PROFESSION ECONOMIST
HOBBY COOKING
FOR ECONOMISTS, says Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, mealtimes are teaching times. “Mealtimes are less about drama and more a metaphor for the slow and repetitive process through which families shape the preferences of their children, including (but not limited to) the preference for food,” writes Banerjee in his latest book, Chhaunk. He, for example, traces his love for bitter dishes―brinjal with neem leaves, crispy fried bitter gourd rings dusted with dry mango powder and the Bengali vegetable stew of shukto―to the childhood routine of starting every meal with them, combined with occasional talk of how this was uniquely Bengali or of the benefits of bitter food for stimulating the liver.
Childhood preferences, says Banerjee, are heavily influenced by parental opinions. So he grew up hating vanilla ice-cream because, after having worked in a Walls factory in London in his student days with its excess of synthetic vanilla, his father developed an aversion to it and passed it on to his son. It was only on a trip to Italy, when Banerjee tried affogato―a version of cold coffee with ice-cream―that he became an ice-cream convert.
“I think of a meal like an economist thinks about most things: how does one get to a specific objective (impressing/indulging/comforting/nourishing a particular person or group of people) with minimum time and hard work?” writes Banerjee in Chhaunk. The book uses food to talk about economics, human behaviour, culture and society. After all, it takes an economist to marinate these ideas and draw connections between mangoes and table manners; dinner conversations and affirmative action; and savings and shami kebab.
Banerjee spoke with THE WEEK about life, love, laughter and everything in between. He spoke about his childhood love for flying kites and playing cricket and marbles with the slum kids who lived near his home in Kolkata (he says he played badly, but with enthusiasm). In fact, it is observing them that shaped his view of poverty and later, inspired his passion for economics. He spoke about his affinity for India, especially the casualness with which people just come over to say hi or invite you for meals. “I like the energy of it, that sense of arbitrary happenstance,” he said. He spoke about his passion for experimentation and trying new things, referring to his documentaries and graphic novels. “I like the nervousness,” he said. “It’s less exciting to do things for which you have had a lot of practice.”
He also spoke about his love for food and cooking. He learnt cooking by being his mother’s sous chef when he was young, “peeling carrots and popping peas” while watching her cook. By the time he was 15, he was quite into it. “My mother (also an economist) went to university in England, so she knew how to prepare international delicacies like pork chops,” he said. “What our cook prepared was perfectly fine, but a little repetitive. Then there was what my mother would make, which was delicious―cakes, pastries and roast chicken. The dish I most associate with her is stuffed roast crab, where you take the flesh out of the crab, mix it with ginger, chilli and bread crumbs, stuff it back and bake. It was something that she made often which I loved.”
His earliest food memory is his father taking them to Eros, a Chinese restaurant in Kolkata which has since closed, with the owners moving to Canada. “I was six and I thought the chilli chicken and other Chinese dishes were amazing,” he said.
He now makes Chinese food at home. Not that his culinary experiments have always been successful. He recalled how he once decided to make Bengali fish curry for a few guests he had invited for dinner in the US. “I didn’t realise that the soft fish available in the US is much more fragile than what we cook in India,” he said. “I made this nice mustard and tomato sauce, picked up the fish and it disintegrated. It was a total disaster. We ended up having eggs with that sauce.”
He’s now trying to impart to his children―Noemie, 11, and Milan, 10―the cooking skills his mother taught him. It has not been easy though. They are still very American, preferring chicken nuggets, pasta, burgers and pizza, “suspicious of the unfamiliar, especially if it involves vegetables”. Still, they are what brings him the greatest joy. “It is extraordinarily easy to be happy when you are around them,” he said with a laugh. “They are delightful, funny, affectionate, and a bit wild and off on their own tangents.” He recalled how he took them to a restaurant recently, and found it hilarious how they were trying to decode the mechanics of running it. Two mini economists in the making?