Culinary Chronicles
By Yasmin Rahul Bakshi
The Wedding That Waited for a Mountain to Move.
Monsoon landslides in the hills have always carried dread and a wicked sense of timing. Twenty-eight years ago, in this very week – one decided to RSVP to my wedding.
In those days there were no JCBs lined up like yellow dinosaurs. Clearing a road meant sledgehammers, crowbars and sheer stubbornness. When the mountain gave way, you did not argue. You waited.
A week before my wedding, State Highway 7 put on its worst show. A boulder, the size of a small house, peeled off the cliff and parked itself in the middle of the road. You could not push it over because right below sat a delicate power station. So it had to be broken manually. Stone by stone, blow by blow, while my wedding morning arrived.
Our wedding was already gossip in Mussoorie. It was a “baraat” of five people. Not fifty. Five! In a country where weddings are measured in acreage, five people barely make a queue for snacks, let alone a “baraat”. The aunties whispered, the uncles shook their heads and wondered if there was an ancient law prescribing a minimum headcount.
Tiger was adamant. No band, no surprised horse, no three hundred distant relatives debating why the mutton was cold while staring at a minimally dressed up bride. He wanted something fiercely private, deliberately small and honest with only immediate family. So, we chose an “Arya Samaj” ceremony. Half an hour, a few rituals and a certificate that announced we were officially stuck with each other.
Only one problem. No one knew if the groom’s side would arrive.
Tiger’s brother and his wife had left Delhi late the previous evening for Dehradun and had got a flat tyre on the dark highway. There was no news of them until they decided to spend the night in Haridwar. During that era there were no mobiles and no WhatsApp and no live location to track them. There was only silence and that silence was excruciating. His parents grew pale with worry and kept looking at the road as if worry alone could bring them back.
Back in Mussoorie I was not calm. I was a walking thunderstorm of whats and ifs. What if the road never opened? What if Tiger was stuck on the other side? What if we had to postpone for geology? And what if the town was right and a five person wedding was doomed from the start?
Tiger, meanwhile, was infuriatingly serene, sipping his tea. He announced that road or no road, with brother or without brother, he would put on his shoes and walk the whole distance to reach me. It sounded like a Bollywood climax. He meant every word but a part of me wanted to believe him and part of me wanted to shake him for being so filmy.
Minutes became hours. Every scrap of news from the block became breaking news. The boulder remained unimpressed.
Then a voice at the gate. It is open. Just enough, not triumphantly, just enough.
Through that narrow gap came Tiger. Not dramatic, just calm and smiling. As if he had only stepped out for tea and not stared down a mountain to keep a promise. Behind him, the rest of the family who had finally made it through.
My favourite memory is not the vows. It is breakfast right after. The table was laid with bakery treats and, in the middle, absurdly cheerful were the lemon tarts. Little golden suns with sweet sharp filling, sitting on a table that had waited all morning for good news. That first bite tasted like relief.
The rituals happened, we were married. And then came lunch. If breakfast was suspense, lunch was the exhale. Full table, laughter, food being passed. The chatter that comes after surviving unnecessary drama.
You would think I would remember the ceremony most clearly after twenty-eight years. I remember the tart.
Every monsoon, when clouds settle over Mussoorie and the landslide news starts travelling down to Dehradun, the scent of a lemon tart takes me straight back. To that table, that waiting, that boulder and Tiger calmly drinking his tea, certain he would find a way.
Perhaps the mountain did not really move that day. Perhaps we just found a way through. But the lemon tarts stayed behind. The sweetest little witnesses to the day my wedding waited for a mountain to move.
Ingredients:
- All-purpose flour – 1½ cups
- Icing sugar – ¼ cup
- Cold unsalted butter, cubed – ½ cup (8 tbsp)
- Egg yolk – 1
- Cold water – 1–2 tbsp
- Salt – ¼ tsp
- Granulated sugar – ¾ cup
- Eggs – 3 large
- Fresh lemon juice – ½ cup
- Finely grated lemon zest – 1 tbsp
- Unsalted butter – 3 tbsp
Method:
- Make the tart shells. Mix flour, icing sugar and salt. Rub in the cold butter until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add the egg yolk and enough cold water to bring the dough together.
- Shape the dough into a disc, wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Roll the pastry to about 3 mm thick. Cut into rounds and line them in 8 small tart tins. Prick the bases with a fork and chill for 15 minutes.
- Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Bake for 12 minutes, until lightly golden. Allow the shells to cool completely.
- Make the lemon curd by whisking the eggs, granulated sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest together in a heatproof bowl until smooth.
- Place the bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, making sure the base of the bowl does not touch the water. Stir continuously until the curd thickens and coats the back of a spoon. The temperature should reach approximately 82–84°C.
- Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter, one tablespoon at a time, until smooth and glossy.
- Strain the lemon curd through a fine sieve for an exceptionally smooth filling. Allow it to cool slightly.
- Fill the completely cooled tart shells generously with the warm lemon curd.
- Refrigerate the filled tarts for at least 2–3 hours or until the lemon curd is completely set.
- Serve chilled or slightly cool.
(The tart shells must be completely cool before filling. Refrigeration allows the lemon curd to firm up and gives the finished tarts a clean, smooth cut.)
(Yasmin Rahul Bakshi is an accomplished senior consultant Chef and a food historian. A widely travelled Army wife from the Mussoorie hills with exposure to international cuisines & preserving recipes with the medium of food photography and digital content creation in the form of stories.)
