A Touch of Spice

On a return trip to her childhood home of Kolkata, India, Megha Majumdar learns how food can be a portal to the past.

- Megha Majumdar

WHEN I SAY HOME, I mean Kolkata: onetime capital of India under British rule, city of almost 16 million on West Bengal's Hooghly River. Its people are devoted to eating well. Kolkata's food scene encompasses everything from streetside snacks to lavish restaurant spreads. It is roasted corn with lime and salt; the noodles Chinese immigrants brought in the 18th century; and fish meunière, a recipe that came all the way from Normandy.

When I moved to the United States almost 20 years ago, I was surprised to find that the cuisine of Kolkata only faintly registered in the American idea of Indian food—particularly given that Kolkata is perhaps the most food-crazed city in India. In July 2023 I went back with my husband and young son after three years away. Weeks before I arrived, my mother wrote to ask, “What do you want to eat?” I named some dishes, but what I really wanted was to be present in my hometown, not as a lost child or a slightly foreign visitor, but as the adult I might have been if I had stayed. Would food help me go home again?

Our mornings began at Rabindra Sarobar Lake, in the southern part of the city, where my husband and I bought green coconuts from a vendor on a bicycle. We slurped the water hastily to arrive at the translucent white flesh, slippery on the tongue. Coconuts in hand, we circled the lake, where, among the rain-washed trees, geese honked at my toddler, a kingfisher alighted on a branch, and a small snake swam toward us.

One day, for a hot breakfast, we drove to Maharaj Snacks, a local favorite just north of the lake where the sidewalk serves as a dining room. Just outside the doorway, a man fried hing er kochuri, a flatbread filled with asafoetida-flavored black-lentil dal, in a large pot and served it with a potato curry. We observed the pool of oil, black with reuse, and tried not to think too hard about its quality. We focused instead on the dish itself, which was comforting and perfectly spiced.