Pâticheri \pəˈti + chér-ee\ n.
However you choose to regard it, a portmanteau:
1. A conjugation of the French “pâtisserie” [a bakery specializing in French pastries] with the Tamil “cheri” [from the phrase chernthu vaazhum idam: the locality where people live together];
2. An auditory allusion to Pondicherry–the cheri which is now my home, or Puducherry (pudu-cheri: new town), as this erstwhile French colony at the edge of British India now calls itself;
3. The Tamil word for grandmother, பாட்டி /Pāṭṭi, combined with cheri–the place of grandmothers’, their cooking, their tales, their old, respected, and much-loved ways.
4. A play on/with words, ingredients, recipes; a wish for good food (and good pastry) made of converging inspirations in the locality where people live together.
[Photo credit: Verne, January 2018 on the climb up to Lion Rock, Hong Kong]
I am a cultural anthropologist, college professor, mother to two boys, always cook and sometimes baker who relishes thinking about how food makes lives–from cultivation to commodification to cooking and consumption.
I am also a writer, or should I say that my profession has always wanted so many words–lectures, reports, comments and reviews, peer-reviewed publications. My professional search for words, and for the actual and sentimental infrastructure supports our lives, often brings me to food as that central experience that holds so much in its breadth. For food, too, wants words of academic and so many other kinds, from technical instruction to tales that bring food alive by association. So much of the story of how we live and function, make our relationships, raise our kids, go about our workaday lives and struggles; so much of how we suffer pain or experience happiness, even of our political economy, is told in our foodways and food practices. My hope for Pâticheri is that it become a site for such narration, a celebration of food in all its messy, difficult, gastronomical ethno.graphic richness.
But also: just a space of free play and experimentation. I make no apologies for breaking every single blogger rule out there: not posting on schedule, being unpredictable, never looking once at google analytics, changing my stories or the tenor of this blog as it pleases me. You’d think that rule-breaking would attract penalties. But in the four years since Pâticheri was born, I’ve met and interacted with more people through this blog than I ever imagined I would. Strangers have become friends. Folks I never knew have shared meals at home. Those–and the push this blog gives me to cook better, write better, relate better, photograph better–are far greater gifts than I ever could have dreamed of.
The photos on this site are all mine–and have, I’d like to think, grown with me and this blog. If you’re wanting the use of any of them, for any reason at all, please write me first: deepa[at]paticheri[dot]com
LOVE your post about Meyer lemons. I’m trying to sprout seeds and will let you know how they go. And have been looking around at your blog…wonderfully written. Looking forward to trying some of your chutney recipes if I can find all the ingredients where I live. 🙂
Susan, How nice to start my day with your kind words (and feeling glad that I opened comments on the “about” page after keeping it closed for long!). I’d love to hear about your experience with the Meyers. Mine are now about a year and half, and after some good rains and careful watering, I’m so delighted to see them winning over the pests and heat. Keeping my fingers crossed. As for chutneys, what’s lovely about them is that they can happen with whatever ingredients you do have access to. So let me know what’s there, and we’ll figure a recipe accordingly?
I was seaching how to grow meyer lemon trees n i stumbled on ur blog
Lovely write up n guess what? i m from pondicherry too
Where can i get these lemon in pondy?
Charanya, Always nice to run into a fellow Pondicherrian 🙂 I’m afraid the Meyers are not available in Pondy, and my saplings are far (far) from bearing any fruit. If you find out some other source for them though, I’d love to know! Stay in touch.
Hi Deepa,
fantastic blog on growing meyer lemon trees. Loved it. I am from Pondicherry too. been struggling to source meyers lemon sapling or seeds in Pondicherry and Bangalore. haven’t had any luck. Please let me know if you know a place where i can get one.
cheers
Ravi
I wish I had a source for you Ravi. Had I anticipated all the interest that single post of mine would generate, I might never have blogged and become a Meyer grower instead!
Love the green dosa. Also Paati being Tamil for grandmother – your title is appropriate – grandmother’s wisdom celebrated. My paati and maami made this dosa too. How I’d love to live in Puducherry and attend to my Vata troubled self.
You know I bought green dosa powder from Health Home. Yum.
please also visit and like my page – http://www.facebook.com/shiningself
Research Information Required For Zee Networks show named ‘Pickle Nation’
Hello,
Good Afternoon. We are working on the research of a show for Zee Networks called “Pickle Nation”.
Our aim is to explore unique and ancillary types of pickle from Pondicherry. We would also like to explore the French Pickles in Pondicherry ( french cucumber pickle – Cornichon or Pondicherry Pickles made in French Style. As well as, the individual/person who makes the pickle – who we can shoot, he/she can tell us about her family traditional pickle making technique etc? We would also like to know if you know any families or individuals who are a resident of Pondicherry but have their roots from the French, Dutch, Portuguese, British.
