Sometime in 1998, the New York Times announced an essay competition in its pages. It was open to all readers of the newspaper. The topic was to write an essay on a meal that played an important part in your life. The hardest part was that the essay could not exceed 150 words. The judge was the restaurant critic of the Times, Ruth Reichl, an influential and powerful woman who had just published her first book, “Tender at the Bone.”
At that time, I had graduated from the Columbia Journalism School and was waiting for my green card. I lived in Manhattan then. I decided to enter the essay competition mostly because the award was a gift voucher for $1000 that could be used to eat in any of the restaurants in New York.
Months passed. One day I learned to my delight that I had won the essay. The Times sent a staff photographer to my Manhattan apartment to photograph me. He took several photographs, including some of me playing with my 1.5-year-old first child. Below is one of the photographs.
A month later, I opened the paper and found a half-page spread announcing the results of the essay competition along with my photograph. My professor Sree Sreenivasan sent an email to the entire journalism school saying that I had won the award. It was a great day in my life.
Later, when Ruth Reichl moved from the New York Times to become the editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine, she commissioned me to write a longer essay based on this 150-word essay. That essay won the James Beard M.F.K. Fisher Award for Distinguished Food Writing.
Once the essay came out, an editor from Random House contacted me and asked me to elaborate on that essay into a book, and that became my first book, Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes. That book too was a finalist for the James Beard Award.
It all began with this essay, which was my first foray into food writing.
Until that time, I had never written about food and, in fact, was and am a terrible cook.
Scroll down to read the essay that launched my food-writing career.
Ms. Narayan’s essay was selected by New York Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl as the Grand Prize winner of a $1,000 Anerican Express gift certificate. Here is the winning essay. The topic was: A “meal that played an important part in your life.”
______________________________________________
India. 1986. At 18, I have just been accepted into Mount Holyoke College but the consensus in my family is that I shouldn’t go. After days of pleading, the elders have relented. I am to cook them a vegetarian feast. It is a test, one they are sure I will fail. And in it lies my destiny.
I cut okra into long strips and fry it in mustard oil. I tease some spinach over a low flame, blend it into a smooth paste, and pepper it with asafoetida, baby onions and fried paneer. Tomatoes brew in tamarind water while I cook some red lentils and blend them into the rasam. I garnish with cilantro, mustard seeds and cumin. I hover over the virgin basmati rice, cooking it till each grain is soft but doesn’t stick. Sweet butter turns into golden ghee. Dessert is a simple almond kheer with plump raisins, cashews and saffron. The feast ends with steaming south Indian coffee, with filtered decoction, boiled milk and just enough sugar to remove the bitterness.
The elders pick and sample, judiciously at first. They don’t want to eat but they can’t stop themselves. They fight over the last piece of okra, taste overtaking caution.
Grandpa leans back and belches unapologetically.
I can go to America.
Your Content Goes Here
Leave A Comment