Lavanya Narayanan’s culinary heart is deeply rooted in both Indianapolis and India. Her family found a unique community of immigrants and ties to their shared Tamil culture in the Midwest: sharing music, holidays, and (of course) food. In this episode, Lavanya and her mother Bhooma share the origin story of a baked cabbage dish that brought with it a chosen family.
Lavanya Narayanan’s culinary heart is deeply rooted in both Indianapolis and India. Her family found a unique community of immigrants and ties to their shared Tamil culture in the Midwest: sharing music, holidays, and (of course) food. In this episode, Lavanya and her mother Bhooma share the origin story of a baked cabbage dish that brought with it a chosen family.
If you’re hungry for more of this story, you can read Lavanya Narayanan’s original essay “The 'Cabbage Bake' That Brought Together a Community of Immigrants,” published by Food52.
My Family Recipe is created by the Food52 Podcast Network and Heritage Radio Network, inspired by the eponymous Food52 column.
My Family Recipe: Building Community, A Cabbage Bake at a Time with Lavanya Narayanan
LAVANYA NARAYANAN: Speaking to Amma, I realize that each relationship has been built on intricate threads: instances, if you will, of young adults with young children learning how to navigate their own American Dream with the help of those equally lost. What I really didn't know is that Amma built her relationship with Nandini Aunty, a beloved family friend and one of my many mothers in the community, on a single cabbage dish.
ARATI MENON, HOST: Presented by Food52 and Heritage Radio Network. You're listening to My Family Recipe. I'm your host Arati Menon. I'm also the lead editor of the original series on Food52. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode. Welcome, if this is your first time with us and a big welcome back to all of you that are returning to join us as we explore some much loved heirloom recipes and the delicious stories behind them. Today, I am welcoming writer and lover of food, Lavanya Narayanan. Her work has been published in BuzzFeed and Food52 and elsewhere. Her culinary heart is deeply rooted in both America's Midwest and southern India. In 2019, Lavanya wrote an essay for My Family Recipe called "The Cabbage Bake That Brought Together a Community of Immigrants." She shares the story of her family's relocation to Indianapolis and how it reshaped their community and culinary traditions. Welcome, Lavanya.
NARAYANAN: Thank you so much for having me.
MENON: It's lovely to have you here. So, Lavanya, you describe yourself in the essay as “the good child,” because you listen to all the stories that your elders told and upheld both family and cultural traditions. And while that did afford you some extra favor, you write that it was often that this meant more responsibility lay on you. Tell us a little bit about your childhood and how this place in your household shaped you.
NARAYANAN: Sure. Probably a lot of, you know, immigrant children growing up in America can relate, my household was kind of the perfect storm of the upbringing of two cultures. We were, as we like to say, a family that kind of had its roots torn from Chennai, india, where we are from, kind of traveled throughout the globe, as my father, who is a computer programmer, went towards Europe and towards the west coast of America and finally settled in Midwestern America in Indianapolis, Indiana, where at the time there was kind of a hodgepodge of an Indian community and, I think what resulted was, what we like to say, a piece of Chennai, more accurately, a piece of Kodambakkam, where we're from, ah, placed smack dab in the middle of white suburban America, and our upbringing really reflected that. I call myself the good child, but with all due respect to my sister, she was equally good in her own way. We both, grew up very much in, in the sense of dualism, you know? Yes, we went to school, we went to a local school, we spoke English, we had large lavish birthday parties when we could or just intimate gatherings. We dressed up for Halloween. But when we were home, we were caught up in a flurry of, you know, Kumon classes and paatu, or singing classes. My sister is a Bharatanatyam dancer or, dances traditional South Indian classical dance. And, you know, we grew up on a very robust diet of what we call sappadu, or a South Indian spread of rice and vegetables. You know, dosas and idlis were really our mainstay, balanced with a healthy, healthy dose of toaster strudel in the morning and cereals for breakfast. And so this is what I call kind of, in some ways, the best of both worlds. But I would say we even ended up where, I was really blessed to have my grandmother basically bringing us up as much as my mother did, and she's my mom's mom. And so we also grew up speaking fluent Tamil, you know, visiting India every, once to every four or five years and being very close with our extended family, which I think gives you a very intimate appreciation of an immersion in your own culture beyond just being forced, maybe by your parents, to, to adapt certain traits or characteristics. So this was really, this was really the upbringing and the growth, and I think it gives you such a unique identity, especially in the 90s to early 2000s, when there wasn't much known about Indian culture and especially Indian food, I think still existed in the realm of non and unidentifiable sabzis and -
MENON: Butter chicken.
