Beginnings

Before dinner, along with drinks, my grandmother might set out bowls of nuts, usually fried cashews or peanuts, salted and sometimes sprinkled with Indian chilly powder (much like American cayenne pepper). Other favorites would have been chura (an addictive mixture of fried pressed rice, nuts, and seasonings, usually scooped with a little teaspoon, put onto the palm, and quickly gobbled up) or sev-gantia, an umbrella term to describe the infinite forms that seasoned chickpea flour batter can take when extruded through a special press into hot oil. For something more substantial, my grandmother might have offered crisp little triangular “mutton” samosas with a chutney, but not often. This was not yet the cocktail-party generation.