If heaven has food, let it taste like my mother's

Memories surrounding food have a peculiar way of staying with us. Perhaps it is because food speaks to so many of our senses at once: the aroma of spices rising from a pot, the warmth of a freshly cooked meal, the familiar clatter of plates at a family table, or the taste of something that takes us back to a time we can never quite return to. Inevitably, intertwined with the stories of our lives is the story of the food we have eaten. We eat when we gather, when we celebrate, when we grieve, and sometimes simply because it is time to eat. Recipes become family heirlooms, passed down through generations alongside stories, habits and traditions. Even the most ordinary moments around a dining table can remain imprinted upon our hearts long after the people who once sat beside us are gone.

Flavours from an ancestral palate

I have faint but fond memories of sitting at the breakfast table in our ancestral home in Begum Bazar, with my Dadi beside me, watching over me as I ate. I can still recall the crisp parathas, the eggs fried in ghee, and the simple sprinkling of salt and pepper that made those mornings so comforting. I remember the quiet tenderness of her presence, the sort of affection that needed neither explanation nor expression. Then, another memory comes rushing back: my childhood self sitting on my father's lap while he ate with one hand and held me close with the other. At that age, I knew nothing of how precious these moments were. I did not know that one day I would find myself searching for them in the smallest things, in a familiar aroma, a remembered taste, or a dish prepared just as it had always been.

But today, I do not wish to write about my Dadi or my father, both of whom have departed from this world. Today, I want to write about my mother, Rahat Hussaini, and the extraordinary way she has made a home for us through her food.

It is nearly impossible for me to feel entirely satisfied when I eat at a restaurant. I find myself making mental notes of what is missing, whether a dish has the right balance of spices, whether its texture is as it should be, or whether its flavour has achieved that elusive perfection. I sometimes wonder if I have become too particular. But the truth is that I have spent a lifetime eating food prepared by my mother, and once you have grown accustomed to that kind of cooking, the standards by which you judge every other meal become rather difficult to meet.

My mother, Farzana Rayhan, known to us as Rahat, married Syed Faizul Hussaini, the eldest son of Manzur Sahab, at a very young age. Born into a Mirza family with roots in Bengal that, according to the documents I have been able to trace, extend back approximately two centuries, she spent the first sixteen years of her life under the loving care of her parents. Marriage brought her into a different household, with its own customs, expectations, tastes and ways of life. Over the thirty-two years of her marriage, she became an integral part of this family, learning its traditions from her in-laws and, in time, making them her own. After losing my father, she became the strongest thread holding our family together, ensuring that it continues to thrive, that its children continue to receive an education, and that we remain guided by her steady hand, like a compass pointing us in the right direction. As she has often told me, much of what she knows today, she learned from her in-laws. For thirty-eight years, she has been part of this family, carrying its traditions forward while adding her own warmth and wisdom to its legacy. She raised two children, my sister, Sarah, and me, and today, she is the doting grandmother of our little angel, Hamza!

When I think about this journey, I realise that there is something remarkable about the way my mother learned to cook for a family whose culinary traditions were not entirely her own. She had to familiarise herself with unfamiliar ingredients, understand the nuances of our family's dishes, and learn to navigate the markets for the right cuts of meat, the freshest produce and the spices that give each preparation its distinctive character. What began as a young bride's adjustment to a new household gradually became something much more intimate: a culinary language through which she would express her love for us.

And express it she does.

Heirlooms in jars

If I were to begin anywhere, I would begin with my mother’s achaar and murabba, for some of my fondest memories of her kitchen are preserved in glass jars. Her kuchla achaar carries a history of its own, travelling from Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, India, where my Dadi came from, into our home through a recipe inherited like a family heirloom. I can still picture my mother peeling raw mangoes into thin strips, tossing them with her secret blend of spices and kalonji, and carefully arranging them in transparent glass bottles, washed and dried with the utmost precision. She would place these bottles under the summer sun for days, allowing the mangoes to soften, absorb the spices and develop that extraordinary, sharp sourness that made the achaar so irresistible. Then there was her Kashmiri achaar, with its finely sliced mangoes immersed in a sugary syrup, punctuated by red chillies. Even recalling it now makes my mouth water beyond measure. And then came her anaras murabba: pineapple pieces steeped in sugar, simmered with whole cloves and infused with delicate strands of saffron until they turned translucent and golden, glistening like little jewels in their fragrant syrup. Each jar held more than a preserve; it held the patience of her hands, the inheritance of generations and the sweetness of a home I have known all my life.

Parchas and unwritten table laws

Then there is my mother’s handi kabab, a dish whose name might lead one to imagine meat threaded onto skewers and charred over glowing coals. Hers is something altogether different. She takes thin slices of beef, which she calls parchas, marinates them in yoghurt and her chosen spices, and cooks them slowly in a handi, allowing the meat to absorb the flavours until it becomes tender and deeply savoury. It can be eaten with parathas or rice, according to one’s preference, but in our household, there is one unwritten law that no amount of personal preference can overrule: every bite must be accompanied by a piece of raw onion. The sharp, crisp pungency of the onion somehow elevates the entire experience, cutting through the richness of the meat and making the next bite all the more irresistible. Some rules in a family are never written down; they are simply inherited at the dining table.