NARAYANAN: Yes, the standard orange gravy, that's
MENON: ubiquitous orange curry,
NARAYANAN: the ubiquitous orange curry. And it's important to note that we are strict vegetarians to the extent that we even did not growing up eating a lot of eggs, as you see with anda bhurji or anything. My father was comfortable eating eggs, having lived in different places, but my family was, and still is very, very kind of strict vegetarian and adheres to that.
MENON: Speaking of your diet at home,
NARAYANAN: Yeah.
MENON: You write about how when you moved to Indiana, you obviously found yourselves in an environment that was foreign to you and without access to many of the ingredients that were needed to make the food that you were most familiar with. You write about how your father bemoaned the fact that he couldn't find avarakkai, or broad beans, or flat beans, at the, the local grocery, or that you had to drive three hours to access a Patel brothers store. Can you take us through what that experience felt and looked like for your family?
NARAYANAN: Yeah. You know, my mom likes to tell us, especially with many immigrant families, when you first moved here too, you're not necessarily what you'd call extremely well off, where you can shop and specialty grocery stores or have the ability to really engage in that culture. And so they would have a, have a minimal grocery budget that they would go to the local Cup Foods and kind of find, you know, what they called mountain high yogurt or desi yogurt. And this was before the days of the Instant Pot, where now you can easily make yogurt at home, right, without turning on the oven and spending so much energy to bloom your yogurt, or have it ferment overnight. And during those days, these, kind of, you know, sojourns to the Patel brothers in Chicago, were almost a community activity. So when I talk about this community with, with this cabbage bake and how we all came together, a lot of that is over kind of a joint need to sustain your families. And so we would make these, kind of, you know, family trips where, where a few of us, a few of our families that were extremely close, we would pile up in our vans and plan a trip to Chicago.
MENON: Right.
NARAYANAN: And we would have our spread or all get masala dosas. I was a puri bhaji fan at the time, and
MENON: Gotta love a puri bhaji.
NARAYANAN: Gotta love a puri bhaji. Especially in a South Indian household where puris were a, were a rarity.
MENON: Yes.
NARAYANAN: You know, not made that often. And then we would, the kids would pile up again and the adults would take us and we'd head off to Patel Brothers. And whether it was your dals, you know, your lentils, or your parippu, as I mentioned, my dad's love for avarakkai, or even a pavakkai, bottle gourd. And most of these vegetables are still only available in, in those stores. They are not available in an ethnic aisle or a standard grocery store.
MENON: For sure.
NARAYANAN: And, you know, especially to get a fresh crop. So, these were things that were not looked at as inconveniences. But, I think actually built the fabric of our community to the extent that now these are experiences, maybe that no longer exist for us, you know. These are not things we need to do anymore now that we have the resources here. But these are shared experiences that really weave the threads of the community and create this infrastructure that, you know, fosters, I guess, this lifelong friendship, a really intimate, kind of, relationship we have with these people.
MENON: Thank you for painting that very vivid and visually rich picture of all of you piling into a van and heading off to invade the aisles of Patel Brothers.
NARAYANAN: Sure.
MENON: It is actually still pretty hard to find an Indian style yogurt, and I do go hunting for avarakkai and pavakkai, so some things don't change that much.
NARAYANAN: Some things don’t.
