My Experiments With Food

Bangda fry

2009-10-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

After taking an extended sabbatical from the kitchen, I thought the perfect way to celebrate my return would be to cook one of my Mum's recipes- the spicy, tangy, crisp, meaty Bangda (Mackerel) Fry. It's a simplified version of the dish you find in Malvani restaurants.

Ingredients (for 3 whopper mackerels)

For the marinade-

Garlic- go nuts and add lots of it (I used 3 massive cloves)

Red chillies- 4 to 5

Tamarind paste- 5-7 tablespoons (make sure the paste is not runny but thick so it doesn't fall off the fish)

Jeera (cumin)

Rawa for shallow frying

Blend the garlic, chillies, tamarind paste and jeera into a paste. Make slits in the skin of the mackerel and smear the paste all over the fish. Marinade for 5-6 hours if possible.

Before shallow frying the fish roll it in fine rawa to give it a crisp coating. Serve with sliced onion and lemon.

P.S- This was the first time in my life I cleaned the fish myself (with a little help from my friends). Made eating the fish all that more satisfying!

Tripping on chai

2009-10-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

On a 3000km road trip across India (in an auto rickshaw!), Pranav Ullal celebrates the joys of drinking chai on the streets and highways of the country while finding that it is the perfect way to break the ice with the locals.

“Whatever the situation, whatever the race or creed, tea knows no segregation, no class nor pedigree. It knows no motivations, no sect or organization. It knows no one religion, nor political belief.”

From ‘Have A Cuppa Tea’ by The Kinks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3rxNCzzJpY

If there was ever an award for the world’s greatest travel beverage, it would, without a doubt, have to be given to Camellia sinensis, better known as tea, cha, chai and tcha depending on which part of the world you’re in. Whether you are pootling around the winding lanes of the English countryside, trekking in the deeper recesses of Namdapha, exploring the streets of Old Delhi or watching the rain pelt down from a cottage in the backwaters of Kerala, your journey/holiday/adventure is likely be dotted with numerous cups of steaming hot tea. But references to this hallowed brew in most travelogues are perfunctory. We drink so much of it on our travels that it has almost become a mundane custom, and unless we visit a tea plantation or book a holiday to Darjeeling, Assam or Ooty, a cup of tea doesn’t take up too much space in our diaries. Nevertheless, tea and travel go hand in hand, even if we may not realize it, or give it much importance. Having just completed a road trip across India recently, I realized that there are few places in the world where drinking a cup of tea has the allure, sense of bonhomie and joie de vivre, as on the streets and highways of India. There is no better way to mingle with the people of our land, than gate crashing a local chai stall. I covered 3000km in 10 days and drank 42 cups of chai along the way. Every time I sat myself on a bench outside a tea stall, the wonderful, lucid lyrics from The Kinks’ song ‘Have A Cuppa Tea’ came floating into my head.

I could give you a detailed account of the road trip. I could tell you that I covered the 3000km from Goa to Pokhara, Nepal, in an auto rickshaw. No really, it was a two-stroke Bajaj auto rickshaw! I could tell you that it was part of an event called the Rickshaw Run- a mad dash across India in an auto, which has been taking place annually for the last 4 years (see information). I could go on an on about the breakdowns I had (there really weren’t many), the sights I saw (the Taj Mahal, Jaipur Palace and so on…you’ve probably seen them all), the number of times I had to bribe highway policemen in U.P (twice), the number of dead animals on the highway (lost count) and the number of Tunda kebabs I had in Lucknow (None. Sadly I reached Lucknow on the day of Id and the famous Tunda Kebab was shut), but I’ve decided not to.

Instead, this being festive season, I wanted to celebrate the many cups of chai that threaded these events together, for they brought me immense joy during the trip. I thought it is about time that we travelers salute that unsung hero of the Indian highways, rajas of the Indian roads, the stalwarts of the Indian streets (wait for the drum roll)- the Great Indian chaiwallahs.

Somewhere between Ratnagiri and Mumbai- Men enjoying an evening cup.

From the local addas in the cities, to the kids on the trains, the tea stalls on the dusty highways to the hawkers on busy city roads, cheers to you for making our journeys more memorable. There is a brilliant line in ‘The Book of Tea,’ by the Japanese scholar Okakura Kakuzo, where he says- ‘Tea represents the true spirit of Eastern democracy by making all its votaries aristocrats of taste’. Nowhere can this be truer than in India.

It is in this spirit that I have included a few excerpts from my diary that documented some of the cups of tea I was privileged to drink on the trip. The route I had mapped out for the Run was via Mumbai, Surat, Ahmedabad, Udaipur, Jaipur, Agra, Lucknow and Pokhara. The autumn Rickshaw Run kicked off on 13^th September 2009 from the main promenade in Colva, Goa.

The first cup of chai I had whilst on the road, was in Mumbai after a grueling two-day ride from Goa.

September 14^th, 2009: At 8pm on a muggy, September night in Mumbai, the Bootle Bumtrinket (my mighty Bajaj 2-stroke rickshaw- I wont bore you with the etymology of the name) stuttered to a halt just outside the Bandra Reclamation bus stop. Unfortunately, the Bumtrinket had decided to revolt in the middle of a traffic jam, and refused to start. Trying to ignore the cacophonous tooting of horns behind me, I jumped out, somehow managing to push her towards the footpath. Ignoring the gaalis I received from annoyed Mumbaikars, I scoured the landscape for a mechanic. Thankfully, I spotted one on the other side of the road. To my considerable delight, I noticed a chaiwallah next to the mechanic. My heart soared, and just for a moment, I forgot about the grime, sweat, smell of petrol and the chaotic Mumbai traffic- it was time for a glass of hot cutting chai. I ordered a cup of heavenly goodness and asked the mechanic if he could fix the rickshaw by next morning. The chai was the best I’ve tasted. It was incredibly good and had a lovely kick of elaichi characteristic of cutting chai. A simple ‘mmmmm’ was enough to put a smile on Shankar’s (that was the chaiwallah’s name) face. The mechanic was able to fix by the next morning. When I to collect it, the mechanic himself invited me to have a cup of tea with him. I ended up drinking15 cups of that divine tea, after which I took some of the kids from the basti behind the tea stall for a spin in the rickshaw. Then it was off to Surat.