My team would be reaching Pondicherry tomorrow night and will be in Pondicherry on 28th May, just for a day. So it would be great if you could provide us with the information by tomorrow so that they can take their research forward depending on the details you help us with on 28th.
Regarding the pickle, we are focusing on the history of the pickle (Eg: why is it so famous, what are the reasons for it etc.), culture, tradition, interesting facts about it, info of a particular spice used in it or the ingredient and the medicinal values of the pickle.
I really appreciate your help.
Regards,
Kiran Mutreja,
Researcher,
09867777264,
kiranmutreja07@gmail.com
Ideas Box Entertainment Ltd.
Deepa, thank you for finding fictionhead.in and leaving a comment because that’s how I found your amazing blog. Your posts are super interesting. I am going to make myself a coffee and then sit down to devour your blog whole. Good day!
What a lovely note to receive, thank you. I hope you’ve found some reading here worthy of a quiet moment with coffee, and that blog-to-blog or otherwise, we get to stay in touch.
Hello Deepa Reddy,
Hope you are well. I messaged you on academia.edu with a request. Sorry about the awkward stalking here. I am writing here as I am not sure if you are still following that page. Sorry! Please do look up that message and reply if you can. Or email me. And you may delete this odd post after reading.
best wishes
Murali
Hi Deepa, Hope you all are doing well. Seeing the post on the Instagram after a long time.
My daughter loves cooking and I am share link with her. Thank you for the amazing healthy recipes.
Lekha
Hi Lekha! I don’t know if all my recipes qualify as “healthy” but they’re all made of good ingredients, tried and tested at home, and usually pretty easy to make. I hope your daughter enjoys them. If she makes and takes pictures, do share!
Hello Christina, I truly appreciate the courtesy of your writing as you have with thought that I could delete the comment after, and I agree completely that there’s nothing wrong with linking back to sources of inspiration, have done so myself in the past on multiple posts as you might see. But spoon images are common, almost a cliche these days, and the blogosphere is not the only source for recipes and ideas, and I have found material in old books as well while doing a few different posts–on cassatta, other orange desserts, many of which originate in the Mediterranean region. Much to my own embarrassment at the moment, I didn’t keep track of those (I’ve been accused of being a pedant with citations on posts), which is something I most certainly will be more careful of, going forward, as it’ll now take some digging to find them. I’ll put in the link you request–it’s a nice lineage to join, for sure, even if the recipe on here is also a fairly significant departure from it. I’ve no intention of displacing your recipe/post as one of a kind! Signing off with goodwill.
Very interesting; this exhibits many shared concerns. My late thaupenaar often spoke of a variety of dishes he had eaten in rural Thanjavur in the Thirties & Forties; so many of them were kerai from their backyard — his maternal grandfather & ancestors had farmed about 50 acres in Kombur village in what is now Manargudi since the early sixteenth century. He once bet a restaurateur who had married into our family that he could name a 25 dishes he had never heard of, & won. But I was born in Bombay, grew up in rural Maharashtra now live in New York, write economic, labour & political history. This site of yours is wonderful.
Your comment did very much register (hence maybe you received the ‘double post’ message?). I should have liked to have been there to witness the recitation of the list of those 25 dishes! That would’ve been quite something. Happy to know of our overlapping interests!
Commenting so I can be added to email list. I just found your writing and I cant stop reading. Thank you
HAI MAM..
What a beautiful blog I stumbled upon! Love your work.
Thank you, it’s kind of you to take the time to leave that comment!
Hi Deepa,
Vijai here from Malaysia.
Bumped into your product of genius; I must say this is a blog which revives our ancestral secret to longevity.
Keep going and nourish us with your splendid penning.
Vijai, I’m so sorry for my unpardonably late reply–it’s been a busy year. I’m absolutely delighted that you find so much worth in this little blog of mine and hope I can always live up to that high praise!
A great website for yours, I ran into today while I was looking up on ‘chinta chiguru pappu’ recipe. I was lucky to source ‘Chinta chiguru’ yesterday in New Jersey, U.S
Vamsi I’m so sorry to be replying so unconscionably late — thank you for your comment, it’s so amazing you were able to source tamarind leaves in the US — were they frozen? how did they not perish in transit? — and I hope your pappu turned out as brilliantly as my mother in law’s always does!!
Brilliant name.
Brilliant blog.
Such a comfort to a co-wordophile.
How very kind of you to take time to write with these lovely words! thank you!
awww thank you!!