Name: Dry Potato Curry
Ingredients: sugar; sunflower oil; sesame seeds; dried chilli; salt; citric acid; turmeric; cumin seeds; potatoes boiled; garlic; desiccated coconut

At around 6.30 I crept into the garden of the next-door neighbours, the Whartons, to steal some roses for a small bouquet (I wanted it all to be just right). One of the Whartons saw me from the kitchen window. They came round some minutes later, Mr and Mrs Wharton and three boys who all worked for the London Underground and had never once smiled or said hello. She had curlers in her hair and a cigarette in her mouth. They screamed racial abuse with thick voices and threw stones at the car parked outside. ‘Nice gift, guys,’ I wanted to shout and didn’t. ‘I am not a “Paki”.’ Instead we cowered, and the whole house began to stir. Then, suddenly, Jena piled a plate with hot nan katai and went out the front door, covered in flour, her hands shaking: ‘Here, taste, very special. My daughter today wedding, you know, lucky food, have, give her your blessings. Big day, no? Want one more?’ They were so surprised they took one each and went away, remembering to say thank you. Jena came back in, and suddenly all seemed well with the world. After that, she said, they became her friends.

My cousin Marunisa was my jedel, the knowing bridesmaid who was chosen to dress me and brief me on the deflowering. As she slapped make-up on my face and washed my long hair, she stuffed nuts and sultanas into my gold handbag (with the secret compartments) to help with the high-energy requirements for the wedding night. We had no money for a honeymoon, so she paid for a night in the local big hotel. Marunisa always had money, even though her official job as a secretary paid little. While I burned under an old beehive hairdryer (hers), she shouted out the rules of married copulation. I was to let him take charge; good girls were not eager on the first night. ‘Smile, but don’t laugh too much before he starts. Don’t look at his thing. If it hurts don’t cry or complain. Husbands hate that. I have a nightie for you in the suitcase – with buttons in the front so will be easier. Don’t worry – soon it will be as easy as having a bath. Never say no if he wants to do it and you will have a long marriage.’ I listened to her with convincing innocence, pretended fear and timidity. Something in her eyes told me she knew I was already eagerly enjoying my lover in bed. And that she did too, the young, merry widow. We all knew she went out at night and came back in through an open window before dawn. Geoffrey, the local bank manager, had fallen under Marunisa’s spell and could never refuse her a loan. She smoked and was brazen; her long hair had been dyed flaming red. I knew she would be the one they all looked at, especially as she had decided to also wear a white-and-gold sari for the religious wedding, the same as me. I would have preferred an ugly jedel or one less compulsively competitive. But I always admired Marunisa’s spirit and the wayward life she chose to lead in spite of the gossip.

First there was the civil ceremony in a dull office off the main street, opposite Debenham’s department store in Harrow-on-the-Hill. I wore a white mini-smock with a daring swing and kinky boots. The gear, bought in Carnaby Street, made me feel like Sandie Shaw, only more risqué. The stolen roses made a thorny bouquet. I was free with TL, kissed and hugged him as if he was already mine. He wasn’t, not until the real marriage vows at the mosque. People talked. I didn’t care. Heck, we were in England now, not backward Kampala. TL and his friends in Oxford were oh so cool, and I was soon going to be one of them.

Maami sat me down that night, peeled and sliced oranges, and gave me some loving advice on how a decent woman behaves. ‘We are not like the English, beti. Today you forgot that. Marriage is different for us, it’s about duty and izzat. Spoil your name and you can never buy it back. Please for my sake, no more these short frocks and low-class things. Did you know your chuddi was showing?’ As the slices were popped into my mouth by this lady of grace and wisdom, I saw Sandie Shaw running away and hiding in shame.