The best tea I’ve ever had- cutting chai at Bandra Reclamation, Mumbai.

George Orwell was one amongst many famous tea drinkers. He was so particular about his cup of tea that he concocted a list of 11 rules that need to be followed in order to brew the perfect cup. In a rather grandiose manner, he claimed that anyone who failed to follow his diktat was not ‘a true tea lover’. If Orwell had ever witnessed tea being made on the streets of Jaipur, he would have probably gone into a coma.

September 18^th: Jaipur. I stood at a busy intersection close to the Hawa Mahal, as the setting rays of the sun bounced off the ochre walls of Jaipur’s old city. It was teeming with people. All around me there were carts selling food- dhai bhalla, chola bhatura, bhel puri, kangan (a divine, jalebiesque sweet I had never eaten before). I was unable to control myself. Saliva dribbled down my chin as I stuffed my face with warm, deep-fried goodness. Then I went looking for a cup of chai. I found Pradeep Kumar, Jaipur’s finest chaiwallah I was told by his assistant. As I watched him brew a fresh pot, the assistant gave me a detailed lowdown of the economics of his tea stall. With the amount of money he makes, I was surprised Pradeep Kumar wasn’t a millionaire. The chai was oh so good. It had been a long day of riding from Udaipur and it hit the sweet spot, reviving my tired, broken body. An elephant, then a camel, ambled past us. Life was truly beautiful. I asked for another cup.

Pradeep Kumar’s tea stall, Jaipur.

More chai in the gullies of Jaipur.

After Jaipur, The Bumtrinket made good progress towards Agra, then Lucknow, and a few days later, reached the Indo-Nepal border, before crossing into Nepal close to Lumbini. Once in Nepal, lots of tea was had on the winding Himalayan roads, in the small, colorful mountain villages so typical of Nepal, and After 10 days of non-stop rickshaw riding, I finally made it to the town of Pokhara, nestled in a valley close to the magnificient Annapurna range.

September 22^nd: I had made it alive to Pokhara, Nepal. It was the end of The Rickshaw Run. The Bootle Bumtrinket has traveled exactly 3,100 kilometers, in 10 days. I had seen more of India (and Nepal) in the 10 days than I had in the last 25 years. Granted, only touched the surface in most of the places because of the tight schedule, but I was content to have seen many of India’s greatest symbols. We can go to the corners of the world in search of adventure but there can be no greater adventure than India itself.

A Nepali man contemplates his next move. Lake Phewa, Pokhara.

I was sitting by Lake Phewa on the chilly morning after completing my journey, jotting down such inane clichés, drinking a milky cup of Nepali tea. Four pint-sized children were playing table tennis on a makeshift cement table by the lake. They were playing with the skill of professionals. Meanwhile, two middle-aged Nepali men were playing an intense game of chess close by. Occasionally they paused to have a sip of tea from their glass cups. Sometimes they paused to berate the noisy kids. It was a peaceful scene. The perfect end to a grueling road trip.

Relaxing with a milky cuppa tea in Pokhara after a taxing, 10-day journey.

There is an element of simplicity to drinking chai in India. Although it was given to us by the British, and has Chinese origins, we have made it our own and stamped our unique identity on it. Historically speaking, as a custom, ‘tea drinking’ in India has never had the same elements of mystique and complexity that existed and still exists in China and Japan, or the stiff collared characteristics that the British tea rooms had- even now there are tea rooms in Britain which do a high tea that requires dressing up and spending pot loads of money. Tea in India is and always has been the drink of the common man, and there is absolutely no element of fuss involved in the process. For the weary traveller, not only is it the perfect tonic to revive sagging spirits, but also the ideal drink to break barriers, and discover new people and places. On this note, I leave you with a passage so beautiful, so apt, I want to frame it and hang it on my wall.

“The Philosophy of Tea is not mere aestheticism ... for it expresses conjointly with ethics and religion, our whole point of view about man and nature. It is hygiene, for it enforces cleanliness; it is economics, for it shows comfort in simplicity rather than in the complex and costly; it is moral geometry, inasmuch as it defines our sense of proportion to the universe.”

From ‘The Book of Tea’ by Okakura Kakuzo

The Information

The Rickshaw Run

A UK based company, called The League of Adventurists, organizes the Rickshaw Run. They have been organizing the event since 2006 and because of its popularity, it happens 3 times a year. The Adventurists also organize events such as The Mongol Rally (London to Ulan Bator) and the Moto-taxi Junket (in South America). For all the information visit their website http://www.theadventurists.com/. The next Rickshaw Run is in December 2009.

The Best Chai In The World

Shankar’s Tea Stall (there is no board with a name on it so you might have to stand in the vicinity of the stall and shout his name out),

Opposite Bandra Reclamation Bus Stop,

KC Marg, Bandra West

Mumbai

Pradeep Kumar’s Tea Stall

Badi Choupad (near the Hawa Mahal)

Jaipur

The Rickshaw Run!

2009-08-17T06:07:00.000-07:00

In about 25 days I will be embarking on a potentially mind and stomach blowing journey across India in an rickety auto rickshaw. To add spice to the madness I will be sampling some of the greatest street and highway food on earth as I 'tuk-tuk' my way from the sandy beaches and spicy seafood of Goa, to the chilly mountains and steaming momos of Nepal.

You can follow the journey via this blog. I will be posting photos and writing updates along the way whenever I find the means to do so. I will strive to uncover hidden street and highway food gems along the way. These after all, are the places that feed millions of Indians on a daily basis.

It promises to be quite spectacular...

To follow the journey please click on the following link:

http://therickshawrun.blogspot.com/

Simplicity

2009-07-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

Every crunch of sourdough was Proustian. The delusions of time, space and self didn't just vanish, but disappeared quicker than Usain Bolt doing the 100.