Mint, steam and spiced rice

And then comes the crown jewel of my mother’s kitchen, her much-loved Sindhi biryani. I have eaten biryani elsewhere, but hers has never found a rival in my memory. Built around fragrant rice, chicken and potatoes, it brings together the warmth of ginger, garlic, red chilli, turmeric, tomatoes and onions fried to a deep golden brown, with the occasional sweet-tart surprise of aloo bukhara tucked between the layers. Yet the ingredient that transforms it, that gives it its unmistakable identity, is the pudina. My mother scatters fresh mint leaves through the layers of the biryani, and the moment the lid of the degh is lifted, the fragrance rises like a wave, filling the room with the freshness of mint mingled with the rich aroma of spiced rice. I can almost see the steam escaping as the lid comes off; I can almost smell that first breath of fragrance. And then there is the aloo bukhara. Every so often, in the middle of a mouthful, one finds a piece unexpectedly, its sweet and tangy flavour bursting through the spices. It is a little surprise I have always looked forward to, a pleasure so particular that I can hardly put it into words. Beside the biryani sits a bowl of cold raita, made with yoghurt, mint, coriander leaves, green chillies and generous amounts of garlic. Its coolness offers the perfect counterpoint to the warmth of the biryani, and together they create a combination that, to me, tastes like no other.

When my mother prepares her mutton rezala or her much-loved murgh roast with sada pulao, even the dining table seems to acquire a certain ceremony. There is an anticipation that begins long before the food is served, as the aromas travel from the kitchen and draw everyone closer. The murgh roast arrives with its rich, inviting colour, while the pulao offers a quiet elegance of its own, its delicate grains carrying the fragrance of the preparation without competing for attention. And then there is the rezala, with its velvety gravy and carefully balanced spices, commanding its place at the table. These are the meals around which a family gathers, conversations unfold and ordinary days become memories without anyone realising it at the time. Looking back, I wonder whether what I remember so vividly is only the taste of the food or the feeling of being home, knowing that my mother was in the kitchen, making something with her own hands that would bring us all together. Perhaps that is the secret ingredient I have spent my life trying to identify. It was never merely the spices, the ingredients or the recipes. It was my mother.

These are not dishes one approaches casually. They demand attention, appetite and, if I may say so, a certain degree of reverence. Once the food is served, conversation often gives way to the more immediate business of eating. Everyone knows what awaits them, and nobody wishes to waste time.

The alchemy of instinct

There is, of course, a great deal of skill behind what might appear to be an effortless meal. Take the mutton rezala, for instance. The ingredients may sound simple enough: tender cuts of mutton, yoghurt, ghee, poppy seeds or posto, saffron and mace, known as jaitri. Yet the magic lies not merely in the ingredients themselves but in the proportions, the sequence and the patience with which they are brought together. Too much of one spice or too little of another, and the entire character of the dish can change.

It is tempting to believe that if one follows a recipe precisely, the result will be the same. But anyone who has tried to recreate a beloved family dish knows that recipes rarely tell the whole story. They cannot explain the instinct that tells a cook when the yoghurt has blended properly, when the spices have released their fragrance or when the meat has reached that perfect tenderness. They cannot measure the experience accumulated over years, nor can they account for the little adjustments made almost unconsciously by a practised hand.

And perhaps this is where the real secret lies, not in a single ingredient, but in the knowledge that has become second nature through years of cooking for the people one loves.

I am beginning to understand that the food I grew up eating was never simply about taste. It was also about continuity. Every meal carried traces of the generations before me, of the household my mother entered as a young bride, of the traditions she learned and of the family she gradually made her own. In her kitchen, unfamiliar recipes became familiar, unfamiliar ingredients became indispensable, and the expectations of a household became part of her own way of expressing affection.

As a child, I never thought about any of this. I did not wonder how much time a meal required, how many decisions went into getting the flavours right or how often a mother must have stood in the kitchen while the rest of the household carried on with its day. I simply sat down and ate. I assumed that the food would be there, that the familiar dishes would return to the table and that the tastes I loved would always be within reach.

Growing older has made me realise how little we understand the labour of love when we are its recipients. We recognise the meal, but not always the hands that prepared it. We remember the taste, but not the patience behind it. And we seldom realise that what feels ordinary to us may, in fact, be one of the most extraordinary gifts we have been given.

The truest taste of home

Perhaps that is why restaurant food so often leaves me wanting. It may be excellent, even exquisite, but it does not carry the same history. It cannot remind me of the home in Begum Bazar, of the people who once gathered around our table or of the woman who spent years learning how to feed a family that became hers. It cannot reproduce the quiet comfort of knowing that someone has prepared a dish with you in mind, remembering precisely how you like it.

My mother’s cooking has become my measure of what food ought to be, not because every meal must be perfect, but because hers has always meant something beyond perfection. It is the taste of a life built around family, of traditions carried forward and of affection expressed without the need for grand declarations.

One day, I hope to preserve more than the recipes themselves. I want to remember the stories behind them: where she learned each dish, how she came to understand its ingredients, which preparations belonged to our family's older generations and how her own touch transformed them. I want these memories to remain with us, so that Hamza, too, may one day know something of the love that has travelled through our family and found its way to the dining table. Because, in the end, the food we remember most fondly is rarely just food. It is the people who made it, the homes in which we ate it and the moments we did not know we would one day miss.

And when I think of my mother, I think of all the meals she has prepared for us, all the flavours she has perfected over the years and all the love she has placed before us without ever asking for it to be acknowledged. I think of her standing in the kitchen, tending to a pot, adjusting the spices and waiting patiently for the food to reach its fullest flavour. I think of the table being laid, the dishes arriving one after another and the familiar comfort of everyone gathering to eat.

And I realise that perhaps the greatest inheritance a mother leaves her children is not a recipe written down on paper, nor even the taste of a dish that no restaurant can reproduce. It is the feeling of being home. For me, that feeling will always taste a little like my mother's achaars, murabba, Sindhi biryani, mutton rezala, her murgh roast and sada pulao, and the immeasurable love of Rahat Hussaini.

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Syed Faizanul Hussaini spends his weekdays navigating the world of HR and talent acquisition and his spare time wandering through the lanes of history, heritage and Urdu literature.

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