When Ravi Shemesh’s uncle died recently, the family cooked pappu charu.
It is a sour lentil broth, made frequently in nearly every household in coastal Andhra Pradesh.
The Shemesh family made it in a large pot on the fire in the yard, on a mud and brick stove, wood underneath. It was served to all the relatives after the funeral.
There was another kitchen in the house, indoors, with fitted cupboards and a granite worktop and a gas hob, and that was where Ravi’s mother rolls and griddles the chapatis. But the big pots go outside, on the fire.
Which is why, when they cook meat, the neighbours catch the smell. They' are usually given a little.
The house is in Yerajerla, a village near Ongole in Prakasam district, where ten Jewish families live. It was Ravi’s father’s place. And it’s a community. A very small one, but a community nevertheless.
Ravi’s mother is Sippora but at home she is called Chittemma. She was born up the coast in Kotha Reddy Palem, in the house of her grandfather Yacob Yacobi. She married into this village.
The recipes she cooks are not her creations. They were taught to her by her husband’s mother, Lakshmi, who died in 1998 at 92, which places her birth around...