Notes: Lucy, her siblings, and their mum (mata-ji) are from Punjab in India. Also Peter and Susan are on the Dawn Treader just because I kind of forgot they weren't in the book. Vaguely modern au.
I researched how to make aloo paratha and bhatura as well as names of popular Punjabi foods but this site isn't letting me put in the links to credit them :(
To Lucy, the Dawn Treader feels more like home than home, except for one thing: the food. She eats Western food at school, of course, and at some of her friends' houses; but at home, it's Punjabi food. That's her heart food. She's been cooking with Susan and her Mata-ji since she could hold a spoon. After a week of simple dinners of breads and chicken in which bread is the only thing she can eat, Lucy goes to look at the pantry. Caspian comes with her. Lucy is surprised to discover that there are a number of familiar spices in the pantry, perhaps due to the Calormene influence on the otherwise stolidly English Narnian cuisine. Cumin and cardamom: she could just hold the little jars to her heart!
"What is your food like?" Caspian asks, after Lucy tells him what she's after.
Lucy closes her eyes and lets food memories wash over her. Eating the sugary dessert known as karma prashad at weekly worship, making bhatura with Mata-ji and wondering why Lucy could never make them as puffy and light as Mata-ji could, sneaking pieces of fresh homemade paneer still dripping with whey...where could she begin?
"It's buttery and so flavourful," she says. "You can't pick out any one spice, there are so many. The bread is all fried-bhatura puffs up like this." Lucy holds her hands out to indicate the shape and size of an American football. "You have to try a lassi. They're made with yoghurt and milk, and you can have mango flavour, or rose water, or cardamom…"
Caspian's eyes are wide as plates. "I'm sure we could try to have the cook make something for us all. I would be very interested to try your food."
Lucy turns back to look at all the ingredients at her disposal. "Su and I can do it. And you get to help."
"Deal," Caspian says (he's picking up her slang), and they shake on it. Lucy immediately sits down to make a list of ingredients she needs. She can't get yoghurt, of course, and they don't have milk. The bhatura will just have to have a little less flavour. For the main meal, she decides to look at what ingredients they have before deciding on a recipe. Chole, chickpea curry, goes the best with bhatura, but they don't have chickpeas, and chole without chickpeas is like mac without the cheese. It'll have to be something with aloo, she thinks, since they have plenty of bags of potatoes. She wishes they could have more fresh fruit and vegetables to make a more vibrant dish, though aloo parathas are also delicious. She ticks off the ingredients: small yellow potatoes, coriander, butter from their precious ceramic jar, pepper, an onion from the string on the ceiling...She's missing a few of the spices, but not as many as she expected.
The next morning, Lucy goes into the kitchen after breakfast to begin the bhatura. She kneads the dough for a while, humming one of her mother's favourite Punjabi songs. She holds up her hands, enjoying the familiar feeling of dough on her fingers and under her nails, before she covers the dough in oil and wraps it in cloth. She comes back a few hours later with Susan in tow. Caspian watches from the door frame. Susan boils potatoes while Lucy chops coriander leaves, chili, and spices. The kitchen is well-stocked with the sharpest knives Lucy has ever had the pleasure to cook with. Lucy sometimes forgets that her reign in Narnia was over a thousand years ago by their calendar, so of course their knives are better now than they were. She takes care to enjoy the knives going through the onions as easily as if the onions were as thin as their papery skins.
Caspian swipes at his eyes with one arm. "Why am I crying?"
Lucy and Susan laugh. "You've never cut onions before?" Lucy asks.
"No," Caspian says. "I've never really cooked before."
"Come try it," Susan says, taking her hands off the dough she's kneading. Caspian approaches as though the dough is an injured bird he plans to rescue that might fly away or peck him at any moment. He initially touches it too lightly, so Susan places her hands on his and presses them into the dough. He gets it eventually, kneading with gusto and sending flour all over the place.
"Come do the onions," Lucy says, wiping her own teary eyes. She hands Caspian the knife, point down, and swipes a streak of flour off his cheek. She peers into the pot to check on the potatoes while Susan rolls the paratha dough. Mashing the potatoes is always kind of fun at the beginning before it gets tiring. Lucy moves the pot of potatoes to the seat of a chair so she can have more leverage over them, short as she is, but her arms still burn. Eventually she declares the potato mixture ready for the spices. She gives it a brief stir with the spices and onion added before it's time to make the paratha. They take the potato mixture and dough out to the table so that Caspian can help them. Pleating the dough around the filling is Lucy's favourite part. It's easier than rolling out the dough-and-filling to a flat round, and prettier, too. She kind of hates squashing the little dumpling flat. She makes two before she turns to see Caspian struggling to keep the potato filling contained.
"Try using less," Susan recommends. Caspian pinches off some of his potato ball and drops it back in the pot. He starts over, smoothing the circle of dough on the table, adding the filling to the centre, picking it up and covering the filling. He doesn't make it as pretty as Lucy or Susan, but it's a serviceable ball. Susan shows him how to use the rolling pin to carefully flatten the ball into a big circle. With her help, none of the filling squishes out.
Lucy flattens hers with her fingers before going for the rolling pin. It doesn't end up quite as perfect as Mata-ji's parathas, but it's much easier to keep the potato in. She leaves Susan and Caspian to make the rest of the parathas while she fries the bhatura. There's only one rolling pin, so she pats the dough into circles with her hands. She puts butter on the stove to melt as she works. Melting butter is one of Lucy's favourite scents, behind melting butter with garlic and onion and spices. When she's finished rolling out all the ovals of dough, she fries one at a time. They look like little oval suns frying in the pan, golden as they are, with sparks of butter jumping off the pan their little solar flares. She's not done by the time Susan and Caspian come back into the kitchen carrying stacks of parathas. Lucy doesn't miss the fact that both of them have flour on their faces where there doesn't need to be flour.
The whole kitchen smells like potatoes and spices and butter and frying bread, and Lucy couldn't be happier. Once Susan has set the parathas on the counter, Lucy takes her by the hand and they dance in a little circle around the kitchen. Caspian grabs their hands and pulls them out on the deck, and they dance in a slightly larger circle, holding hands and laughing. All three of them have long hair that flows out behind them: black, black, blond.
The smell of smoke reminds Lucy that they're not done cooking, so she dashes back into the kitchen to rescue the bhatura. She finishes frying them all and calls the others into the kitchen so they can do the paratha. Lucy takes the opportunity to move out on deck and breathe in the air. From here, she can still smell the parathas cooking as well as the salt of the ocean and the Dawn Treader's freshly oiled planks. She can't stop smiling.
"Come in for dinner!" Susan calls. It attracts the attention of Edmund, who's playing chess with Reep, and Peter, who is watching. Both the boys come over, Reep jogging behind them. Ed slings an arm around Lucy's shoulders as they go in, and Lucy suddenly knows her homes have come together in an explosion of cumin and ocean water and love. Together they look like flour on cheeks, blond and black hair, frying suns in a pan. She couldn't imagine a better combination.