The marzipan you bite into this Christmas may have come from the kitchen of an 80-year-old who works feverishly to finish her orders on time. Or from the one who has a Julia Child-like story of being clueless about cooking years ago.
Heard about that sense of anticipation before a tête-à-tête with someone interesting, to discuss, say, Christmas? As I rang Sheila Ambosta’s doorbell, I had none of that. Instead, I knew I would be turned away the moment I introduced myself.
And I was.
“A chat about Christmas cooking? But I told you I don’t want to advertise! You came all the way to coax me?” She scowled. I bit my lip. Ambosta is well above 80 and I felt I should not be pushy. So what if I was speaking to one of the oldest ladies in Bandra who churns out Christmas goodies so enviable that Bandra-ites had warned me not to miss the living legend? But visions of marzipan in her kitchen and the heady aroma of what I could bet was walnut mixed with dates (date rolls?) dissipated whatever remaining moral compunctions I had. Leave I must.
Yet, I sheepishly mumbled something I now think was a feeble attempt which must not be revealed here under any circumstance.It made Ambosta blink incredulously. She could not believe I was still trying. But she had left the door open. And, as if on cue, I grabbed my chance and asked her about the menu this Christmas. She had almost forgotten that she had asked me to leave. “Milk cream, marzipan, date rolls, pudding, date and walnut cakes, kulkuls…the usual traditional fare.”
Ambosta specialises in sweets, but doesn’t make stuffed roast chicken or turkey anymore — the lucky ones to have tasted them were those who used to attend the midnight feast at Mount Mary church decades ago when Ambosta would cook for large gatherings.
She points to a row of Christmas sweets in boxes on her dining table. “I’ve been selling Christmas sweets for 55 years but the only change you will find is that I accept fewer orders now,” she says with pride as she ambles to her kitchen to bake the next batch of date rolls. Here, Ambosta is not the 80-year-old who has difficulty hearing — she is a virtuoso whose marzipans melt in your mouth and date rolls make your eyes swim.
Ambosta smiles when I tell her this. “It isn’t me, really,” she says. “It’s this 50-year-old oven, those moulds my late husband got me from the US and an eye for quality,” she explains, brushing her date rolls with egg and butter, for a little extra sheen. “I don’t have any hush-hush places where I order my ‘secret’ ingredients from — they all come from local shops I trust.”
Unlike her younger days, Ambosta does not spend her Christmas amidst guests who make her dizzy with compliments, or with her now bed-ridden neighbour who sat in the kitchen as she kneaded the marzipan dough, but she has no complaints. “I spend a quiet Christmas with my son now, and order the food.” After treating Bandra to her goodies, of course.
Cynthia Aguira’s photo album has some of the creamiest cakes you have ever seen —complete with the old-world touch of iced chariots. So it’s a surprise to learn how pessimistic she once was about her skills.
“In the late 1960s, when my husband suggested I take up baking and selling, I was sure my first buyer would return irate and throw the cake in my face.”
Instead, Aguira was flooded with offers soon after her cake was sent to the Sea Rock hotel for a wedding. That was the first of many. “All my six children spent their childhoods licking the icing off the nozzles and peering over my shoulder to pick their favourite marzipan shapes. You see this chariot on the cake? It’s not plastic — it is real intricate icing. I didn’t learn icing until the 1980s, because my son used to take care of it all. After he got married, it struck me that my cakes would have no icing if I didn’t sit down and learn to carve,” smiles Aguira.
Apart from the traditional Christmas sweets, Aguira specialises in fugias (an East Indian delicacy made of flour and eggs), karanjias ( deep-fried flour dumplings stuffed with coconut), tartlets, fruity mince pies, pork vindaloo and stuffed chicken. Try Aguira’s milk cream and karanjias and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find the sugar’s just enough, making them taste lighter than usual. Aguira says this is because many of her elderly clients may be diabetic. “Cutting down on sugar only means more work on a dish because you have to work harder to get the right consistency. My sweets may be a wee bit more expensive but that doesn’t deter my regular clientele,” says Aguira.
And this is why: A few years ago, Aguira’s daughter-in-law made the marzipan which was then sold to Aguira’s clients. On Christmas, a client knocked at Aguira’s door, wanting to know where the marzipan had come from. “His 9-year-old daughter refused to touch the marzipan after the first bite because ‘it wasn’t Aguira Aunty’s’. I had to tell him I did not make it, but I still consider that as my best compliment,” says a gleeful Aguira.
Before I met Ann Dias, all I knew about her was that she’d been making Christmas goodies since the 1980s and that she’s quite shy of pricing them too high.
What I didn’t know is that she doesn’t just cook for the neighbourhood during Christmas, but for almost the entire city.
That’s now. But, for the first 9 years of her marriage, she could hardly cook what was considered ‘fit’ by her in-laws and she had never heard of marzipans, date rolls and guava cheese.
Ann Dias is Dadar’s Julia Child.
“When I first started cooking, I had no idea I would be able to cook single-handedly for so many offices in the city, teach at cooking classes and take orders months in advance for Christmas,” says Dias, who frequently gets up at 2am these days and tip-toes into one of her three kitchens.
If you want to try some sorpotel, chicken xacuti, caffreal and cocoa rocks and chanechi dosh — Dias is the lady to call up because few can match her quality. “You can save a few pennies by using margarine instead of butter, but don’t complain if your client never comes back,” she smiles.
Sheila Ambosta lives at the first floor of Little Flower, Linking road, Bandra (W). Contact Cynthia Aguira at 26452342 and Ann Dias at 24227464.
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