Lasting suppers

Favourite dishes of noted cooks are often easy meals cooked with simple ingredients

There’s a Hindi aphorism that has always intrigued me. It says that a halwai (sweetmeat-maker) doesn’t eat his own sweets. Why ever not, I have often asked myself. Surely, the halwai knows what works best?

It was this thought that had prompted me, several years ago, to ask a few chefs what they liked to cook and eat at home. I was surprised by their answers. Most stressed that they liked nothing more than a simple spread of rice, dal and papad.

This came back to me when I was reading Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal last week. He writes about something called the “last meal game” that he played with fellow chefs. If you were about to die, what would your last meal be, he’d ask.