It was simplicity. Beaten eggs and milk cooked on a low flame with sauteed (slightly burnt) garlic. Soft, runny, salty brie was added and the mixture was folded more than scrambled and carefully placed on warm, almost brittle sourdough bread. A sprinkling of freshly ground pepper (a drug so potent)...and man oh man!

Culinary LSD.

2009-06-16T06:57:00.000-07:00

Can one want anything more in life than fresh, creamy goat's cheese, with thin flaky oatcakes, topped with thick honey, and a warm cup of tea?

For Abhi's Short Film

2009-04-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

He sat by the grave, hammering at the stone,
His face was pale, his body-bare bone.
An old, sooty lantern struggled to light
The tombstone he was carving, at the dead of night.

He put down his chisel to catch his breath
For the air was hot and reeked of death.
After a swig of whiskey and a bite of dry bread,
He resumed sculpting names of the dead.

As he raised his hand, ready to hammer
He saw a little girl, his mind began to stammer.
Two graves away, she stood as if in a trance,
With tears in her eyes, he noticed, stealing a glance.

Her stealthy arrival had given him a fright,
What was she doing here, at this hour of night?
He strained his neck to see her face,
Even when sad, it was full of grace.

Her eyes were perfect, her face, meek,
He wished he could go up to her and speak,
She stood by the grave of a Mrs.Novak
Before he could move, she turned to go back,

She was there again the following night,
This time he didn't have as much of a fright.
He mustered some strength and walked up to her
'That's my ma,' she said, wiping a tear.

'I'm Pauline Novak and that's my ma,' she said again,
'A truck hit us and damaged her brain.
We were in our car when it happened.
I couldn't save her,' she broke down, saddened.

With that she turned around and broke into a jog,
In the blink of an eye, she melted into the fog.
He had a swig of whiskey to dull the pain,
And went back to his stone, it had started to rain.

He hammered away with renewed vigour,
The whiskey had fuelled him into a drunken stupor.
Dawn arrived, the tombstone was finished
He dropped down beside it, his strength diminished.

He thought of the girl, sad and innocent
As he looked at his handiwork, feeling frail and bent.
The cold seeped through his skin and froze his bones
For Pauline Novak was the name on the tomb stone.

p.s. The image was taken from Abhi's website. The poem was written for a short animation feature he will be making at some point.

The G.D Law

2009-04-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

'The law of Going Dutch states that when there is a gathering of two or more people eating a meal, each person pays for his/her meal regardless of whether they have shared their meal or not. In other words 'Going Dutch' does not mean 'splitting a bill evenly' as there is a chance that by doing this you may be paying for another person's meal as well, unless of course all the food has been split evenly.'

This law was made for charlatans like me and Shaunak. J. Patel (who has currently obtained a seat at the prestigious Kellog's School of Business Management) who previously thought that Going Dutch meant 'splitting a bill EVENLY.'

P.S. I am not a deranged, illiterate lunatic.

Going Dutch

2009-04-17T06:38:00.000-07:00

The easiest way to pay for a meal when there are two or more people is to Go Dutch, in my opinion. Now, ever since I started going out on my own with friends i.e without my parents (who would obviously pay when I went out with them), I have more often than not Gone Dutch. Except of course on the odd occasion when i'm feeling benevolent (I pay) or when i'm feeling poor (I get everyone else to pay). However after a recent visit to Sarvanna Bhavan, an oasis of South Indian food in East London and a regular haunt, I realized that my concept of Going Dutch was, I am ashamed to say, completely wrong. My concept of Going Dutch is based on equality. 'Split it equally,' I say, of the bill when it arrives at the end of the meal. This has seemed to work most of the time so I given the whole thing a second thought. But after this particular meal at Sarvanna Bhavan, some bright spark proposed that we all pay for our own food (meaning pay the exact amount that our respective dishes cost). Chaos ensued as there were about six of us who had all eaten different dishes and quantities and so on. After much mental maths, it turned out that I ended up paying the most obviously meaning that I had stuffed my face the most. Fair enough. Then another bright spark decided, amidst all the chaos and mental maths, to speculate on the definition of the term 'Going Dutch.' More chaos. And now intense debate. I, ignorant and haughty, fought tooth and nail for my version of the phrase. Going Dutch, I said was to split the bill equally amongst the six of us. First Bright Spark then counterattacked saying that I was wrong and Going Dutch means that we pay the price of our own meals. Looking back now, I realise that 'FBS' was right. Atleast if you were to believe Yahoo Answers. Indeed if you want more information on the ubiquitous phrase you can look up wikipedia .

So I concede I was wrong. However now I have a major problem with the concept of Going Dutch. The main one being that over the years God knows how many times I've been ripped off by friends, family and so on. 'He said lets Go Dutch and paid for half our meal even though he only had a slice of garlic bread. What a sucker,' said they, sneering in contempt. The second problem I have with my new found knowledge is that Going Dutch doesn't work with Indians. Why? Say you go out for a meal with six people. You have a dosa that costs £2.50. and the total bill is £30.00. Now according to my old idea, I would pay £5.00, but now that I have had my eureka moment I only pay £2.50. But I am Indian, born and bred and automatically I end up paying just £2.00. See, I round off to the lower whole number and the bill eventually ends up being £6.00 short. And then chaos ensues. The third problem I have is what if you have shared the meal? If you've shared the meal (as normal people do) then you tend to split it equally don't you? Or do you say 'look I just had two spoons of the daal so I think you should calculate the fraction of daal I had so I can pay for my share.'

I think the term 'Going Dutch' should be redefined from 'paying for your own meal' to 'splitting the bill equally.' If you are the sort of fellow who goes out and eats only £2.00 worth of food in a £30.00 bill, you should stay home and have a glass of milk. Does it seem as though I am having a bout of sour grapes on losing my argument with Bright Spark?!

Meanwhile remember it is dangerous to Go Dutch with a group of Indians. You will end up short of the required amount and proably anger restaurant staff. :-)

Can you take me higher?

