It started with a smell that wasn’t really there. I was chopping onions in my kitchen in Austin, preparing a half-hearted attempt at aloo methi, when I paused. Something about the oil heating up, the faint bitterness of fenugreek, stirred something. A memory—not quite clear, not quite real—of a dish I hadn’t thought of in years.
It wasn’t a family recipe. It wasn’t even a favorite food. Just something I used to eat—often, regularly—at a now-defunct Udipi restaurant tucked into a side lane in Dadar West. A simple thing: beetroot pachadi. Slightly sweet, slightly tangy, coconut-laced, magenta in a way that felt both wrong and right. It came on the side of a thali, next to sambar and poriyal, usually ignored until there was nothing else left on the banana leaf. And then one day, it was gone. The restaurant closed, I moved cities, then countries, and the beetroot pachadi exited my life without a sound.
Until, years later, standing in a quiet kitchen with no beets in sight, I suddenly missed it so much it made me sit down.
The Dishes That Slip Through Memory
We’re told that food memories are powerful. They anchor us. Define us. But they’re also fallible. We don’t remember every dish we’ve ever loved. Some just slip through the cracks. They don’t announce themselves. They don’t get Instagrammed. They don’t become “signature” anything. They’re background actors in your culinary life. You don’t know they meant something until they don’t exist anymore.
And then, when you try to remember—when your taste buds suddenly panic and start frantically piecing together scraps—you realize you never paid close attention. Was it mustard seeds in the tempering? Or jeera? Was the yogurt thick like chaas or more like curd? Was there ginger? Curry leaves? Your brain fumbles. Your mouth waters. Your heart sinks.
The Search Begins
That night I Googled like a man possessed. “Beetroot raita South Indian style.” “Pink coconut chutney recipe Kerala.” “Pachadi beetroot Tamil Nadu not Andhra.” Every search gave me something close—but not quite. The textures were wrong. The seasoning too harsh. I could almost taste what I remembered, but not quite enough to recreate it. It was like trying to hum a forgotten tune—you know the rhythm, but the notes won’t land.
I even messaged an old friend who used to eat with me at that thali place. “Do you remember that pink thing they served with the rice?” I asked. She replied, “You mean the beetroot thing?” I wanted to hug her. But then she added, “I think I always skipped it.” Classic.
Why We Forget What We Love
Not everything makes the emotional highlight reel. Some foods are quiet. They don’t hit you like your grandmother’s mango pickle or that one biryani in Hyderabad that made you cry. They’re everyday foods. Gentle. Reliable. They love you in a way that’s easy to overlook—until one day you realize how much you miss being loved like that.
In South Indian meals, pachadi is often overshadowed. It’s the third cousin at the wedding. There because tradition insists, but no one really notices if it’s absent. But now, thousands of miles and nearly two decades away, I would trade half my spice rack for one spoon of that particular, peculiar beetroot pachadi—the one that only existed in that exact place, made by that exact kitchen, in that exact moment of my life.
The Elegy of Everyday Dishes
I suppose this is what nostalgia becomes with age. Less about big things and more about the quiet specifics. Not “home” in general, but the thin film of ghee on your dal. The sound of a steel tumbler being filled with rasam. The way a forgotten side dish suddenly becomes the protagonist in a memory you didn’t know you were saving.
Sometimes I think about how many foods I’ve forgotten. How many I still might forget. The sabudana khichdi from that Pune canteen with too much lemon but just the right amount of crunch. The chaat from that stall near Bandra station that never gave enough sev. The kulfi from Juhu that melted before you could finish it. Each one a minor loss I won’t recognize until I’ve already lost it.
And Then What?
I haven’t found that pachadi again. Not in restaurants. Not in cookbooks. Not even in the vast, overly enthusiastic halls of YouTube cooking videos. I’ve made approximations, sure. They’re fine. Some even good. But the original? It exists only in my memory, blurry and stubborn, like a childhood friend whose face you almost remember but can’t fully sketch.
But that’s okay. Because now I remember it. And that counts for something. That’s what food gives us—not just sustenance or flavor, but the gift of remembering. And sometimes, even the act of missing a dish is its own kind of tribute.
Next time I cook beets, I’ll temper them gently. Add coconut. A touch of yogurt. And if the moment is right, I’ll sit down with that plate, close my eyes, and taste what I almost forgot to miss.
Born in Mumbai, now stir-frying feelings in Texas. Writes about food, memory, and the messy magic in between — mostly to stay hungry, sometimes just to stay sane.
Born in Mumbai, now stir-frying feelings in Texas. Writes about food, memory, and the messy magic in between — mostly to stay hungry, sometimes just to stay sane.
