Being the child of an immigrant family, I grew up suspended between two worlds, never fully belonging to either. “Go back to your own country”, but the question that always lingered was: What country is that supposed to be? I was born and raised in Canada and my parents came from Bangladesh, yet both to me felt foreign. In Canada, despite speaking fluent English, and learning French, I’m still considered different. In Bangladesh, even though I looked like everyone else, something about me seemed wrong— somehow incomplete. I can’t speak my mother tongue, nor can I fully understand it, and that gap follows me everywhere to this day. 

I had a difficult time communicating with my relatives, and I would always be put down for it. Maybe my pronunciation was wrong, or I failed to catch certain phrases. It was embarrassing to talk with friends who effortlessly spoke Bangla, using words I should’ve known, but didn’t. However, My Nanu (grandmother) always made it work. She took her time, being patient with me, speaking to me in Bangla and teaching me words, whilst I responded in English, and somehow, we always managed to understand each other. 
​Whenever she came to visit us, she’d sometimes cook in her free time. Out of all the dishes she made, dal puri was always a fan favourite. It was a dish I had eaten in Bangladesh countless times, the best-tasting being those from street vendors. The chewy dough that was perfectly crisp on the outside, filled with a beautifully warm seasoned ground lentil mixture, and fried in enough oil to make a health enthusiast sick, maybe even more than that. It somehow tasted so much better with the mixture of dirt from the dusty streets, than it would served in the fanciest of restaurants. 

Coming home to the scent of fried dough wafting through the house instantly made my day. Nanu would make the dal puri beforehand from scratch: mixing the dough herself, kneading and rolling it out with the same gentle hands my cats adored. She’d cook the dal (lentils) before grinding them and adding spices, adding extra chili just for me. After she finished the prep, Abbu (father) would take over the frying. As he worked, Mamoni (mother) would nag us about the oil intake while she would cut up a salad to balance it out. Sometimes Abbu would let me try frying the puri, but I’d always run away and scream in horror when the oil would jump out at me. 

​When everything was finally ready we’d sit down as a family, sharing this meal, enjoying what even I considered the taste of home. 
Recipe
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Ingredients:
  • 1 cup masoor dal (red lentils)
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2  green cardamoms
  • 3 cloves
  • 1 inch cinnamon
  • 1 tsp whole cumin
  • 1 tsp whole coriander
  • 7-8 whole black pepper
  • 1 tsp whole fennel
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • salt (for taste)
  • oil (for frying, as required)​
Instructions:
  1. Wash the masoor dal before cooking it in a pan for 20-25 minutes, or until the water dries off. The dal should be cooked and soft by then.​
  2. Grind the dal until it becomes a coarse powder.
  3. In a bowl, mix all-purpose flour, salt, and 2 tablespoons of oil. Knead the dough with water covered hands. Rub some oil over the dough until covered. Let the dough rest for half an hour.
  4. In a pan, take green cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, black pepper, and fennel. Dry roast the spices before grinding them into a fine powder.
  5. Mix the powder with the dal mixture. Add salt and sugar.
  6. Divide the dough into small balls. Flatten the balls and fill them each with 1 tablespoon of the dal mixture. Fold the dough over so that the filling is sealed in. Then roll them out into discs about 0.5 cm in width.
  7. Fill a deep pan/pot with oil until the puries can be submerged. Fry them until golden brown.