2009-04-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

When Pete Townsend went on stage at Woodstock and smashed his guitar on Abbie Hoffman to create one of rock's iconic guitar smashing moments (sadly unavailable on film), he was high on LSD. He says his drink was spiked before he went on stage. Guitar smashing apart, that performance by The Who on the Woodstock stage was one of their greatest, perhaps paralleled only by the Isle of Wight performance a year after. Alcohol and drug abuse is well documented in rock 'n' roll and in the early days everyone was high all the time. Apart from the image, the 'excuse' for substance abuse was that it heightened senses resulting in a trip that gave rise to legendary musical performances. Scientifically speaking, the effects of a few shots of tequila or a few drags of marijuana on the senses has been elucidated. Noted substance using, alcohol guzzling musicians have spoken about how going sober made it very difficult to make music. Clapton in an interview recently claimed that 'Making music without drugs and alcohol was very difficult initially-everything sounded so loud and rough.'

I went through a phase last year when I was drinking a single glass of wine before dinner nearly every day of the week. This was because I found that the alcohol seemed to increase my hunger exponentially, especially if I drank it at a rapid pace. This led to my food tasting better as well, possibly both due to my hunger (most things taste good when you are ravenous) and due to the effects of alcohol. I conducted a crude test. On one night I ate a bowl of muesli before the wine. The hunger that was partially satiated by eating the muesli grew after the wine. I didn't think much of this at the point as I figured that the heightening of senses that alcohol caused was not only towards sound and music but also to food and the sense of taste. Recently, for one reason or another I have been asking people if they've experienced this effect and have gotten negative responses all the time. It seems that alcohol is not directly proportional to the rate of change of hunger.

The question I ask is does drinking alcohol alleviate your hunger levels? And does it heighten the sense of taste? If so how does it do it? Should all self respecting chefs become junkies then?

I can tell you that in my case it certainly does increase my hunger levels and not only that, it makes my Thai red curry taste like heaven (making me a better cook). Try listening to 'Dark Side of The Moon' when sober. Then down a couple of glasses of red wine and listen to it again and see what I mean. A song sounds better and food tastes better after a glass of wine or a beer or a peg of scotch. You get the gist. People agree with the former but not the latter.

An Evening With Bill Granger- Part 1- Has Food TV in Britain become crass entertainment?

2009-04-14T08:07:00.000-07:00

I have bagged a ticket to see a demonstration by one of my favourite chefs, Aussie, Bill Granger in Bath next Tuesday. In the build up to this event I thought I would write a few short pieces on why I like Granger's cooking and cooking shows and how he stands out in todays world of mostly crass and superficial Food TV. The idea being that the pieces will serve as a build up to the main event.

'Celebrity cooks are so up their own bottoms that they do not realize that food should be fun...

- Keith Floyd

Every time I watch Aussie chef Bill Granger on television I have the urge to move to Sydney, buy a house by Bondi, start a cafe and have a battalion of kids (preferably with a woman I love, not Bill in case the homophobes amongst you are alarmed). These myriad feelings defined the cold, dark Saturday mornings of my first few months in London as Bill's Food aired from his sunny Sydney home on BBC. Now as I come to the end of my London chapter, I have come to the conclusion (perhaps biased but allow me to state my case) that Bill Granger is perhaps the most accessible chef to appear on British television (though I haven't seen him on TV for many months now) currently. By accessible I mean that when he cooks, he does so for us, the audience and his shows follow the basic tenets of a good cookery program which are : the chef makes a dish (which is reproducible at home) and the viewer learns how to make the dish by watching the chef. Normally the chef gives the viewer a few tips and a little bit of history of the dish whilst cooking in inviting, interesting and exotic surroundings and the whole package makes you want to cook. They are hardly ever followed.

So watching someone like Bill Granger does motivate me to cook. I do not think he is exceptionally good but he does his job. Moreover, he does so with a sense of languid ease and his sunny demeanour and no frills recipes stand out in the the current British TV foodscape. He connects, not just to an esoteric group but I would say that he connects with a wide variety of people from kids, students, housewives, grandmas, grandpas, straight men, gay men, lesbians, yuppies and so on. I'm sure if I had a dog and it happened to watch Bill's Food, it would want to start cooking and move to Australia as well. There are few chefs around the world that I can think off who have mass appeal. Most have their own fan bases, Delia Smith-housewives, Gordon Ramsay-nutjobs, Nigella Lawson-salivating males, Anthony Bourdain (doesn't really cook much does he)- bandits, pirates and rock and rollers and so on. You might argue that everyone has their own style and each show caters to a different mindset. After all cooking is an art form just like music or film isn't it. Why should a particular show cater to everybody? Point taken. But do pirates and bandits settle for fake gold? My problem lies with the quality of todays shows as much as their content. The connection with the audience, packaging and information and delivery of a good cookery show are essential to it's entertainment value (look at Keith Floyd for example) and I think that one of the reasons these sort of shows are no longer television regulars is because there are not enough chefs who have the ability and charisma to pull it off. So they resort to cheap entertainment (seen in reality shows like Kitchen Nightmares) to garner viewer interest. There are a few shows around in Britain that stick to the old protocol (chef cooks, viewer learns not just the recipe but gets tips, anecdotes and a little bit of history possibly) but far more which don't. Not all the ones that don't are bad and I do enjoy watching shows like The Great British Menu, Masterchef and Heston Blumenthal's geekfests but these don't fall into the genre of show I am talking about. Atleast one well known celebrity TV chef seems to agree with me. Delia Smith, a 'National Treasure' in Britain, first appeared on television in 1973 and has since been a regular. She quit television in 2002 complaining that she was unable to cope with the changes taking place. "Now people want to be entertained, whereas I was trying to teach how to cook, that's where it's different. Now people want to be entertained, whereas I was trying to teach how to cook, that's where it's different," she moaned in an interview a few years ago. Even the few shows that stick to the old protocol seem to lack any sort of verve and though they dole out recipes, they either put you to sleep ar make you cringe with their crassness (the omelette challenge again from Saturday Kitchen. Why?!). Anjum Anand, James Martin and some of the other usual suspects will be forgotten in thirty years (unless of course they are still subjecting us to the likes of Saturday Kitchen with its omelette challenges and Anjum's Indian Food Made Easy).