The religious ceremony had me draped in my white embroidered sari and adorned in gold. The necklace and bracelet boasted several mock guineas. Don’t ask me why I thought them lovely. They were in fashion then, and for many more years the ultimate symbols of success for dukanwallahs, mini mayoral chains honouring coinage. My head was covered and my eyes lowered virginally. I exuded piety. When the time came, I got right down to touch the feet of my father-in-law and in that scene turned myself into the perfect Hindi movie wifey. This wedding had split one bride into two – the immigrant’s dilemma personified. Back in Uganda, the various cultural parts of us held together and melded more easily into a manageable whole. Our communities there were grounded in immutable strength and enduring conventions. We knew and understood ourselves. It would take a long time to get that confidence and solidity in the UK, if ever we did. In the meantime there was the traditional Miss me and the modern Miss me, and the skill was to keep them apart successfully.

Clay plates containing a coin, rice, sweets and saffron were tied together and placed on the floor, one for the bride and one for the groom. We had to smash them with our feet. The first to do the most damage would rule the roost. They represented fertility, money, sweetness and good fortune. My heel broke before the plate, a bad omen I was told. TL wore one of those brassy purple suits so popular in the early 1970s (why, oh why?), and his Carlos Santana moustache was luxuriant. At the reception in a despondent Harrow school hall with graffiti on the walls and stinky toilets, a hundred people gathered to wish us well. I had known many of them since my insalubrious birth. The tables were covered with orange candlewick bedspreads – didn’t matter at all. The biriyani and ladoos were excellent.

My brother and his wife and all my cousins had given us a memorable wedding. Crooked relatives got to cheat a few more clients; rich uncles turned up for the shortest time possible and left behind the cheapest gifts but sulked and had tantrums: ‘Is this the way? You show me respect like this? Putting me next to a tool maker? No. I will be leaving now, don’t need your biriyani.’ My family managed to smile for the photographer, who was never paid and pursued me for years. He would have got his money, but Alnoor, who was given the cash to pass on, bought a new Terylene safari suit for himself instead.

Malek, my dearest cousin on my mother’s side, gave me the most lovely thing I then possessed: a Kashmiri cape embroidered with deep pink and red flowers. I put it on as TL and I quietly left the hall and were about to head for the hotel in a cab when Marunisa appeared to wave us down. The hotel room had fallen through, she informed us, genuinely distressed. One of her dodgy deals had failed. So that night there was no nut fest, no easy-to-open nightdress or virgin. We had a sleepover in the overcrowded Harrow house, downstairs in the living room, unable to touch at all.

So I felt like a princess when Prince Charming took me off to a small attic student flat in Oxford the next day in his old Citroën 2CV. His parents came along too, unwilling to stay on in Babu’s house although they were warmly invited to do so. Late into the night I drank Woodpecker cider, TL got high on Coca-Cola, we munched Cadbury’s whole-nut chocolate (full-cream milk and nuts for energy) and made love on a mattress. As I lifted myself up to go to the bathroom I actually fainted briefly, as if spent to oblivion. Or maybe it was the combination of released frustration and impossible self-control – we had to be quiet because his parents were in the only bedroom, snoring in unison. The night was long and fulfilled honeyed promises. I wanted nothing more on earth. Uganda became an old postcard, far away in time, a funny old place.

I could please TL in bed all right but couldn’t cook. That, for an Asian bride, is an invitation to a beating or a kick back to her parents. Neither came about. In the first weeks I made some revolting grub which left a layer of grease on the tongue: pineapple-hamburger patties, spaghetti with tinned mushroom soup, rice with mashed sardines and ketchup. TL was kind and patient, and never complained. But I feared he would run off with the first lovely young woman who could make him lasagne from scratch. Some of the other wives were already competent cooks, and one, a gorgeous Italian, made food that gave TL an erotic charge. I blamed Jena for sending me off without adequate culinary training and set about learning the basics from her over the phone. She taught me patiently to make good food quickly out of the cheapest and past-their-best ingredients.

I have it still, my red hardback notebook with the first simple dhal recipes and a dozen ways to make spicy potatoes. Here are three of them.

Dry Potato Curry

Preparation info

Serves

Difficulty

Appears in

The Settler's Cookbook

Ingredients

Method