"But you know I’m allergic to paneer" (that was a new one). "I gag when I smell lauki". "I can’t bear the thought of the little goat kids... their mother must be waiting for them. You get the meat cut from small, young ones, no?" "No LGBT please: lauki, ghiya, baingan, tinda". The list of nays is longer than the yays. I cannot cope with daily menu-making, where the food has to be nutritious, light, balanced in taste and flavour, and, as everyone now knows thanks to the shady cloud of Doctor Google and Sunday supplements, a rainbow of colours. And low cal. And low carb. And low fat. And zero hormones, antibiotics and preservatives. Suddenly, nitrates are the stuff of dinner table onversation The whole concept is hounding me because my daughter is coming for a holiday and I want to factor in her likes and bugaboos. It all started with the pater familias’ allergy to eggs. I always knew it was entirely psychosomatic; he had a stomach ache only if he knew, or suspected, that there was egg in the food, though if it was something he liked, even an eggy tart like the Portuguese Pastel de Nata, the sweetness obliterated the egginess for him. And he could eat cake. Once, the four of us were travelling, staying at a B&B, and we bought the makings of dinner from the local Coop. When we started eating, the freshly heated tortellini started giving off vapours of such intense egginess that the rest of us pushed our plates away. But He ate, said we were imagining things, and suffered not a jot. Anyhow, I wasn’t permitted to eat a fried egg near him just in case the sight of a runny yolk set off a reaction. His kathi rolls were eggless (what’s the point?), we couldn’t bake a bread pudding ("how many eggs per portion? Is it more than in a cake?"), crumb-fried fish had to be dipped in milk rather than egg, and fritter batter was made only for three. For years I didn’t have egg fried rice when just the two of us were eating out. Now this has changed, praise be! Omelettes are enjoyed, as long as they’re thin, like chapattis, almost crêpes. But no visible yolks and no uncooked egg. There are specific likes and dislikes in every family; one can’t take chillies and the other won’t eat mutton after she had the life-changing experience of playing with some frolicking kids in a field near Hampi. I can’t eat mutton in most places other than home because sometimes there’s a particular smell which I suspect comes from lamb rather than goat. In any case, few butchers cut it well.My liking for vegetables is growing, largely because the alternative isn’t giving the enjoyment it used to. Ever since we started reading about the hormones and antibiotics fed to factory-produced chickens, we located some responsible producers who deliver it home. Their cuts are mediocre and now, after a few months, there’s an unbearable gamey smell. So that’s the end of chicken in our lives. Pork is iffy, though I’ve started buying some of the better-known branded bacon, and hopefully my faith isn’t misplaced. Mutton - goat - in India is truly lean meat and free range, so that and fish are the way to go. "But you know I’m allergic to paneer" (that was a new one). "I gag when I smell lauki". "I can’t bear the thought of the little goat kids... their mother must be waiting for them. You get the meat cut from small, young ones, no?" "No LGBT please: lauki, ghiya, baingan, tinda". The list of nays is longer than the yays. I cannot cope with daily menu-making, where the food has to be nutritious, light, balanced in taste and flavour, and, as everyone now knows thanks to the shady cloud of Doctor Google and Sunday supplements, a rainbow of colours. And low cal. And low carb. And low fat. And zero hormones, antibiotics and preservatives. Suddenly, nitrates are the stuff of dinner table onversation The whole concept is hounding me because my daughter is coming for a holiday and I want to factor in her likes and bugaboos. It all started with the pater familias’ allergy to eggs. I always kn