In the next piece I will take a brief look at some of the food related shows on British TV today and subject the readers of this blog (to all three of you) to my views on them and why I think chefs need to get back to cooking rather than entertaining, as cooking, when done properly, can be entertaining. So if watching Bill Granger makes me want to open a cafe, I feel he has succeeded in making food entertaining and fun and he doesn't even need to use The F Word.

The Sommelier

2009-04-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

He shut his eyes,
Took in a deep breath and felt a whiff
of elderflower?
Or was it jasmine?
Or a mixture of cherries, elderflower and jasmine,
With a hint of caramel
And a touch of pepper?
He found himself floating with the aroma.
Life was perfect.
Then, a flick of the wrist, a swirl
And a sip.
The sommelier then dropped down dead.

Recipes from fiction-Banana Jam- 'The God of Small Things'

2009-03-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

I am publishing the following recipe only because it reminds me of my school days when we were regularly given Banana Jam, which I personally loathed and thought it was perhaps made from effluents emanating from felines. Many of my friends liked it to my bewilderment and till this day I cannot fathom how they managed to shovel the putrid 'jam' into their systems. This is my ode to that jam and many happy school memories.

Banana Jam- As written by Esthappen (Ambassador Elvis Pelvis)-

From 'The God of Small Things'

Arundhati Roy

(in his old best handwriting)

Crush ripe banana. Add water to cover and cook on a very

hot fire till fruit is soft.

Squeeze out juice by straining through course muslin.

Weigh equal quantity of sugar and keep by.

Cook fruit juice till it turns scarlet and about half the quantity

evaporates.

Prepare the gelatin (pectin) thus:

Proportion 1:5

ie: 4 teaspoons Pectin: 20 teaspoons sugar.

Add the pectin to concentrated juice. Cook for few (5) minutes.

Use a strong fire, burning heavily all around.

Add the sugar. Cook until sheeting consistency is obtained.

Cool slowly.

Hope you will enjoy this recipe.

Cooking Up A Thesis-Grilled Mustard Chicken With A Rice Salad

2009-03-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

The salad is a mixture of two salad recipes from two of my food heroes. Mum and Aunt.

Mum's Avocado Salad and Aunt's Wild Rice Salad. I apologise for the burnt looking chicken in the above photograph and assure you it tasted tender and gorgeous. I don't like making excuses but sometimes when you are writing up your mind does tend to wander.

For Grilled Chicken:
Chicken Fillets
Grain Mustard
Chilli Flakes
Aubergine Pesto

Garlic
Pepper
Salt

For Salad:
Wild Rice
Avocado
Mango-Kent Mango from Waitrose-Not the best but no choice.
Feta and Olive Mix-Tesco
Raisins
Pumpkin seeds-For crunch

Cucumber

Rocket leaves

Lemon-For dressing

Garlic-For dressing

Chicken:
Marinade chicken with mustard et al.
15-20 minutes

Salad:

Boil rice
Chop salad ingredients whichever way you want.
Make a dressing with lemon juice, sugar, salt, mustard (a little. Don't want the dish to get too mustardy) and the oil from the Feta- Olive mix
Toss

Serve

Lasted me three meals at 3.00 quid a meal.

How Do You Eat A Grape?

2009-03-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

How Do You Eat A Grape?

Do you

If it is one where the skin hugs

Tight

To the inner pulp,

Place it between your Maxillary

and Mandibular Incisors

And slice it in two?

Do you then

Place each half; one at a time

Pulp facing down

And scoop the pulp out

With your Mandibular incisors

Eat the pulp first; then the skin.

Then the same way

The other half?

Do you

If it is one of those where the skin hangs

Loose; separated

From the inner pulp

Squeeze the grape

Till the pulp shoots out?

And you trap it

By bringing your teeth together

With a click; like a trapdoor?

Eat the pulp first; then the skin.

Do you

Not care.

Bangalore-Arrested Development?

2009-03-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

The next time I go back home to Bangalore I will not be able to make my almost weekly (when I was living there) visit to India Coffee House on M.G Road. All that is left are the memories of those frequent drives I would take on crisp Banglalore mornings with The Beatles blaring out of my stereo to M.G Road. The drive was as important to me as the dosas, and the setting as important as the coffee. Even The Beatles were crucial to the ritual. To me, the freedom that I had obtained on learning how to drive, the discovery of good music and the ability to walk down Bangalore's main promenade before the arrival of rush hour traffic after eating dosas were all part of my coming of age so to speak. So even though India Coffee House is still going to be around somewhere in in the city, it will never be the same again.

It is then a paradox in the truest sense of the word that the fall of old establishments in the city and their replacement with new ones is not a sign of development but one of unmitigated regression. There is a tendency, I fear, to grossly misconstrue the meaning of the word development.

Bangalore has rightly been romanticized by both India and the West as being a city of uninhibited progress in the last twenty years. The markers of this progress are well defined and well chronicled; Narayan Murthy, Vijay Mallya, Kiran Mazumdar, Arundathi Raja, Fabindia, Forum Mall, NCBS, Ranga Shankara, Brigade Road, NLSIU, call centres, Sunny's, Cinnamon, Little Italy, Infosys, Biocon and so on. Through the nineties and the early part of this decade, Bangalore was thriving: economically, artistically, educationally and in a blink of an eye it had been transformed from a sleepy, tree lined town-city with a predominant genteel-bourgeois to a cacophonous, ambitious pseudo-metropolis aspiring to compete with the likes of Bombay and Delhi. How everyone wanted a slice of the Bangalore pie! They flocked from all over the country, first, and then from all over the world for a bite of the pie not realizing that at some point the pie is going to run out. For all that Bangalore has to offer, it is and has been a quintessentialy sleepy town-city, where the people are intrinsically built to be relaxed and easy going. Despite the differences that Bangalore has with the rest of the country in that it has always had that enduring image of being a clean, relaxed and relatively apolitical city, it is an Indian city, run by an Indian political system with Indian politicians that bring their usual set of problems. It was never, as a city, as politically charged as say, Calcutta. It was never ambitious, brazen and fast paced as Bombay. The influx of wealth automatically creates and influx of people and the fuse that was lit 20 years ago is I fear ready to explode with the political system and infrastructure unable to cope at the moment.

