The year was 1997 and Dawn (the newspaper, not the website) was planning to publish a thick supplement to celebrate the 50th Independence Day of Pakistan, and I was commissioned to write an article for it.

My editor handed me Ardeshir Cowasjee’s phone number asking me to coordinate with him on the article. I smiled inside. I liked Ardeshir, he was cynical and buckets of fun to hang around with. I of course knew him well, thanks to the long corridors at the Dawn group's building, where one could bump into almost anyone.

I arrived at his beautiful Bath Island bungalow. There he was, eating the delicious 'dhansak'. It looked almost like haleem or dal gosht, but tasted a little different; the depth of the dish with a base of lentils and vegetables gave it a unique, distinct flavour, and served on a bed of caramelised brown rice the dish was a whole new taste of delicious. That was the first time I ate dhansak.

Food guide to India by Charmaine O Brien defines dhansak as follows:

Perhaps the best known Parsi cuisine is the meat and lentil stew called dhansak. It is never served at weddings, because it is customarily served four days after a death and has associations that are not to be invited during a wedding. Apart from this stricture, dhansak is widely enjoyed and is another unfailing inclusion on Parsi restaurant menus. Parsi cooks are also masters at incorporating extensive number of ingredients in singular dishes. A simple dhansak might contain twenty individual ingredients while a more complex one almost twice that.

My research has led me to believe that Parsi cuisine is a bit of sour (from vinegar, tomatoes and fenugreek) and sweet (white or brown sugar or jaggery). Dhansak is thought to be the best of comfort foods and is traditionally cooked for Sunday lunches. And since it is considered a heavy meal to digest, an afternoon siesta is always welcome after its flavourful consumption.