I’m the latest victim of the make-everything-from-scratch online rabbit hole. The Nara Smith reels, Ballerina Farm and Everything From Scratch Bob has me in a culinary chokehold!
And this made me think. My Dida (grandmother in Bengali) and my mom have been homesteading forever, which I had taken for granted. And now, good lighting and sultry voice-overs have glazed over something so essential to South Asian households. But honestly, do we need to dry our papads in the hot agonising sun? As someone who recently got on the homemade paneer brigade, I investigate the utility of making everything from scratch.
Scratching the surface
Because my Dida has been doing this work forever. No ring light. No sultry voiceover. Just her hands, her kitchen, and a working knowledge of preservation that was never called a "homestead practice", it was just called Tuesday, and I have spent the best Tuesdays in my maamar baari.
And if there is one thing my brain can taste before my mouth even opens, it's kul er achaar, narkel er naru, and jhaal aachar (ber pickle, coconut ladoos, and spicy pickles for the uninitiated).
Small, sour ber fruit, the ones that fall in January, sharp enough to make your eyes water, slow-cooked with mustard, date jaggery, and a patience that cannot be faked or fast-forwarded. My Dida made it every winter without announcement. It appeared in a glass jar on the shelf like a seasonal truth (and also travelled with me to college, by the way). I would eat it with my fingers, standing in the kitchen, and she would say nothing because she understood that some things don't need commentary. My brain has saved that taste the way a hard drive saves its most important files, in a place that doesn't get corrupted.
Then there were narkel er naaru, coconut and nolen gur rolled into small spheres that felt like holding something sacred in your palm. A real winter treat. Til er bora, those sesame fritters that shattered when you bit into them and then bloomed into something warm and nutty. Dal er bora, ground lentils seasoned and fried, is the kind of thing that appears at the edges of meals and disappears before you notice you've eaten seven. None of this was performance. None of this was content. It was the grammar of a Bengali winter, spoken fluently by women who had learned it from women who had learned it from women.
This is what the aesthetic from-scratch movement doesn't know how to hold: that for Indian households, making things by hand was never about slowing down. It was about survival, economy, and an almost ferocious refusal to waste. The whey from my paneer goes into my roti dough. The mustard oil is used twice before it's retired. The kul seeds, even those that were sometimes dried and kept. Sometimes they would find their way to my afternoon torkaari. Nothing left the kitchen without purpose.
So where does that leave me, the newly converted homemade paneer person?
I will only make these things from scratch
Ghee! I will always make my own. Twenty minutes, white butter, a low flame, and the smell that fills the apartment are worth every minute. Curd, yes! A spoonful of yesterday's into warm milk left overnight develops a tartness that no supermarket tub can achieve. These are not romantic projects. These are just better. And if you have more time, and are generous with cheesecloths, you can also make pretty decent Greek yoghurt!
But I am not drying papads on my roof. Lijjat exists; it is a feminist cooperative triumph, and the papad is excellent. I am not grinding my turmeric. I am not making achaar from scratch, not because I can't, but because my Dida is still alive and still making it, and some things should remain hers. And I swear global warming did not exist when my dida spent languid summer afternoons in Kolkata drying her papads. You've got to give this one to me.
That's the part the algorithm misses entirely. The from-scratch movement frames all of this as something to be reclaimed, rediscovered, and made aspirational again. But for Bengali households, as for most Indian households, it was never lost. It was just quiet. It was just women who didn't know their work was supposed to be filmed.
So am I writing this piece as a self-gratifying high five to mask my inability to cash in on the influencer olympics of cooking channels? Yes, but only partly. See, the thing is, I often romanticise the verdant open acres in Ballerina Farm videos, seeing her churn the butter and make sour cream from her fresh raw (iykyk) milk. I see it as something aspirational, and I guess writing this makes me appreciate the simplicity of my childhood and rediscovering it again. I do it by making patishapta every winter, and when the smell of nolen gur inhabits every crevice of my soul, I find myself closer to the identity I’ve left behind.
My Dida made kul er achaar in January. She will make it again this January. I will eat it standing in her kitchen with my fingers, and my brain will save it again, in that same uncorrupted place.
No voiceover required.