My annual visits to the city have helped to view these changes from an outsiders perspective. While the new airport, the new flyovers, the new malls and the trendy new restaurants with their european style menus are evidence of 'development,' there is a feeling of anti-development that has enveloped me. There are the normal, tangible signs of this with the potholes, the continuing load-shedding (something that has haunted the city for time immemorial), the pollution and congestion. Some would understandably argue that these inconveniences are necessary in order to progress. That trees need to be cut down to increase road capacity and buildings need to be brought down to build malls and so on. But the feeling of anti-development is I feel, far more deep rooted and it is being fuelled by the recent events, where a steep rise in sexual assaults on women in the city have capped off a steady decline that began five years ago with the ousting of the Congress and the S.M Krishna government.

One of the first markers of the decline was the implementation of the order of Licensing and Controlling of Places of Public Entertainment in May, 2005 where all bars, pubs and discoteques were ordered to shut at 11.30 p.m. Fair enough, I guess, considering that even in London, pubs shut at 12.00 a.m. This order was then extended in August last year where 'no non background music in bars and restaurants' was allowed unless a licence was obtained. To obtain this licence, owners had to abide by 13 conditions, one of which was effectively that people are only allowed to dance and listen to live music between 10.00 p.m and 11.30 p.m. So planning a night-out in Bangalore these days seems akin to planning an expedition to the Arctic. The reasons for implementing these orders was, according to Police Commissioner Shankar M. Bidari 'concern for the safety and security of people.' Fast forward seven months and Mr. Bidari, when quizzed about the recent sexual assaults on women showed appalling ignorance and rubbishing the incidents as 'simple eve-teasing.' The word 'simple' as an adjective to describe eve-teasing resonates and signifies another deep rooted problem in our society today with regards to sex, but that is another matter altogether. I think there is a strong case for for a situation of arrested 'development' currently taking place. The foundations were there and the 'progress' was evident but has it all been undone in the last couple of years?

I used this particular incident as a marker for Bangalore's decline in the last four years to highlight my point that I don't think that Bangalore has the capacity to control this incredible transistion which is why I used the word pseudo-metropolis to describe it for in order to be considered a metropolis, there has to be a sense of aggression and ambition, of controlled brashness and intellectual, political and artistic vigour which have, in my opinion not reached the heights that can potentially be reached. To give you an example, when the order was issued last August, a member of the popular Bangalore based rock band Galeej-Gurus complained of the 'apathetic' nature of the people to take all this lying down and giving up with a shrug of resignation. The complaint was a result of the low turn out at a protest march. This feeling exactly echos my sentiments and goes back to my argument. The pre-1990 years in Bangalore were all about quiet, shady avenues, a trendy, stylish upper middle class who frequented Bangalore Club and Koshy's, the mill workers who visited MTR before and after work to grab a cup of filter coffee, of watching Rangoli on cool Sunday mornings etc. Most importantly it was the people who gave the city an air of relaxed goodness. It is those people and subsequently my generation who perhaps have to let go of this easy going attitude to battle the negative effects of 'progress' and ensure that it is done with a little bit of dignity.

Development does not justify the egregious demolition of the old. And a marker of good development comes with a certain respect for the old as much as the establishment of the new which I feel is lacking in Bangalore. A friend of mine remarked rather laconically the other day that 'history is history for a reason,' in the context of an 'iPod vs LP Player' debate and my meek, technologically inept claims that he wouldn't have had the iPod if it weren't for the LP Player were treated with nonchalant disdain. It is inevitable that slowly, old haunts will disappear just as LPs and cassettes did and that for the generations to come, these old haunts will be irrelevant, but in cases where preservation is possible, it must at any cost, be implemented. The breaking down of India Coffee House (which is presumably going to be replaced by a mall) is, in my eyes tantamount to bringing down the Taj Mahal and replacing it with a mall. While this might seem a bit facetious, it isn't. So even though India Coffee House and Premier Book Shop are taking 'The Long and Winding Road,' I hope that their memory abides and that more care will be taken to preserve the older establishments in the city.

Cooking Up A Thesis

2009-03-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

I picked up an old cookbook intriguingly titled 'Cooking For Invalids', published in 1928. Intriguing because a book like it exists. In it is an incredibly eclectic selection of gruesome sounding recipes for people with gout, constipation, diarrhoea, constipation, eczema, rheumatism, sleeplessness, fevers, indigestion and fever. Indeed in just the last few minutes I have been informed that people suffering with indigestion are not allowed the following: Rich soups, veal, pork, hashes, stews, turkey potatoes, gravies, fried foods, liver, kidney; pickles, potted, corned or cured meats; salted smoked or preserved fish; goose, duck, sausages, crabs, lobster, salmon, pies, pastry, candies, ice cream, cheese, nuts, iced water, malt or spirituous liquors. Perusing through the book I notice there are recipes for diabetics, whole sections specific for different foods- broths, gruels, vegetable dishes, meat dishes and fish dishes with detailed explanations why and how these recipes help invalids.

In keeping with the theme of quirky, esoteric cookbooks, I think someone should come up with one titled 'Cooking Up A Thesis.' At the moment I am leading a Kafkaesque existence. Thesis writing is taking it's toll (as you can see from the above paragraph) and an uncertain future with no job and no money is hardly alleviating the tumult.

'....the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which i can live and die......'

I need to find this truth...this idea..that the great Mr.Soren Kierkegaard-existential philosopher is talking about or else I am screwed.

Till then here are some meals. For under 3 pounds per meal. series titled

'Cooking Up A Thesis'

Cooking Up A Thesis-Salmon Teriyaki

2009-03-04T02:56:00.000-08:00

I have to thank my friend Arshiya's Mum for this divine, simple recipe which is one of those that requires so little effort but manages to bring out that WOW factor.

