In truth, she’s quietly leading the UK’s first Bengali food revolution, shining light on a cuisine that has long been overlooked. “We’re often seen as the rejects of Partition India, the forgotten region,” Haseen explains as she stirs the chai. She gestures for me to take a seat the table. Every inch of it is covered with bowls of jhalmuri, (spicy puffed rice with peanuts and tamarind), dali bora (lentil fritters), crispy prawn pakora, beetroot chop (meat-free cutlets with a natural purple colour), and a coconut, cardamom, and rosewater cake.
A jug of bright yellow mango lassi, pomegranate salad, and far far (multi-coloured poppadom-style snacks) inject vivid explosions of colours. The blog’s namesake—her grandma’s gold-tone stainless steel three-tiered tiffin box and a staple of Mumbai office workers—sits nearby. “It was used to serve my grandad lunch,” Haseen tells me. “It represents how food can transgress borders. All in all, Haseen's kitchen is a typically Desi scene: more food on offer than it is possible to consume in one sitting.
The spread reminds me of a Christmas I spent in Jaipur, a city famed for its celebration of colour, and whose food follows suit. The dishes jostling for space on the table are also reminiscent of what Bengalis brand as nashta, “light bites” that can be consumed over the course of the day.
Nashta is usually designed for guests and extended families who might unexpectedly pop in at any moment. I settle for several crispy prawn pakoras and spoon some chutney onto each. When we think of South Asian fare, chances are, it’s Pakistani or Indian. While British Bangladeshi chefs like Vivek Singh, founder of famed Westminster restaurant The Cinnamon Club, have brought Bengali cooking to a wider audience in recent years, most Brits would be hard pressed to name a Bengali dish.
This erasure is notable, given the invaluable contribution of first-generation Bengali immigrants to Britain’s Indian food scene. Bengali curry chefs were among those who “Anglicised” their dishes in the 1970s to appeal to Western palettes, helping birth Britain’s favourite food: curry. In 2001, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook adopted the chicken tikka masala as the country’s national dish, and a National Curry Week is held every year.
Back in Barking, the tea starts turning a deeper caramel shade. “I aim for my skin tone colour! ” Haseen laughs, pouring a tin of evaporated milk onto the pan. While Haseen hopes that The Golden Tiffin will bring much-needed recognition to Bengali cuisine, she never set out to write a food blog.
“I was encouraged by people reading to share other parts of what I actually eat,” she explains. Indeed the blog includes travel and lifestyle posts alongside Haseen's favourite Bengali recipes. Now, Haseen hopes those readers outside the Bengali community will be able to experiment with the cuisine, ensuring the recipes are as accessible as possible. “A lot of the people who ask me questions about Bengali food aren’t Bengali,” she says, adding that she is often asked, “‘How can I recreate this at home,
’ or ‘How can I make sure my family enjoy it too, In an aesthetically driven Instagram age, Haseen’s cautious that Bengali food might not be as Instagram-friendly as other cuisines, crediting this for why the cuisine might have been absent from our feeds. Switching off the flame on the stove, Haseen heads for the sink. She tips the tea from the pan to one teacup and then another—not unlike the chai wallas found across the Indian subcontinent. “I’m not as good as them though!
As she hands me a cup, a film forming a bronze layer on the surface, I take a sip. The frothiness conjures memories of my aunt labouring over a huge pan to brew tea in her village during one of my holidays to Pakistan. “It’s taken me a year to perfect it,” she beams, as I down the last of my cup.
Tags:
How Make Food