Trading Kusvad for Kekse this year

As I prepare for my first Christmas away from my family of origin Ive found my thoughts compulsively returning to the word repertoire Yesterday the word exile showed up thrice on my Instagram feed It is a word which is embedded with poetic immediacy The utterance of the two syllables is enough to connote a wide register of emotions that hinge on loss nonbelonging and forms of separation between where one is and where one ought to be were the circumstances more idealHazelnut fudge made by meI am exactly where I would like to be But this doesnt mean I am immune to the gravity of the experience of exile It is not a permanent feeling that is entrenched in my body I am eager to be where I am Yet especially during this festive season I am confronted with the enormity of the difference between this world I am still learning to inhabit and the worlds that have informed my memories It occurs to me how so little is made of the sense of exile experienced by women who left their maternal homes for the elsewhere homes they were instrumental in setting up Across the centuries this form of marital migration must have reshaped so many intangible aspects of the historical mundaneBratapfel or roasted apple made by my fatherinlawFor instance on Tuesday morning as I was sitting at the table of my partners aunts Monika and Maridl helping them decorate their homemade Zelten a composition premised on dried figs nuts mulled wine rum star anise liquor and sour dough I thought about how every Christmas of my girlhood and adolescence and adulthood until now was defined by the ceremonious making of Christmas sweets This year my sister sent me photographs of my parents recipes which have been finetuned through the yearsNankhatai made by my sister in IndiaOur family took great pride in our kusvad repertoire Each year my mother recounted the same stories as the year before how when they moved to Kurla into the apartment they bought into the predominantly Catholic colony she didnt know how to make many of the sweets Some of our housewife neighbours initiated her into the art of it Each year she would remember each one of them calling out their names so it felt like we were repeating gestures we had inherited from them We were doing in memory of them Over time they became our gesturesMore Zelton made by Aunt Monika and decorated by Aunt Maridl and meThese legacies were successfully entrenched in our DNA and have already been transmitted to the next generation Our recipes were being constantly tweaked and modified and this practice continues My fathers legacy is his dodol and perad recipe Especially with dodol it is magical to witness the confluences that account for the thick fudgy end result that owes its substance to two textures of coconut milk and requires a continuing connection with Goa so as to source the palm jaggery that accounts for the unique silky black colourThe Zelton made by Aunt Monika and decorated by Aunt Maridl and meMy father devised his recipe to cut down the traditional cooking time A part of it involves having the fan on while the mixture is in the vessel on the flame upon the stove A percentage of every Christmas was spent with each of us taking turns stirring the dodol and the perad so that the warm fragrance of ricecoconutjaggeryghee and guavas came to predominate our memories of ChristmasThis year I am performing many substitutions Because I am aware I am possibly the only person of Goan origin across the region Not being within a community of other Goans means that the sweets that are part of my familys repertoire either dont translate well within Alpine circumstances or the ingredients are hard to find Instead of trying to reconstruct what is familiar to me I have decided to embrace the newness of everything This means I will have no Kusvad platter to flaunt Instead Im merely experimenting with different recipes in an attempt to expand my repertoire You could call it a gap year So far I made some hazelnut fudge which is over date rolls and vanilla kipferl essentially cookies with lots of butter ground almonds and hazelnuts flour and sugar I am completely overwhelmed by the boxes of kekse cookies that keep entering the house gifts from friends of my inlaws Im relishing legends lavishly narrated to me about certain women who are known for making between 20 40 and even 60 different types of cookies Im preparing to mentally savour the fine details that make my motherinlaws Stollen different from the one the aunts make Im eager to finally taste the Zelten I helped decorate Monika made 50 for her family friends and extended social circlesI may attempt Anitas my sisters motherinlaws coconut cake recipe since I managed to get hold of dessicated coconut And I may try my hand at her sisterinlaw Daphnes cashew nut rocks recipe with almond flour instead Im not putting too much pressure on myself to dazzle anyone Im busy feeling deeply floored by the continued ingenuity of housewives the world over who by persistently performing the emotional and physical labour of broadening their repertoires have managed to transform their exile into culinary legacies invisibly shaping historyDeliberating on the life and times of Everywoman Rosalyn DMello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover She tweets RosaParx Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individuals and dont represent those of the paper