More importantly the fish, normally so expensive in London was bought from Sainsbury's at a ridiculous 5.50 (on offer) for four chunky salmon cuts. So effectively it gives me four meals but i'm going to cook all the fish in the same way as I don't mind eating the same thing over and over again. It's a cinch to cook, really.

Ingredients:

Salmon (although any firm fish will do. It musn't fall apart when frying)

Ginger

Garlic

Green chillis

Dark Soy

Sugar

Olive oil

1. Bung lots of ginger and garlic along with a little bit of soy and a teaspoon of sugar into the grinder. Add chillis according to your spice levels.

2. Grind these into a fine paste.

3. Douse the salmon fillets with the paste. Be generous. Let it stand for half an hour.

4. Heat a shallow pan with some olive oil and once it's searing hot place the fish and shallow fry. Salmon cooks fast so after two minutes turn it over. Check the flesh and you can see the pink disappearing on the borders. Once it's all turned golden leave it for another two minutes so it gets cooked through and take it off the pan.

I served this with some rice and stir fried beans and broccoli which I blanched and stir fried with garlic and an oyster and spring onion sauce which i bought off the shelf for just 57p.

Brilliant...so the meal worked out to 5.50 + 57p + 3 (for the beans and broccoli) which totals to 9 quid and gives me three meals- Dinner, lunch and dinner again.

That's 3 quid a meal which is what I pay for a jacket potato and salad at my cafe and just about squeezes through the cut. I only had to buy the salmon and the veggies.

Malleswaram Station

2009-02-21T01:58:00.000-08:00

Like three gargantuan umbrellas, the rain trees protected

The Station

From the searing April heat.

I sat on a bench by the solitary rail track

Let the gentle breeze dance on my cheeks

Closed my eyes; tranquility.

Heaven.

I lost track of time, as I normally do at

The Station.

The soporific setting broke when

A sleeping stray woke

With a shrill, drowsy howl and

Much to my annoyance broke my

Meditation.

It was tiny, a solitary building

The Station.

It is safe to say there was a scarcity

Of trains

Of people.
A train arrived

It was 4pm; surely the Bangalore-Salem

Express.

Dusk fell. Temple bells chimed outside

The Station

'Anytime now', I thought.

Then suddenly a train approached

With increasing ferocity and in a flash

The Rajdhani Express was gone. To Delhi.I felt
Inconspicuous.

That was my cue to move out of

The Station,

To soothe my broken heart with that plate

Of steaming idlis; and khara bhaath

At Sri Raghavendra Stores.

The Old Man Raghu served me

Spicy chutney

And welcomed me back into the world

Smiling.

The Brick Lane Beigel Bakery, Brick Lane

2009-02-04T15:23:00.001-08:00

Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread?...

Eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

- ISAIAH 55:2

On my way to the Brick Lane Beigel Bakery I was so immersed in Jeffrey Steingarten's 'The Man Who Ate Everything', that I barely noticed the gorgeous girl sitting in front of me till she disembarked at Aldgate East Station with me. By some wonderful coincidence, the first chapter in the book deals with bread and as I was headed to one of London's oldest bakeries, I had this feeling that it was going to be a great evening.

While I'm hardly a connoisseur of bread and bread making , I can tell you that the beigel (pronounced bye-gel) was astoundingly good. Beef isn't my favourite meat. I eat it sparingly but everything about the salted beef with mustard beigel (the cafe's claim to fame) was exquisite, including the sharp pungency of the mustard that cut through my brain. The Beigel itself was soft but chewy and had a lovely sweetness to it and the beef was tender and succulent unlike any i've tasted. My major grouse with beef, apart from the fact that it's my least favourite meat, taste wise, is that more often than not I stumble upon the tough, leathery variety and as I had never eaten salt beef before, eating the soft, melt in your mouth meat was a revelation. The bakery was unpretentious and the people behind the counter were really sweet and efficient. There is no barrier separating the service section of the bakery and the production room, where all the gorgeous bread is baked so I slipped into a mad photo snapping trance. The staff in the baking area were more than happy to pose for the camera and to my delight, I got to see nearly the entire process of beigel making right from the mixing of the dough, to the shaping, boiling and baking. Unfortunately I wasn't able to speak at length with any of the staff as they were in demand. An American girl with a movie camera stole my thunder and was busy asking them questions for her 'daaacumentary'.

Once I managed to snap out of my trance, I tucked into another 'salted beef and extra mustard' even though I had grabbed a crafty Twix bar back at the station (they were that good!). Tears streaming down my face (too much mustard), I remembered the excerpt from the book that had informed me of this delightful bakery, 'Salaam Brick Lane', by Tarquin Hall.

The book is a description of a year spent in East London by Hall, a journalist and a West Londoner and is a personal discovery of the multi-cultural East End.

In one of the chapters the author has gone to meet an old Jewish acquaintance called Solly to gain some insight into life in Brick Lane and more specifically, life from a Jewish perspective.

'Look what I've got,' he said as soon as he saw me approaching from the other sidee of the street, his voice deep and scratchy.

He opened a plastic bag bulging with bagels which he'd bought to take home with him to Romford.

'I always load up whenever i come down here,' he said, pronouncing 'bagels' just as the word appeared on the signs above the bakeries: 'beigels', with a stress on the 'i'. ' It's the one place left in London where you can get the real thing.'

He handed me one stuffed with creamcheese and smoked salmon.

'I got this one for you. You can eat it while we walk.'

Solly led the way south down Brick Lane.'

While this paragraph is hardly the most illuminating piece of writing, I was just happy I discovered and visited the bakery that was mentioned in the book, which is otherwise quite interesting.

