Home Is Where the Pakoras Are

I treasured my mother’s pakoras, and now I make them for my daughter — you can make them too, with a recipe perfected by over 200 tests

The author and her mother. Photo provided by Aysha Imtiaz.

To many, Ami (the word for “mother” in Urdu) must seem out of place, waiting in her shalwar kameez and colorful khussas at the UCDavis bus stop. But all I notice is the way her eyes light up when she sees me. Walking home together, I tell her about my day. As we climb upstairs, the familiar scent engulfs me. I know this is what the home of my mother and my mother’s mother smells like: a combination of crispiness, earthy flavors, and deep turmeric, of crackling oil and sputtering coriander seeds.

Of love.

Of comfort.

Of pakoras.

I went to 17 different schools on three continents growing up. The novelty of always being the new kid wore off quickly. But Ami was my anchor, tethering me across the ocean to her homeland, refusing to speak to me in any language but her mother tongue.

She would cook intuitively, without measurements or cookbooks, and asking her for a recipe was, and still is, a maddening, ambiguous disaster. A handful of this, a hint of that, “just enough’ water, a ‘sensible amount’ of ginger and garlic. She was never afraid to make a…