While writing my paternal grandmother’s eulogy earlier this year, I recalled a very dear memory. As a child, I would spend afternoons after school at my grandparents’ house. I was a fussy eater – but not on days when she cooked lime rice and fish fry. That meant it was “picnic day”.
My grandmother would pack the lime rice and the fish fry into little tiffin boxes and then we would head to the living room. A small bedsheet would be spread out. We would sit down to eat and pretend we were on a picnic.
My mother, too, ate this dish a lot as a child. For my maternal grandmother, with five children, lime rice, tamarind rice, coconut rice, tomato rice all made easy school lunches. Because they spent a few years living by the sea in the coastal city of Karwar, fish was always an accompaniment.
One cannot find this in a restaurant and I’ve tasted this dish at friends’ homes, but nothing comes close to the way my family makes it. My maternal grandmother no longer cooks. For a long time, I didn’t feel like learning how to make this extremely simple dish because I liked the thought of having to rely on…
Source: Food coma: Lime rice and fish fry picnics in the living room with my grandmother
