Food Memory (Indian Food)

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My fondest memory from childhood is the food I ate when I visited my grand parents house in the city of Lucknow – the origin of ‘Awadhi’ cuisine in India, that being said, my fondest ‘food’ memory is definitely from then! It was the kebabs – that melt in the mouth with every bite, the ulte tawey ki roti (a well seasoned Indian bread made with flour, eggs and milk which has different textures) and the mangos at the end of it all. I’d spend my school summer break in Lucknow with my family and our favorite past time was to try different Awadhi dishes every opportunity we got. My favorite kebabs were the galouti kebabs from a place called ‘Tunday kebabs’. The story behind the invention of the dish and the roadside open air food joint (called a dhaba in India) is one to tell. These kebabs were originally made to feed an old king who had no teeth and wanted to eat meat. They are cutlets made with very fine ground meat (literally the texture of mashed potatoes), a paste of red onions, garlic and ginger, a variety of Indian spices like green chillis, black and green cardamom, bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon and a few other ingredients that I don’t know of since I’ve never actually been very successful at making them! They are cooked in some fat on a big flat thick bottomed griddle till the outer layer is crisp. The food joint ‘Tunday kebabs’ came into being when a handicapped person having only one hand (referred to as a ‘tunda’ in that region) decided to take on the task of making galouti kebabs – and was more than successful when he made the best ones in the city. We’d go to the ‘dhaba’ at 6:00 PM in the evening because we knew there’d be a queue already and usually the kebabs would be sold out in an hours time. They tasted best when they were fresh so we’d park our cars in the nearest spot outside the dhaba (which is allowed in that neighborhood), put paper plates on

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