Monirul Islam on the art of cooking and dining

Monirul Islam, country’s ace artist, likes to cook and treat people. “It feels sad to dine alone, and I am happy to cook and serve to any good company irrespective of their social status,” says a man who has presided over his kitchen in the last 40 years churning out “modified recipes”, to use his oft-repeated phrase for improvisation. Colors’ Mustafa Zaman talks to the modern art maestro about cooking as a parallel pursuit while he also dwells on food and sociality over lunch at his residence cum studio in Dhaka

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White rice with fried eggs – this simple dish kept the Bengali taste buds alive of some of the Bangladeshi expatriates living in Madrid way back in 1969. Painter and printmaker Monirul Islam, whose struggle to launch an international art career began when Rafiqun Nabi, his teacher at the then art institute in Dhaka, asked him whether he was interested to go to Spain.

“I always say that in a fraction of a second a man’s life can take a 180 degree turn,” says the seventy-plus artist sitting in his dining room serving garlic rice, beef curry made out of the meet preserved from the last kurbani Eid (an occasion to commemorate prophet Abraham’s sacrifice) and fried vegetable and salad.

‘Once I found myself in Spain, my Bengali friend Dr. Ali, who later joined the atomic energy commission, used to visit me in the students’ hostel to satisfy his hunger for Bengali food and culture,” Monir says harking back to the early years in Spain after he reached Madrid in 1969 on an art scholarship. Monir, whose off the cuff recipes won the hearts of many in Spain right after his migration to the city of Madrid. Guests included Senegalese and Ethiopian students in the hostel. The artist slowly got into cooking set menus, those that he himself would concoct based on the traditional ones.

A food-buff who never showed much enthusiasm for more than what he relished, Monir, the famous abstractionist in whose works all things comingle, but are used with discernment, shows similar restraint in preparing his dishes. In his kitchen the maestro straddles the line between austerity and creativity.
In Madrid, Spain, where he arrived just before war broke out at the home front in 1971, “food provided the context for socialization.”

“During weekends, I used to serve Bengali food as I felt there was no point in serving Spanish food since the people I used to have over on a regular basis would want to taste what I as a Bengali had to offer,’ he says.
“Madrid is not considered a particularly beautiful ‘woman’, to characterize it as do most Spanish. You need to spend some time and let her slowly seduce you,” Monir sheds light on his experience in the city where “all historical evidences have been preserved.”  “I was lucky enough to meet Antonio Lorenz, a local artist who was a master of table talk.” He adds.

“Symbolically, I grew up with him since the early 1970s,” Monir says. “What made him special is the way he could talk about everything and anything about this world,” recalls the maestro whose improvised biryani the Spaniard relished.

The recipe he created following his instinct, for which he acquired a certain ‘status’ among his peers, included Mughlai biryani, though, Monir says that his was a ‘creative biryani’.
“I once tried my hand on the conventional one and people who usually liked my dishes said, today your main course smells like soap,” recalls the maestro. From that point on Monir never tried to swerve from what he was best at – ‘modifying the set recipe,’ to use his own words. If the weekends were occasions to get together and savor foods in Madrid, such act of collective eating created an ambiance for conversations.

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In Bangladesh, the artist invites guests who primarily visit to have a look at the works in progress – in the vast cosmos of his studio there are half-done works into whose magic all art buffs love to plunge into.
“All stripes of people are my guests – including my friends and fellows, ministers, architects, writers and artists and more … my treatment of them remains the same. Since I believe in treating them with what I like to cook,” says Monir.

From the Spanish paya to creative biryani or garlic rice, those who are willing to mix visual pleasure with the gastronomic treats Monir so lovingly prepare, the artist’s den in Dhanmondi provides a perfect backdrop.
“Members of the diplomatic community find their excursions to my home particularly interesting. Some say that in formal dinners or lunch, there are protocols to follow and things turn out artificial and boring. On top of that, the chance of tasting Bangladeshi food also seems additionally enticing to most,” Monir sums it up in short.
As a cook who takes to cooking only for pleasure, Monir is suspicious of the impact of globalization and dreads a time when things would lead to a drastic homogenization across the world. The kitchens at the home fronts are still the most important centers for recipes.

“Food has become a form of art globally; chefs are the new stars, which is a positive development. However, in the so-called industrial world young people go to restaurants to gulp down junk foods, which lead to one of the most ubiquitous scourge we have witnessed in the modern, developed societies — obesity.”
“Food prepared at home often seems unattractive to many. I for myself love to be treated at home. After years of cooking for myself, when someone invites me over and cook for me, it feels great,” says the artist.

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“Gastronomy is a very delicate matter,” explains the printmaker and painter Monir, whose philosophy on food is something to reckon with. He looks at it from a holistic point of view. “Food is half the ingredient that we as humans always crave to fill our stomach with. The rest must come from culture — art, music, etc. They are needed to fill the rest of the stomach,” Monir puts it figuratively. He says the craving for culture is also a bodily one – we feel it at micro level, in our cells. And if the food is not supplemented with culture all kinds of violence emerge. Monir also identifies as a bane what he dubs as the “politicized food culture,” which only leads to wastage. “A lot of food is wasted in absence of proper distribution,” Monir observes. In a wasteful culture, unnecessary dishes are produced.

“You do not need to cook 12 dishes when four are enough to appease the stomachs of your guests. A dinner is meaningful with a few tasty dishes, so why produce more?” Monir argues, raising one of the most pertinent questions of our time. Superfluity is part and parcel of the spectacle society where the first casualty is health-conscious gastronomy. “I heard that 80 per cent of bottled water is contaminated here in Dhaka. So to remain health conscious is difficult here. Yet one must also be careful about what to cook and what not to cook, espacially when so many food items are so tainted here.” For him oil is like a primer for a good dish. “Oil is one of the most important ingredients in your food. I prefer Virgin olive oil to cook my food, and use raw Extra Virgin on salad,” Monir points out.

On how to improve one’s skill, he says, “You would see me disappear from a table at a restaurant after dinner. If I have liked a dish, I always prefer to consult the chef to learn the recipe and then improvise based on the received knowledge.” Discipline is another issue Monir attaches cardinal value to. “If I am working on paintings (he keeps at it on multiple canvases or papers), I remain alert of the fact that I would have to go back to the kitchen after 20-25 minutes to attend to the rice.”  “It is important to structure your day according to your additional tasks, since art is something that totally engages you,” says Monir, in whom the Mughal culture of dining with guests still lives on.