the recipes. One of the biggest challenges we faced when compiling recipes is that even within a family, there are several versions. Which one to include? My grandmother made her fried chicken with onions, and so that’s how my mother and all my aunts make it. However, my grandmother’s sister hated onions in her fried chicken, and that’s how her children make it to this day.

While we argued and recipe-tested our way through the list, we also realised that measurements were not something most home cooks feel compelled to use — more often than not, seasoned cooks eyeball ingredients rather than use precise measurements. My aunt Razia says that she keeps track when she cooks by remembering the number of times she stirs a dish. For example: add the sugar to the milk and stir 100 times, which to someone who learnt to cook from cookbooks that are precise down to half a minute, is a bit unnerving.

Although family cookbooks, especially the ones with very traditional recipes, may seem superfluous, they play an important role in preserving one’s family history and providing social commentary.

One of the reasons traditional heirloom recipes get a bad rep is that they are considered to be time-consuming and tedious. Yes, it does not make sense to cook mutton in a terracotta vessel over a wood-fired stove for most people, but recipes can be updated while still staying true to their essence.

Another setback faced when cooking recipes that have been around for decades is that they often involve antiquated utensils that are no longer readily available. However, with a little ingenuity, it is possible to improvise. In a pinch, the mutta maala that I mentioned earlier can be made by drizzling the yolk out of a piping bag.

The greatest benefit of incorporating more traditional recipes into our meals is that it is the surest way to eat sustainably.

As the world rediscovers sustainable eating, it becomes obvious that this is the way most Indian families have eaten until quite recently. Our kitchens relied heavily on local, often homegrown produce and the dishes changed depending on the season. In our attempt to eat local and seasonal, the food of our ancestors is our strongest ally.

Aysha Tanya is a Kannur-based food writer

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