August 5, 2021: The burger

August 5, 2021: The burger. There is something magical about the slightly hard-crusted bun, with soft bread inside, a juicy medium-rare patty, the sliced onions, the soggy lettuce, and the two slides of tomato, with a slice of cheese and adequately smothered with sauces. I lift it, carefully remove the pickled cucumber, and the first bite into it is the closest thing to complete happiness. Followed by the fried potato doused in ketchup. This made my day. Food is connected to places. The parshe maach (parshe fish) with par-boiled rice preceded by Alu posto (potato cooked in poppy seeds) and followed by Misti doi (sweet yogurt) are markers of another place. The pandemic took these pleasures away. The fried potatoes doused in olive-oil from the street vendors of Naples. The fish and chips wrapped in the Times at Camden Town. The pastries in Vienna, and the Pad Thai in Soi 13 in Bangkok. The pandemic has robbed us of these pleasures. Thus, the bite into the burger, at a standard fast-food joint as the mist rolled into the Shenandoah Valley is a pleasure that needs to be treasured. Because the return of the numbers may rid us of that again, the galauti kebab at Aafra may be inaccessible again. There are many things that can be virtualized, but food is tough. The same dish tastes different in different places. The kosha Mangso (a dry preparation of mutton) that one can have in Calcutta can never be re-produced anywhere else. Why? I wonder? Why is the burger at Oly Pub not the same as the burger at the Village Tavern? Why is it that I cannot ever make the bangers and mash I had in a tiny village on a free day when I hopped on a train from Paddington and got off at a village station that reminded me simultaneously of Enid Blyton, P G Woodhouse and Agatha Christie? A brief walk took me to the pub, as it drizzled outside, I had my bangers and mash, and then a leisurely stroll through the meadows, by myself reflecting on what it is and what could have been. The quick bite of the chicken roll from Shiraj, right next to IA Market, where my bondhu and I would stop and catch a quick roll or go East of Eden at the Grand. Some of these places that are now inaccessible. Places which might come back again. But the news is not good. In America, cities like Chicago are putting on restrictions on people coming from other states while some countries are going offline. The octopus salad in Soros could become off limits again. Perhaps it is trivial to think of food in the midst of a pandemic, but as I sat through an administrative presentation, I was reminded that the frantic desire to return to the “normal” might not be as quick as many want it to be. The story is yet to unfold, in the meantime, the burger tasted really good, as good as the Savoy Truffle of the Beatles: “You know that what you eat you are”