Mrs BF Varughese’s Recipes for All Occasions returns in a redesigned edition

When I close my eyes, I am back on that hill in Kottayam, at my grandmother’s house. Though cousins, uncles and aunts constantly drifted in and out through the summer holidays I spent there, the house with its high ceiling and large windows never seemed crowded. There was always space for more.

The dining room had a massive dining table that was always laden with food: nadan dishes like erachi olathu, meen vevichathu and unniappam; Western experiments such as fish pancake, gateau mocha and shepherd’s pie; and even shrimp chopsuey and Chinese chicken.

A dish from the book
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

At the heart of it all was my grandmother, Mrs BF Varughese, clad in her signature white chatta and mundu, calm and unhurried.

Although to me she was simply my grandmother, Mrs Varughese was a formidable presence in the culinary world. Her books, originally meant for households in Kerala, travelled far beyond the State, carried by generations of Malayalis. 

The warmth with which people are welcoming the re-release of her most popular book, Recipes for All Occasions, 52 years after it was first published, is a testament to its lasting influence, even in an age of YouTube tutorials and app-delivered meals.

Mrs BF Varughese
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

When the house finally quietened, and the children and grandchildren returned to their homes, my grandmother would retreat to her pantry with her loyal assistant, Ouseph. Overlooking an orchid garden, it was adjacent to a large, fragrant storeroom lined with jars and bottles, pickles and preserves. This was her private laboratory. It was here that she measured, tested, adjusted, tried and tried again.

She was almost monastic in her discipline. 

Long before the Internet collapsed distances, my grandmother opened windows to the wider world from a kitchen in Kerala. Dishes like piroshky and moussaka found their way, improbably, onto Malayali tables. She always loved to cook, but it was my grandfather who gently spurred her on and turned that love into a serious pursuit.

Her first book originated in the late 1950s when Kerala Dhwani, a Malayalam newspaper, approached my grandmother who was in her early thirties then, to write two recipes every week for its Sunday edition. My grandfather, BF Varughese, her first editor, urged her to say yes. She did, and for two and a half decades, she never missed a single Sunday column.

A dish from the book
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Every recipe was tested at home, using locally available ingredients, and simplified to make the cooking process accessible. When she travelled, she prepared recipes in advance, enough to last until her return. Her writing had the same uncomplicated clarity as her cooking. Her popular five-minute biryani is a good example, as it offered a convenient and simplified version of a traditionally laborious dish.

After close to a decade of the Sunday column, the publishers suggested that she gather these recipes into a book. That is how Pachakarani Part 1, in Malayalam, came to be, in 1963. It went on to become an instant bestseller, and was followed by seven sequels, each featuring a fresh collection of recipes.

Responding to requests for an English edition, Pachakarani volumes 1 to 3 were compiled and translated from Malayalam to English as Recipes for All Occasions – Part 1. Volumes four to six became Recipes for All Occasions – Part 2, and volumes seven and eight were brought together as Recipes for All Occasions – Part 3.

The newly redesigned and reformatted edition with all three volumes of Recipes For All Occasions
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Special arrangement

Curious about her legacy, I went looking for people who still cook from the early books. Speaking from New York, Chef Regi Mathew, who runs Chatti in Manhattan, says the book has influenced his menus. “Recipes for All Occasions was a prized possession in our home. Over the years the book became gently worn, bearing the marks of repeated use. On my 50th birthday, my mother gifted me her copy and this was a deeply emotional moment. Passing on not just a book, but decades of memories, flavours, and family history,” he says.

Adding that he referred to the book before launching his Kappa Chaka Kandari restaurants in Chennai and Bengaluru, which pivot on Kerala home cooking, Regi says, “The book offers an invaluable snapshot of a certain time, mindset, and culinary vocabulary. Even today, I use it for reference; to understand context, technique, and intent.”

Jacob Mathan, retired Principal and Director, Food Craft Institutes, Kerala, who inherited the book from his late mother says it played a part in his decision to enroll for Catering Studies at the Institute of Hotel Management, Chennai. He says. “It used to be part of the brides’ trousseau in Kerala and many generations of young women, including my wife, started cooking with this.”

When Manju Sara Rajan, editor-in-chief of beautifulhomes.com, moved to Kottayam 12 years ago, she says she discovered the books and “fell in love with the original series”. She adds, “Mrs BFV was responsible for putting a hybrid menu on the Malayali dinner table. She was well travelled but she was also living in a time when ingredients and ideas were in short supply locally so she adapted what she tasted and liked elsewhere for the local table. I like some of her odder recipes like the sardine sandwich fry, which sounds like a pescatarian meatball… I was thinking that Mrs BFV would have made quite the influencer today. Guess she is now, with the release of this edition”

These books lived in my mother’s kitchen too, their pages softened by use, the margins annotated. They stood alongside other cook books, but carried something distinct: the voice of a woman who cooked not to impress, but to include.

A dish from the book
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

The newly launched book consolidates recipes from all her books. Photos have been added and the layout has been redesigned. Units and measures have been standardised.

The cover bears a sketch of my grandmother wearing a white chatta and mundu. She was never one for grand gestures, but with this edition her presence endures, in kitchens she never entered, in hands she never held, in people she never met.

When I think back to that house on the hill, to the pantry, to Ouseph chettan, to the endlessly replenished chocolate boxes and the table that was always full, I realise that, that the cookbook was never just a book. It was a way of saying: you are welcome here.

Recipes for All Occasions by Mrs BF Varughese is priced at ₹1,750 and is available on Amazon. The current edition is a limited print run of 1,000 copies.