So, without getting into Vandana Shiva-esque paeans to forgotten indigenous grains and varieties of rice and the like, what are the sorts of things we have developed this collective culinary amnesia for? Why were alu toasties, trifle pudding and sweet buns (with the luridly coloured fruit peels) all pushed off centre stage and made to melt into the shadows?
Some foods that are now forgotten got there the old fashioned way – they were all homemade treats that simply became obsolete. With packaged and processed foods like biscuits, cakes and savoury snacks easily accessible at even the lowest price points – it's hard to think of a reason why meetha chawal (rice sweetened with sugar or gur) or rainbow sandwiches layered with tomato ketchup and green chutney, or pineapple, grape and cheese sticks would be considered a wise investment of time and taste. Also, as the interest in eating, cooking, sourcing and discussing food reaches epidemic proportions, things that aren't terribly photogenic are not likely to come back into favour any time soon. Since it's hard to glam up a cheeni paratha or a choora (a roti with ghee, crushed hot and sprinkled with sugar), it's never going to be trending hashtagged kidstreat.
The 70s and 80s presented a standard set of ingredients for cooking non-Indian ("you can call me conti") food at home. Since mince, potatoes and vegetables were freely available and making mayonnaise required little more than a recipe and elbow grease; the holy trinity of the Indian continental table was born – shepherd's pie, cutlets and Russian salad. There were other favourites that used ingredients easily found in Indian kitchens and massaged slightly to appeal to the palate – meat loaf, fish pie and devilled chicken amongst them. The home cook relied on ingenuity and technique (including some nifty vegetable surgery) to prepare dishes slightly different from these. A typical example of same same but different was the Bird of Paradise salad – essentially a Russian salad with the addition of a bird neck in the form of a carved carrot emerging from one end and some coriander sprigs as a birds tail emerging from the nether one.
However, India's signal contribution to world cuisine was none of the above – it was the artist formally known as "The Bake". It consisted of a variety of vegetables, parboiled, drenched in becahmel sauce, buried under an avalanche of cheese and – you guessed it – baked. In restaurants this same dish was more grandly presented as vegetable au gratin – but in homes across the length of this country, it was and will always be known simply as "The Bake". In fact so popular was this to become, that it began to be served (possibly as a symbol of the sophistication and world weariness of the host), even with Indian food. So it wasn't at all unusual to have a meal that featured matar paneer, chicken curry, alu gobi, dal fry and "the Bake".