Working from home

Before the lockdown officially kicked in, many businesses and organisations were already acting on their better judgement by closing workplaces and considering how to keep staff safe, as well as how to transfer our work spaces to our homes. Trailing the forward thinking, the UK government focussed its entrepreneurial mind on how we would carry on our jobs, provide essential services and primarily, keep the economy ticking over, albeit in isolation. So, here we are, working from home.

For me, one plus to having work and home in the same place, apart from the obvious safety aspect, is that it has given me more control over cooking and eating routines. I can take later lunches and prep the evening meal earlier in the day or even the day before. Yet, despite the helpful time shifting, there is a sense of retrogression about lockdown. I’ve found myself reviewing times gone by, without romanticising, to a time when labour-intensive food preparations and preservations were intrinsically part of family and working life.

Home working these past few weeks also got me thinking to when I first came across working from home. I remember as a very young child, my Grandma worked as a dressmaker in our home. The days would begin and end with the humming of her sewing machine. A sound that filled the room with its undulating buzzing, controlled only by my Grandma’s slippered soles as they pressed down on the square pedal at her feet.  

As a child, I marvelled at the rainbow coloured, odd shaped cut-outs which were dropped off in the mornings in huge tied bundles of fabric, and later picked up as ready-to-wear and virtually ready-for-sale dresses. Getting the textile jigsaw pieces to fit together into a coherent wearable garment took her a lot of sewing hours. My Grandma worked hard back then, only stopping her work to prepare meals for the family. 

One dish I remember vividly that she used to make was spiced sautéed chick peas, known simply as channa in our house.  It was a quick snack she would put together using chick peas (soaked overnight) and ‘a good pinch’ of just a few spices, including jeera (cumin seeds), sautéed with chopped garlic and onions. She cooked it to texture and taste perfection, until the sweetness of the onions contrasted flawlessly with the nutty, buttery chickpea flavour. It was well-timed and a good stalling tactic for her ahead of preparing the evening meal later. Once she had bowled up the steaming channa, coated in roasted jeera, paprika and ground black pepper, she would get back to her sewing.  

Like so many new migrants in the 50s and 60s she was a home worker and, like others at that time, she was subject to a hostile social environment in Britain. Work was available but the welcome, not so great. Indeed, it’s a well documented migrant story far and wide that a community’s response to their host’s hostility and accompanying discrimination, is to seal off and conserve cultural traditions; to build a safe haven where the heart and soul of their heritage can be protected.

Looking back, that response was echoed within our family and that of family friends. Over time, each of them built part of a nexus that together made up a whole community. Food, religion, literature, music and style were all constituent parts, which when strung together kept an impregnable lifeline to the Caribbean while guarding cultural keepsakes. It ran through our home and weaved, unfettered, through the homes of family, family friends and beyond. My Grandma’s cooking was just a part of that common thread.

In her north London Victorian terrace, her two worlds converged, creating a montage of cultures and a gateway, for me, to the Caribbean spirit. As a child, I was still to visit Guyana. Yet, growing up I could feel its character and its temperament: a gentle breeze swept through its scented mango and guava trees, a warm yellow light lit it up and blue skies held it all together on a wildly changing terrain. Feeding my imagination were the pictures that hung on the walls and mantle pieces, some boasting Guyana’s sunladen landscapes, others recounting history in black and white images. In contrast to the monochrome, displayed around the house was a show of Caribbean flora growing with the flamboyance of attentively nurtured fresh and artificial flowers.

Easily though, the kitchen was the most interesting, a place of curious things where my Grandma kept some unusual looking utensils. One that springs to mind was her dhal gutni. It had a wooden handle with an eight-pointed wooden star attached at one end. When the handle was swizzled between the palms, the star magically transformed cooked lentils into a smooth dhal. No electricity required.

Accordingly, her kitchen was a gastronomic hybrid of the offerings of both the tropical and temperate. On the one hand, she did her best to get hold of beloved ingredients like cassava and karela (bitter gourd), on the other, she embraced new foods like grapes, apples and cabbages. Make no mistake, we were privy to a range of amazing Dr Who-looking fruit and vegetables which were a far cry from the school dinners we ate at lunchtimes. As for chick peas, we only ever saw them at home, in my Grandma’s channa.

Somehow though, she brought it all together under one roof: tradition, home and her work. I suspect her work probably took over more than she wanted. Back then, dressmakers around the world, were not protected by labour laws and in many households similar to ours, once children returned home from school, they helped women meet their targets.  We too used to help my Grandma finish off. Using our plastic knitting needles, we turned the sewn edges of polka-dotted collars into sharp acute angles and matching dress belts, into perfect perpendicular corners.

Dressmaking was also immensely popular work among immigrants across the Atlantic where that same protection of community and culture built up around the tenements in lower Manhattan. While New York Italians were preserving the virtue of their pastas and pizzas, their fellow-German migrants were seasonally preserving cabbage in large barrels for sauerkraut. New York’s tenements in the 1800s through to the 1960s, housed many a dressmaker and provided hundreds of migrants with jobs. Around Elizabeth Street in old Little Italy, Italian women sewed at home for the garment industry and their children helped also with finishing work at home.

In truth, working from home is no newcomer, it’s a centuries-old way of working that’s been reinstated and reinvented by the Covid-19 crisis. One of the differences though, in it’s modern interpretation, is that it’s possible to take stock and, hopefully, improve work-life balance. For me, working at home has brought back the aroma of freshly roasted jeera drifting through my day. Weaving the thread from my London upbringing into my kitchen and very much shaping the fabric of my life. As dried chick peas fall into the bowl in their loud clamour, I’m reminded of the many dishes brought into my world from my Grandma’s past, a reminder of her life’s stories told. Of the place, throughout my life, I would always hear her call home.

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Channa (sautéed chick peas)

Ingredients

200g dried channa (chick peas), soaked overnight in around 800ml cold water, or 1 can of channa, drained and rinsed under cold water
3 tablespoons sunflower or vegetable oil
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves of garlic, very finely chopped
1 red chilli, preferably a Scotch Bonnet*, finely chopped with seeds, (reduce amount or omit if you prefer less of a kick)
1/2 teaspoon ground paprika
1 teaspoon roasted jeera seeds (cumin seeds** or ground)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
salt to taste

* Scotch Bonnet pepper, a fiery and colourful Caribbean pepper with truly awesome flavour, once you get past the heat.
** If time allows, for a full cumin experience, dry roast the seeds in a small frying pan for a few minutes on a low-medium heat. Shake the pan regularly until the seeds turn a medium-dark brown and their aroma is released. Then use whole or partially crush in a mortar and pestle.

1. If using canned, drain channa into a colander and rinse under cold water.
2. If using soaked, place the channa with the soaking water in a medium sized pan. Set on a high heat and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for around 30-40 minutes until just soft to the bite. Drain the chick peas in a colander.
3. Heat up the oil in a medium sized pan. Add the onions and sauté for around 6 minutes until the onions are translucent.
4. Add the garlic and chilli and continue to sauté for 1 minute.
5. Now add the channa and continue cooking for around 10 minutes, stirring regularly, until the onions are a golden colour.
6. Add the spices and salt to taste and stir through. Cook for another minute. Taste and adjust, if necessary.
7. Serve hot or cold.

Tip: When serving add a generous squeeze of lime juice and chopped coriander.

Serves 4 as a snack/appetiser/side dish