MENON: But, I know in the essay you mention that at, in the beginning you didn't really immediately find people that looked like you, thought like you, ate like you, and then suddenly there was an influx of Indian immigrants, people who shared a common country of origin, but often whose lives and culinary traditions were vastly diverse. One of those people was Nandini Aunty. Can you tell us about how Nandini Aunty came into your life?
NARAYANAN: Yeah. So many families can relate. You know, when you are of a different culture, you kind of bond over a shared religious belief, shared spiritual beliefs. You find people who are like minded or have some sort of connection. So, as we grew into the community and moved into our house, we met many different aunties. Lakshmi Aunty, who is my music teacher, as well as my, what we call Bal Vikas, or one of my Sunday school teachers, Indu Aunty and their family, was another very close family friend. We all came together through being a part of, not only music lessons, our Tamil Sangam or, you know, Tamil, kind of organization celebrating Tamil culture. We got introduced to Nandini Aunty that way, actually, I think through Indu Aunty if I’m not wrong. And, as we all got to know each other, we became one unit.
MENON: And like you said, you were sort of, despite the vast differences in culinary traditions and languages and beliefs and upbringings, you were all, sort of connected by the fact that you were all learning to navigate your own versions of the American Dream with each other.
NARAYANAN: You bond over, I think, the things you value and that's something that has happened at my age too, as I've gotten to know different people and and essentially you bond over a shared experience. When you are placed in a land of what is unfamiliar to you, you gravitate towards what you recognize. And so in our case, that was, things that bonded us over language over, you know, religious belief, spiritual belief, and I think probably built in me an appreciation for how, how much food can play a role in that and bring people together both in its similarities and differences.
MENON: So Nandini Aunty not only became an important friend for your Amma and for all of you, but also a culinary inspiration to your whole family. So for listeners that haven't read your lovely essay, can you tell us a little bit about Nandini Aunty’s special cabbage bake? It's, it's a dish that you say, you know, may not sound very exciting, but has won the hearts of many.
NARAYANAN: Sure, and I have to be very, very honest here, I actually didn't know Nandini Aunty's involvement until I wrote this piece. So, I grew up thinking, you know, during Dussehra or Navaratri, which for listeners or readers who maybe have not, are not familiar with this festival, it's, it's too much for me to go into and Indo Aunty who I mentioned is quite the scholar who can give a much better explanation. But, kind of the overarching, I guess description, is that it is a 10 day festival or nine nights. Navaratri is nine nights and, or what is called Dussehra, and it celebrates the triumph of good over evil. So there are multiple stories in religion, in Hinduism that reflect this. But we put up kind of this array of steps and arrange idols of God, working our way from more human idols at the bottom, to, to idols of God. Every day you go and you see whatever the other house, their presentation of the idols is. And you often make an offering of some sort of art form. You sing or you dance for God, and in that, in that respect the, it's a, it's a thing I would say in our culture to kind of, no one should leave a house empty-handed. So you're often offered like sindoor or kumkum and manjal or so basic kind of herbs to adorn your face with. And then you're given a fruit and some sundal or a lentil kind of dish. And this is standard of Navratri. In the U.S. it was a time for celebration. You know, how many times do we get to celebrate something for 10 days in a community? They would put up these presentations and they would accompany it with their own spread of dishes. There would always be a sundal in our house. We did something called puttu, that's one of my grandmother's specialties. And somewhere my mother started making this thing called cabbage bake. We didn't really know how it came about. You know, we never heard of this, it's not something from India as well.
MENON: One day it just appeared at the table.
NARAYANAN: It just appeared. And it's a savory, sort of, snack cake where the bulk, which is very unheard of, is cabbage. You know, starch, cabbage, some, some spices as well, cilantro, you know, chili. And it became a huge hit. And we found that kids loved it. Adults loved it. And so later on, I came to find when I was doing research for this piece and talking to my mother that, oh well, other people in the community would make this. I had just never had it anywhere else, and it was kind of standard to our menu. And so we found out that there was a version in an India Association cookbook that the association had published. And that actually Nandini Aunty had made this recipe. And speaking to my mother, Nandini Aunty comes from a little bit of an aristocratic family in India, and I think speaking to her, she said, 'Oh, they had lived up north.' My mom used to tell me, I don't take credit, I just had the recipe and then made it and it was a huge hit. And so it kind of bonded us.
