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Food

My Mother’s Recipes Don’t Exist On Paper

Tracing the taste of home through what was never written.

| Manasvi Pote
My Mother’s Recipes

Before I knew how to cook, I knew how to watch. I knew the sound of mustard seeds popping in hot oil before I knew their name. I knew that when my mother reached for a certain steel dabba from the spice box, it meant the dish would be spicy. And I knew that when she started patting jowar dough between her palms, we were going to eat well that night. She never told me to write anything down. She never measured anything out. She just said things like “bas thoda sa”, “don’t let it stick,” and “ you’ll know when it’s done.” 

I Thought I’d Always Remember

My Mother’s Recipes
A couple of years ago, I moved to Bengaluru, and it was the first time I was away from home for so long, and the first time I realised that I didn’t actually know how to make any of the food I grew up on. I tried to cook from memory, from voice notes, and from half-written WhatsApp instructions. Nothing turned out the way hers did. Her jowarichi bhakri never cracked or tore. Mine always did. Her methi chi bhaji was soft and warm and somehow never bitter. Mine turned harsh and dry, no matter how carefully I followed instructions. She could make the whole spread—pitla, bhaakri, techa, methi in sengdanyacha koot—with one hand stirring and the other taking a call. I would stand over the stove second-guessing everything, rechecking the flame, googling whether I was using the right amount of besan.

For a while, I blamed myself. Maybe I hadn’t watched closely enough. Maybe I should have helped more. Maybe I should have recorded her. But over time, I realised that this wasn’t about effort or memory. It was about presence. My mother’s cooking was not something she taught me. It was something I absorbed by being around her. By breathing in the smells of garlic in hot oil. By watching how she scraped the sides of a bowl. By noticing how she always tasted from the edge of a spoon before serving anyone else.

I come from two kitchens. Two languages of food. My mother, after marriage, learned to cook Maharashtrian food from my father’s side of the family. That’s the food I grew up eating every day. But before that, in her mother’s home, the food was Gujarati. And on certain days, like if we visited my nani in the summer or if she came to stay with us during festivals, that food made a return.

Nani made sambhariyu—stuffed baby brinjals and tindora and potatoes with a mixture of peanuts, coconut, jaggery, and spice. She never called it Sambhariyu. She just said “aaje special banavyu che.”  There was also Khichu, soft and sticky and slightly spicy, made from rice flour and cumin and served steaming hot with a little oil. She would make a whole thali even if you told her not to fuss. It was her way of showing love. Quietly. Persistently. Plate after plate.

What strikes me now is that neither my mother nor my nani had recipes written down. They didn’t work from lists or notes or cookbooks. They worked from instinct. From taste. From watching their own mothers. And I wonder how much is lost when that chain breaks. How much knowledge disappears quietly. Not with a bang, but with a forgotten step. A missed pinch. A recipe that tasted almost right, but not quite.

There is grief in that. Not just for the people, but for the food that will disappear with them. For the dishes that will only exist in memory. For the flavours we chase but can’t recreate. I’ve tried writing some of it down. Tried to trap a moment in teaspoons and timings. But every time I do, something feels off. The food gets closer, but the magic stays just out of reach.

And maybe that’s okay. Maybe the goal isn’t to recreate it perfectly but to make something that carries it forward. Maybe the bhakri will always break a little, and the methi will always be slightly bitter. But it’s still mine. Made with the same intent. Made in memory.

Now, when I cook, I try to channel what I remember of their hands. I try to trust my senses. I don’t worry if the recipe isn’t perfect. I know they didn’t either. I know my mother was just figuring it out as she went, even if she looked like she had it all together. That’s what women like her do. They make it look easy. They don’t ask for credit. They just feed you.

So no, my mother’s recipes don’t exist on paper. But they exist in me. And every time I stir, or fry, or taste something and know instinctively that it needs more salt, I feel her there. Not as a set of instructions. But as a feeling. A knowing. A rhythm passed down like a song with no lyrics, just the music.

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