If it’s Saturday, it has to be khichdi.

At my grandparents’ house in Patna, khichdi was served for lunch every Saturday. Maybe that’s why my grandmother, Prabha Devi, made different versions of it each week to keep her family interested in a dish that was often dismissed as a plain mix of rice and dal, or associated with illness and recovery.

In 1984, she published Khichdi: Unsath Prakar Ki (Khichdi: 59 Varieties), celebrating the humble dish. The book was never marketed and was mainly gifted to family members spread across the world. This year, the English translation, Khichdi: A Legacy of Family and Flavours, translated by me, and published by Upon My Word! was released.

As children, my favourite was the mutter or green peas khichdi. Its best version is made using rice and peas in equal measure. I also enjoyed the uniquely delicious winter special, cauliflower and green peas khichdi, a mix of deep-fried cauliflower florets, onion slivers and green peas. Soft red tomato-and-carrot khichdi also held a special allure for us as children.

Comfort food, festive dish, sacred offering — every Saturday’s khichdi came with a story. Karma Bai’s khichdi of Jaganath temple in Puri, and the mounds of khichdi at Baba Gorkanath temple came were stories of unwavering devotion, Nawab Wajid Ali Shah’s tryst with his favourite food,told a dramatic tale of of an all consuming obsession of a game that ultimately led to the loss of his kingdom. Such stories regaled us and though the Akbar Birbal khichdi tale had little to do with recipes, it carried its own lesson.

Translating the book

In 1984, when the book, written in Magahi Hindi, was published, I found a copy amid my glittering wedding trousseau. The green and black abstract cover, caught my attention. In my grandmother’s beautifully lettered handwriting were her blessings. I had never felt more connected with the book. The first thoughts of translating the recipes from Magahi Hindi to English then took root.

The COVID-19 pandemic, when we spend months in lockdown, gave me time to revisit the manuscript. A sudden desire to document the vintage recipes, widen the reach of the book and to carry forward a legacy overtook me.

I connected with my relatives — aunts, uncles and distant cousins. A virtual reconstruction of times gone by led to the fleshing out of family cookery traditions, kitchen rules and stories of the family’s departed cooks.

The bygone kitchen

My grandmother’s book was written at a time when there was neither the blender nor machine-made ingredients, and cooking methods were archaic — stone-ground spices, homemade dumplings and the use of only seasonal vegetables. Ingredients were measured out in the old metric system — pao, seer, rathi, masha, tola. Potatoes were skinned, rubbed against coarse gunny sack. Sun dried lentil balls used in the dal ghusari khichdi were handmade — lentils ground in a mortar, hand whipped with masalas, shaped as small balls on fine cotton sheets and dried over days in the hot sun.

This is what I was attempting to reconstruct. While the original book has recipes written sequentially, I divided them into categories — sacred, festive, seasonal, regional and basic — to distinguish the variety that the dish is capable of.

Then began the cooking, of different recipes in different households.

I tried the sattu khichdi, a favourite of my father. Roasted horse gram flour (sattu), a staple in Bihar and now considered a super foods, is mixed into slow-cooked rice, thickening it to a dry or semi dry consistency, tempered with cumin, dry red chillies and asafoetida. It stands out for its raw earthy flavour.

The five dal khichdi, a blend of different pulses, gets its unique texture from the different sizes and tastes of the pulses. The sattvic khichdi without onions and garlic is made during the nine-day Navaratri festival. Khichdis using meat (seven versions prepared during Emperor Akbar’s reign are documented) are rich in use of dry fruits and aromatics — infused with rose water, kewra and saffron strands.

But it was the dal ghusari khichdi that became a talking point during the trials. Every relative engaged in this culinary re-visitation handmade the dumplings – shaping kneaded dough into stars, flowers, fish and birds — before adding to simmering dal finished with a tempering of dry red chilies, cumin and asafoetida. The family chat on social media pulsated with photos of the dish.

While I explored the dish, my grandmother rose from the past as a matriarch who not only guided the family through its vicissitudes but fed us lovingly day after day, and with a special khichdi every Saturday.

Khichdi has come to mean a lot more to me since I finished translating the book. It is now no longer just a dish, it has become true soul food-a bowl of nourishment, steeped in history and garnished with wonderful tales of life that are at once simple, humble and profound. Among the many recipes in the book, the aloo gobi mutter khichdi with fried onion slivers remains a favourite.

On finishing the book, a memory lingers. Sixteen children sitting around a dining table, waiting for the khichdi meal, singing, in chorus, the couplet that talks about Kkhichdi’s accompaniments, its “four friends.” Khichdi kei hain chaar yaar. Dahi paapad , ghee, achaar. (Khichdi has four friends, Yogurt, papad, ghee, pickle).

Khichdi: A Legacy of Family and Flavours, 59 Vintage Recipes is available on Amazon at ₹400.