MENON: And in fact, like, like you say and I quote, 'that it, this cabbage back strays quite far from the more common South Indian use of cabbage,’ which is a much simpler kind of saute within the tempering of, you know, coconut and mustard seeds and whathaveyou.
NARAYANAN: Sure. And I would actually go as far to say, as you know, a lot of people assume that in the South, everything has coconut. But as someone who comes from Chennai, we cook, we are a Iyengar Brahmin, which is a whole different discussion. But, the point of this is that coconut is very signature to Kerala and certain parts of Chennai, but even in our household, it's used, I would say -
MENON: More sparingly.
NARAYANAN: Yes, it's not as ubiquitous as it might be in a lot of my friends households who are from Kerala.
MENON: So this dish has been adapted and preserved through the generations, as you mentioned, and I gather in Nandini Aunty's family, and it was then passed down to her chosen family and neighbors and community. Can you talk a little bit about the significance of some of these ancestral recipes, especially for folks who have moved far away from their country and country of origin?
NARAYANAN: Yeah, I think and this is probably something that can really bring communities together and, and, and something that anybody who's listening to this can relate to. Every family builds an identity on a multitude of factors, on your beliefs, on your, the way you speak, on language that you share, on the people that you know. And I think the way a community is formed is when these threads kind of interlace, knowingly and unknowingly in whatever form you make connections. And so, I think the significance that ancestral recipes can have is that, somewhere it builds your identity as a family unit, right. Because you have to ask, 'OK, what is my identity? How do we typify of ourselves? How do we set ourselves apart?' Or maybe just say that this is who we are. And this is where those recipes can really come into play, where not only does it bring people together, it also, when you speak to other people, be it friends or, you know, I can speak to someone who's from a South Indian household and they will say. 'Oh, well, we have the same dish at home, but we make it this way.' I think it simply means that this is a product of what we were exposed to, our growth in a certain community and what we eventually hope to achieve. I've lived in India. I don't know if I mentioned it in the article, but after college I actually moved there for three or four years and I was living there. And it really amazed me, a lot of people would tell me, 'Oh, your household in Carmel, Indiana is much more quote unquote "Indian" or what they called Mylapore Indian. You do things the old way, whereas here we've really advanced. We eat pizzas and go to cafes and dress in Western clothing, and our kids don't really look forward to Dussehra as much. Most of them don't want to sing or, you know, they kind of are, they're more excited to go to America finally, and I can't believe you guys still do all these things and you were saying your grandmother makes these things at home. I think this is because you search for what is familiar to you and you yearn for maybe what you feel you have lost out on. And these are those things, so our identity really lives on in the form of these tried and tested family recipes that really do stand the test of time, you know?
MENON: Yeah.
NARAYANAN: Whether it's, I'm sure you can relate in your own family, and I think that's something everybody can relate to. It's why Italian Americans feel very strongly about their own cuisine and how it's maybe different than what you find in Italy or vice versa. And as I've learned about different cuisines more, it just goes to show us that each experience is so individual to the person you are talking to, which allows food to be as diverse as it is.
MENON: Well, we're going to go into a very short break, but we'll be right back to talk more with Lavanya. And welcome a very special guest to talk a little bit about this legendary cabbage bake.
BREAK
MENON: Welcome back to My Family Recipe. Our guest today, Lavinia Narayanan, has shared the simple joys of a recipe that's passed down not just through generations, but across communities. And now I am so excited to welcome her mother, her Amma, Bhooma Narayanyan to the conversation. Welcome, Bhooma.
BHOOMA NARAYANAN: Thank you. Thanks Arati and thanks Lavanya for having me on this show. This is my first ever podcast show, so thank you.
