J’s begun to love his omelettes.
Today, I made him one with curry leaves and a bit of ginger. It’s the same way my mum made omelettes at home. It’s the same way my shrimp-like grandmother made us omelettes during summer holidays in Kerala.
J dislikes the sulphur smell of eggs. So I muffle it with milk, grated Parmesan and a finely chopped Spanish onion. The red chillies, cracked black pepper and sea salt I add to distract him.
We don’t have mushrooms today much to J’s disappointment. “You can’t have an omelette without mushrooms,” he’s sulking, looking around for something to nibble on. He usually steals mushrooms as I am slicing them up for his omelettes and eats them raw.
I remember eating sliced raw mushrooms in my hurriedly assembled lunch sandwiches at the coffee shop where I met J. I remember how they faintly smelled like soil after the first rain. And the strange texture—spongy and disintegrating on your tongue. I never fell in love with them.
For J’s omelettes, I first toss the chopped mushrooms in hot butter before pouring the egg mixture over them. I am careful to spread them out evenly on my big frying pan. I imagine I’m laying mines in a field. I imagine there will be an explosion of taste and delight when J finds them hidden in his forkful of omelette.
I have asked J to find the biggest fry pan we have and put it on the wok burner. Today, we are using canola spray instead of the usual stick of butter we rub on the hot pan. J even chops up half a Spanish onion and three red chillies from the garden while I grate the cheese and break four eggs into the big white porcelain bowl. J’s favourite breakfast bowl. Its size and sturdiness, even whiteness, are assuring. It reminds me of my marriage: Chaste, steady, domestic, mundane, indispensable... Also breakable if dropped. The bowl doesn’t dodder when I crack eggs on its rim. I marvel at how easily it contains the eggs, the chillies, the curry leaves, the ginger, the chopped onion, grated cheese, the salt and pepper, the splash of milk and lets nothing spill as I mix it all violently with a fork.
“I suppose I’m cleaning up,” J mumbles. With his hand, he sweeps the onion peels and egg shells onto a plate. He rinses the knife and the chopping board, puts away the grater and gets me some pineapple juice. You need juice or wine to sip when you are cooking. It takes the edge off everything.
The pan’s hot now. J watches me slowly pour the egg mixture into the pan. It sizzles and runs away from the middle of the pan and collects on the sides, setting quickly. As I continue to pour, I have one of those moments—in anticipation of an accident. What would happen if I dropped the bowl just now? The heavy bowl would land on its side in the egg mixture. There would be splatters on the lime green splashback. Even perhaps a broken cereal bowl. And the rest of the evening would be spent in the quiet glower of the mother-in-law’s wrath, smelling slightly of raw eggs.
“Not a good idea to have the flame turned up so high, maybe,” says J and he turns it right down.
“Yeah, maybe not,” I’m thinking and automatically hand him the bowl and fork to rinse out. I find my flattest plastic spatula and spread out the pockets of onions and chillies distributing them evenly. Already, I can smell the curry leaves.
“Can you smell the curry leaves, honey?”
“Not really,” J says peering into the pan as if expecting the smell to materialise. In a green robe perhaps.
“Is that because you don’t recognize the smell or because you can’t smell it yet?” I’m not being condescending; I’m curious.
I notice the edges of the omelette are lacy and are beginning to brown. This is when my mother would flip her omelettes. By this stage, the omelette swells up and there are large pockets of trapped steam. The bulging bits brown quicker than the rest and after one flip, the omelette is usually ready to slide onto a plate. J thinks only the pros can flip an omelette without breaking it. I show him how to fold an omelette and minimise grief. If it’s one as huge as ours, it helps to divide it into 1/3 and 2/3 and fold each portion separately.
“Aw, you’re cheating! You have to flip it!”
My mum still raves about the omelettes served on Air India for breakfast. They were folded and unbelievably soft and European. I remember peeling back my breakfast foil tray and seeing the fluffy omelette emerging from the haze of steam. I can see it now, yellow and cream to perfection, basking in the 6:30 am golden sunlight streaming in through the windows 30,000 feet above sealevel. It looked as though it had been through generous quantities of sizzling butter; the edges were very delicately crisp and the beginning of brown. I jabbed it with my plastic fork and to my horror, it oozed egg! Egg ran out and gathered in the corner of my foil tray. Nestled inside were careful bits of chopped tomatoes. Five per passenger, I’m guessing. It didn’t help that I had to tear open my little sachets of pepper and salt and scatter it over my now deflated omelette. I never told my mum about it though.
“Omelette must be Indian for meditation!” J’s smiling drawing me out of my reverie. The smell of curry leaves is loud and clear now and I invite him to smell it. “Hmm…” is all he says.
I remember how as a child, when spending summer with my old grandmother, I’d pick out all the curry leaves in my omelette before I ate it. The cousins who sat eating noisily around the thin, long wooden table, never understood my behaviour. City snob, they’d snicker in Malayalam. I never understood why they thought omelettes such a delicacy, either. Especially when we had to eat them every night.
After a long day of roaming the paddy fields barefoot, fishing in the streams and swimming in the river, we’d return home when the shadows began to lengthen. My grandmother, concerned about the preferences of her grandchildren from the city, would rush to her stash of brown rice in the storeroom and carefully push her fingers into the sack. Each morning, she collected the eggs from the chicken coop and stored them in the rice. She’d fish out four small brown eggs, smooth and round as the rocks we found in the riverbed. She’d stoke the embers and throw in another piece of wood. Once she had the fire started, she’d put on her flat earthen pot, the one in which she cooked most of her meals. Meanwhile, shallots, green chillies, and a bit of old ginger were chopped, a fresh piece of coconut was grated, and a stem of curry leaves ripped and tossed into the old, dented aluminium bowl the eggs had been broken into. Some precious black pepper and ground rock salt from the big pickle jar in the darkest corner of the kitchen was dropped in finally. She always added a pinch of turmeric to ward of any evil eye and salmonella. Coconut oil was heated, some of the egg mixture poured in. Those were the tastiest omelettes I’ve ever eaten. Crisp and flavoursome. The pungency of the shallots and greenchillies, tempered by the softness of the fresh coconut and scented with curry leaves. And the hot coconut oil that dripped off the omelette and seeped into the brown rice …
“Do we need toast?” J wants to know.
I’m pushing down the omelette to let the steam cook it through, especially J’s piece. The pieces are now nicely brown on either side and might begin to burn soon. I watch for the smell. “Like burnt crab meat,” my mum would say.
“Quick, plates, baby!”
J brings the plates and I lift his piece onto the first plate. “Bigger one’s yours. And you can have some more of mine. Forks?”
We take our plates outside and eat squinting in the sunshine. J’s carefully picking out the curry leaves.
“We’re not meant to eat, these are we?” he’s asking over the drone of dragonflies. The grass is beginning to grow and a hot breeze is stirring. It feels like childhood.
-- Aparna Jacob
