Momma Makes

India has a lot of Sindhi pockets spread across the length and breadth of the country, of which perhaps the most established colonies is the one in Ulhasnagar, Mumbai. If one thing, the Sindhi community is known for, is its food & culture. But sadly enough, being here for over four generations the youth has now slowly adapted to the native foods & cultures thereby forgetting age old habits & family recipes I’ve had the good fortune of being a first-generation Sindhi, as my mom was born & grew up in Sindh moving to Ulhasnagar only after marriage. Coming from a family seeped in traditional values & culture she has always had a flair for cooking the best the Sindhi culture has to offer. One of my favourite child hood memories have been those of my granny visiting during mango season, where fresh handpicked raw mangoes would come into the house and everyone would sit together grating them, followed by a detailed mixing process in large martabans (Large Earthen Pickle Jars). What would follow after that would be a host of relatives lining up to claim their share of this pickle that I later learnt is as ancient as the Sindhi community itself, specially because it would always be made using traditional spices from Sindh, which would come every time my granny visited. All through school I remember all my friends would wait patiently, for me to open my tiffin and grab bits of the achaar during the lunch break; and this continued even in college where friends would always drop in to savour mom’s cooking accompanied with a variety of traditionally made achaars. Business being in the blood of every Sindhi Child, I’ve been no less and when it came down to figuring what direction to take, all I could think of was exposing the world to our glorious culture & cuisine. The strongest of all memories being the raw mango aachar, we decided it would be best to launch with that and thus Sindh in a Jar came to form.