Cuisine
My brand new food blog
It’s finally up! After vigorously debating the pros and cons of Paal Paayasam and Baadam Halwa, I finally posted my first recipe. Unfortunately for you sweet-lovers, it something rather spicy. Maybe I will get around to posting the recipe for Baadam Halwa some time soon. Anyway, check out the new blog here. And let me know how you like it, I mean both the blog and the recipes.
The joys of cooking
Earlier this evening, I was looking for a recipe and I stumbled on this very interesting article. The author speaks of the pleasures of cookng the old-fashioned way and vents against the western-centric, restaurant-style, efficient cooking. What can I say? I couldn’t agree more. I have been cooking since age 12 and I find that the more time and effort you put into the cooking, the better it turns out. I enjoy the task because it is both interesting and relaxing. What could be better than taking an hour off to patiently chop vegetables into exactly equal pieces, making rice with exactly the right texture, grinding freshly roasted spices and cooking the way you have always seen your mother and grandmother cook? I might sound crazy when I say this, but I really and truly enjoy the task. Half the satisfaction comes from cooking right. Eating is just an extension of the pleasure.Try as I might to recreate the dishes I cook at home with industrial vegetables from the local supermarket in Paris, or tinned vegetables that I buy for the sake of convenience, I fail every single time. My spinach sambar that turns out so delicious back home in India is an absolute disaster by my standards here. Is it the variety of spinach, the heat of the electric hot-plates, the quality of spices or my cooking style? I don’t know. I can honestly say that packets of instant rasam are no match to the rasam mum makes in a vessel made of tin over a burning coal stove. My grandmother’s sambar always turned out best on a similar coal stove in a stone vessel. I recognise that cooking that way is both time-consuming and energy-inefficient. But the taste makes up for the inconvenience.
The article discusses the pleasures of eating with the fingers. I still do when I eat at home. I enjoy feeling the food on my fingers. I would abandon the fork and the spoon any day for a hearty meal on a banana leaf. But well, that’s just me. Maybe I am an obsessed food-lover. But, reading that article has made me hungry. And it’s 1 AM. Not a good thing! So, I am going to try to sleep, all the while planning out the menu for tomorrow. I only wish there was someone other than me to eat what I cook. It is kind of boring to eat alone.
How is fish veg?
This post is about exactly what the title says. Since when did fish become a vegetarian dish? The last time I checked, fish belonged to the animal family. And unless it has changed zoological classifications overnight, there is no way in hell it can be considered a vegetarian dish. Why is it so difficult for people to comprehend that some people in this world can do perfectly well without eating fish, meat or anything that comes from killing an animal? On thursday, exhausted from the day’s classes, I walked into a café and asked for anything that did not contain meat or fish. And….voilà!! The lady at the counter, appearing to be very pleased with herself, proposed prawns, adding that it was delicious the way they made it!
Well….what can i say? I politely refused, explaining that I do not eat anything that comes from killing an animal, all the time struggling to keep the exasperation out of my voice. And she tells me, intelligently might I add, that she is not sure whether prawns can be considered animals! They are shelled creatures apparently, that do not satisfy the requirements of being an animal. The last thing I wanted to do that night, at 9 30 pm was to give her a lesson on zoology and the classification of animals. So I smiled sweetly, all the while wanting to throttle her, and said that I would settle for a good old crêpe with chocolate sauce. At least that is vegetarian. Aaaargh! People!!
South Indian Cuisine on the net….
As you probably realised by now….this post is about South Indian Cuisine on the net….or the lack of it…Yesterday, I suddenly wanted to eat kaara kuzhambu. Not the Vathal Kuzhambu my mother makes and labels kaara kuzhambu…I wanted to eat the real thing. The Authentic kaara kuzhambu with garlic. I asked my mother and she had no clue how to make it. She told me to ask a friend. Friends? Here? All my friends here are from the north of the Vindhyas. So, they had no idea just what kaara kuzhambu was, much less how to make it. So, here I was, doing what is obvious to any tech-savvy individual, googling it!
Here is where exactly my grudge against the Internet started. While you get about half a million recipes when you google Gobi Manchurian, or Paneer Butter Masala, all I got after half an hour of searching for kaara kuzhambu was one measly recipe for onion vathal kuzhambu. Anyone who has tasted the two will know what the difference is. Finally, I gave up and typed “South Indian Recipes” instead. Even there, all I got was a handful of sites with one tiny section dedicated to South Indian Recipes. And pray, what did I find there? The standard sambhar and rasam recipes that any Chennai born girl who knows to cook who is worth her salt will know how to make! Aaaaarghh!! This was frustrating. It took me a solid 45 minutes (no exaggerations there) to find a decent recipe for kaara kuzhambu. Even that was so complicated that I gave up my efforts and just made it the way I thought it was made. I am happy to say it turned out quite well.
This incident set me thinking. Does India always have to mean North India? Not that I have anything against the north, but it is rather irritating to see the same stereotypes reinforced in every aspect of life. It makes me think that the importance of a sub-culture is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the capital. I can’t help thinking this way because Tamil Nadu and Tamil culture are so conspicuously absent from the collective conscience of people outside India that one cannot help but wonder about its importance in the overall scheme of things. This indifference is not restricted to Tamil Nadu or its culture. It is the same case with Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Kerala, in the meantime, reinforces another stereotype. That of God’s Own Country. Well….granted that Kerala is a beautiful place. I do agree. But that is not the only beautiful place south of the Vindhyas. Anyone who has travelled along the western coast of Karnataka or has toured the southern districts of Madurai, Thirunelveli, and Thanjavur will agree with me. The greenery is unrivalled. The paddy fields are a striking green, or golden, depending on when you visit these places. So, why is that India is always associated with the colourful clothes of Rajasthan and the sandy Thar desert? Where are we going wrong? Is it really possible to capture the essence of India in a single picture? Or even in a set of pictures? Is it not something that must be lived, not seen?
Its cuisine is as good as anything one can find in the North. One visit to a restaurant in Paris will tell you. Variety is a bad word for these people. There is South Indian cuisine in some restaurants in the Indian quarter. Even that is so bad that my 11 year old cousin will cook better. When it comes to vegetarian cuisine, you only have a choice between Paneer Butter Masala, Gobi Manchurian, Dal Makhni and Brinjal Bharta. Well…that explains it all. In one word, there is no choice. For goodness’ sake, if I wanted Dal, I would make it. Why would I spend 20 euros on it in a restaurant?
That is it for the moment. I have to force myself to stop. Otherwise I never will. I think I am completely justified in my frustration. What say?
PS: I have tried correcting spelling mistakes in previous posts….Nita…your job to let me know if there are any other.