MENON: Yay! We're so happy you are joining us. So Bhooma, do you remember the first time that you had Nandini Aunty's cabbage bake, and how did you know that it was something special?
BHOOMA NARAYANAN: Yeah. So we moved here in 1993. But I think the first time I had it, maybe sometime 1996 or sometime, like normally it is during the Dussehra, right. We would meet every other Saturday or something in one, you know, somebody each, each of us, our houses. And then, obviously the, the, it is a great chance for us to meet together and eat, more than having a Tamil class. We started a group and then obviously you invite close friends to Dussehra and all that, so. Nandini, actually, she makes some, you know, like some dishes like, you know, I am comfortable with this, this is going to be my dish every year for Navaratri. Like, Nandini used to make this cabbage bake. In India, I grew up never knowing anything about baking, right? So when I moved here, and then I was very interested in, you know, using the oven and baking and all that. But then when I saw the cabbage bake, I never had anything vegetable baked like that. So I was like, maybe, is it a sweet? You know, I thought, actually only sweets are, can be baked, right? But then when I tried it, it was really good, right? So then I just, you know, very nice. I have had people, some people don't share their recipes, I don't know why, but Nandini was so kind enough when I asked her immediately, she wrote it in an index card. I still have that index card. It is like 20 years old now.
MENON: It's also interesting to me that you talk about, you know, not, not, having moved here, you are not being used to the idea of baking or, you know, working with an oven because obviously, that was not traditionally part of the culinary tradition or cooking, sort of, process in India. And I wonder if the origins of this was in, I don't know, maybe it used to be steamed. And I wonder if, you know, Nandini Aunty. You know, at some point it went from being steamed to being baked.
BHOOMA NARAYANAN: Could be, yeah, it could be. Actually see, that's another thing I wanted to tell you, right? Remember, like Mark Lavi said, it's true, South Indians don't have this way of, like, making it like this, but if you want a comparable dish to traditional South Indian, it is nothing but what we call usili, paruppu usili.
MENON: Yes.
BHOOMA NARAYANAN: So how we make that is, basically you can make a cabbage, but obviously you will have that cabbage, chop the cabbage. But then instead of adding a chickpea flour, what we will do is, we soak the chana dal and puri dal with some chili, okay, and then we grind it with less water. Then we steam it and then we just saute it and then put the cabbage to it.
MENON: So Nandini Aunty's recipe that was passed down generations becomes your own for you to adapt and have fun with and -
BHOOMA NARAYANAN: Yeah, yeah.
MENON: get creative with.
NARAYANAN: And I will say, I think I've gotten a lot of feedback and I haven't kept up with it. But a lot of people have commented both on the article and on the recipe with different questions, or can I substitute? Someone asked, 'Can you use red cabbage?' We never have. I think red cabbage is not found too much in Indian cuisine, but as my mom said, it's, it's very, it's a very forgiving dish, as most Indian dishes are. I think you can kind of mess and mix and match and worse come worse, you come up with something tasty that's your own creation, that isn't exactly what you set out to make.
MENON: Absolutely. So Bhooma, we talked a little bit about this with Lavanya. What was it like for you to relocate your family to Indianapolis and, and what was your particular impression of the food that was popular at the time in the American Midwest?
BHOOMA NARAYANAN: Yeah. Moving here was actually not, I prefered, but I never thought that we would move here permanently because we, I grew up with a lot of cousins and so for me people and the open culture is good. Indian culture is really good. But I am not regretting it here because personally, I have grown up a lot here. Because here there is a lot of independence and then you have a lot of challenges, which I learned after I came here and then I could see that I, which I would not have done it in India, in India, there is, you know, the way each family is like, OK, this is how you, your role is, your role is. But then after coming here, I even had a business. I even, I was a business woman. I started a business, flower business and all that, which I would not have even tried it in India. So this, coming here in the beginning was like, it's lot of missing the family and stuff like that. But then I have, as a personally, I have grown up a lot here. My perspective has changed. I have seen a lot of, you know, people from different culture, different division. There is a lot to learn. I got a lot more opportunities. Even trying these dishes and all, I would not have done it in India. And so that is, I am very happy about it. Not just cooking, but the other things. I actually went to college here. So those things are a great opportunity for me.
MENON: So Lavanya says in the essay that growing up, she was the good child. She, of course, specified in our conversation earlier that her sister is equally a good child, just a different sort of good. Do you have any stories about Lavanya helping you in the kitchen as you cooked?.
BHOOMA NARAYANAN: My first daughter, Livia, her sister was not into cooking before. Now she cooks a lot, but Lavanya was always, always like, she's very, very, very homely child. Everything what you ask for, she would do it. And then in the kitchen, I still remember our very first year in 1993, we moved here and then that Diwali, you know, that time they have a India association here. So I reached out to them. I said, I am new to this town and I want to be coming to this function. What can I make? And my mom always lived with me, so I, even though I don't, I didn't have that much cooking experience, my mom is there, so I am so happy. So then they said, Oh, everything is taken. You just need to make them, you know, a sweet called badusha. My mom is the best cook for the badusha at home. So, I told them I can make badusha immediately. And they said, 'Are you sure? You, because we need, do we need minimum 150 pieces and you are the only one who can make it. We don't have anybody else.' I said, 'no problem. I'll make it.' So, because I was so excited, after coming from India, leaving everybody, I felt so lonely that -
MENON: To find a community, yeah.
BHOOMA NARAYANAN: This is an opportunity to meet people. Yeah, meet people, right? When Lavanya was young, we would make this like, you know, for Diwali or something, and she was the first person to come and say, 'OK, I will do this like, you know, when you make badusha, we just roll it out and then we cut it into small discs and then for it to be fried and become softer, you need to, with the fork, you need to make holes on both the sides. So Lavanya would be that person. She would say 'I will poke it, I will poke it,' and she'll put that. And then for decorating the color of things and desiccated coconut on it, that is her job. So that, and everytime we do that and rolling chapatis. And then when she was in high school, ninth grade, I remember, every night we will cook something, I don't know, but she will start every night around 9:00. She said, 'Mom, can we bake this? Can we do this? Can we do this dish?'
NARAYANAN: People say, 'How did you get interested in food?' I didn't, I studied food later, I became a nutrition science major. I think all of it starts from what you are exposed to. You ask me, 'What's the strength of having ancestral recipes?' Well, when you have two generations in your kitchen every night home cooking a meal or home cooking food all the time. Those influences really shape you. They shaped me immediately and they shaped my sister now, where someone who did not cook that much, now lives in Germany has the Instant Pot and this and that, and is very comfortable making a South Indian spread, making pongo from scratch, making idli batter. She's really become, I think, the family cook and I've become like the storyteller. It's, our tables have turned a bit. But yeah, I, those are some great memories that I'm glad to revisit, being home now because of the pandemic.
MENON: I love these stories of little Lavanya sitting, pricking holes through a hundred and fifty badushas.
BHOOMA NARAYANAN: Oh yeah, no, she, she loves. She's very meticulous. She likes helping and she will do all that. And she's very, I know, curious and inquisitive to know.
MENON: Thank you so much for listening to My Family Recipe. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please follow the show on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your family and friends. And don’t forget to leave us a rating and review to let us know what you think of the delicious stories so far. Special thanks for this episode to Lavanya and Bhooma Narayanan. You can find links to Lavanya’s essay, including the recipe for Nandini Aunty’s cabbage bake in the show notes. My Family Recipe is produced by Dylan Heuer and Hannah Fordin. Our Julia Child Foundation Fellow is Kelly Spivey and our audio engineer for this episode is Matt Patterson. Coral Lee is Food52 Podcast Network's Producer. Our theme song is Bittoral by Aeronot. This show is a collaboration between Food 52 and Heritage Radio Network. There’s much more to read and listen to. Find even more stories at Food52.com and HeritageRadioNetwork.org
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