I felt my own plastic bag bulging with beigels as I walked the same way to catch the number 135 bus home.

p.s At this point I would like to thank my good friend Pradeep 'the Zambian' Sastry for trudging out into the cold London night from the warmth of my flat in Canary Wharf where he is currently squatting. Being a non beef-eating Indian, I think he was a bit disappointed, first with the salami and then the smoked salmon beigels he sampled. I thought the salmon one was sumptuous thanks to the quality of bread alone but also because I am developing a soft spot for salmon. He also had the cheesecake (only 60p!), which was a bit on the dry side but for that price it was well worth it!

The Gujarati Conundrum

2009-01-29T11:08:00.001-08:00

The Gujarati Conundrum

In a hilarious complaint letter to Virgin owner Sir Richard Branson, an irate customer recently described, in vivid detail, what he called his ‘culinary journey of hell’, on a flight from Mumbai to London . The man, an unnamed Englishman surely, dotted the letter with images of the offending food on the flight. ‘Look at this Richard. Just look at it’, he says and sticks an image of what looks like ‘dhokla’, a steamed snack from the state of Gujarat, India, or ‘two yellow shafts of sponge with green paste on one’, to our man of the moment. Mr. Yellowshafts then goes on to describe the other atrocities he endured on the flight, including a cookie that was presented like it was evidence from a crime scene and the television screen, to name a few. While, for obvious reasons I cannot comment on the quality of the food the man was given, what caught my eye was the fact that the food was so alien to the man. There is a well documented custom in Britain, of going to have a ‘curry’, that normally involves a group of people going to an ‘Indian’ restaurant and stuffing their faces with ‘curry’ till they become hot, red faced and watery-eyed. ‘Curry’ eating also comes with a package of intense discussion about the spice quotient of each person’s dish and competitions of who can eat the spiciest dish that normally end in tears. To my Indian palette, most of these ‘spicy’ curries border on mild to sweet and for some reason I always end up feeling excessively flatulent after eating them.

The history of the ‘curry house’ in Britain is well documented. Currently, 75% of the ‘Indian restaurants’ in the country are run by Bangladeshi’s and the menus in the restaurants are monotonously similar; Jalfrezi, Korma, Dhansak, Vindaloo and Chicken Tikka Masala. So in essence, going to an Indian restaurant involves being served Punjabi, Parsi and Goan cuisine, cooked by a Bangladeshi. This explains why Mr. Yellowshafts failed to identify the ‘dhokla’, arguably the most common marker of Gujarati cuisine.
The fact that the dishes resemble anything but Punjabi, Parsi and Goan food is another matter altogether and will be discussed at another time.

Gujarati cuisine has disappeared from Britain’s culinary map. Or has it? With some confidence I can say that it is non-existent in the Glasgow and London restaurant scene. In the time I’ve spent in these two commercial capitals of Scotland and England, respectively, I haven’t had a sniff of a good, soft and spongy ‘dhokla’ or any other traditional Gujarati dish for that matter. How is this possible? A few years ago, the Gujarati population in the U.K hit 650,000 and was the largest Asian community in the country. Of the 650,000, 40,000 had set up home in Leicester, 2 hours north of London. I have been to Leicester but haven’t had the opportunity to explore its restaurant scene. I’m sure there are plenty of Gujarati joints up there. But why hasn’t this permeated down to London. The London scene is the acme of the food business in this country, surely and the Gujaratis, well known for their business nous, must covet a position in London. I have had perhaps the best lamb chops I’ve tasted in an unpretentious Pakistani joint called Tayyabs, eaten below par but satisfying ‘dosas’ and ‘idlis’ at Sarvanna Bhavan in the East End and even sampled half decent Malayali food at Tottenham Court Road bang in the center of London, but my quest of finding some good ‘undhiyo’ and ‘khichidi’ with ‘kadi’ has hit a brick wall.

The mystery can be solved possibly by researching certain aspects of Gujrati émigré and by analysing sociological, psychological and demographic aspects of British Gujaratis, which I wont do now mainly because I am incompetent to do so, for the question ‘Why are there no Gujarati eateries in London?’ surely warrants an entire thesis (I’m half-joking).
A trip to Leicester beckons in the hope of solving the Gujarati conundrum! Wish i could take Mr.Yellowshafts, previously incognito, but now revealed to be a MrBeale, ad-man, with me to show him what a good 'dhokla' is.

From Tuscany to Thekkady

2009-01-17T07:13:00.001-08:00

At the gates of the Periyar tiger reserve, on the outskirts of the little town of Kumily in Thekkady, Kerala, there is a little cafe called the 'Periyar Cafe'. This little cafe has taken the concept of the 'multicuisine' restaurant to a different level. Not happy with serving just 'Indian' food, they serve Chinese, Italian, Spanish and French cuisine. Rumour has it that some of the tigers living in the vicinity were fed up with the quality of paella and steak tartare and their calls for some good local cuisine went unheeded. So they moved to greener pastures, thus explaining their dwindling numbers in the region.

While I did think the attempt to serve all the above mentioned cuisines was asinine, I think you have to applaud the enterprise of the owner. There was a sense of confidence, highlighted by the huge billboard outside the cafe, that they could pull it off. At the same time I felt a sense of repugnance with the concept. To me this restaurant was a symbol of everything that is wrong about globalization. Who was it fooling? Who were it's customers? Surely not the hoardes of British tourists I had just seen or the French couple staying at the same hotel where I was put up. I found the answers to these questions (see below). I ended up ordering a fish curry and rice dish which was predictably awful.

This incident reminded me of a single sentence from the hilarious book English, August, by Upamanyu Chaterji, where a character (can't remember which one) asks: What is Jane Austen doing in Meerut?' It is the equivalent of asking: 'What is Spaghetti 'Niopolitain' doing on a menu of a restaurant in the provincial South Indian town of Thekkady, deep in the Western Ghats?' In a wider context, I would like to ask what impact globalization has had on Indian food? The changes seem to be happening at an alarming rate. Looking at India from the outside has helped me in indentifying that change is happening in the first place, something I feel I wouldn't have noticed if I were living there. I was 10 when MTV entered my home thanks to Rupert Murdoch, 14 when it entered my life, 20 when it became my existence and 26 when I realised it. I am along with my contemporaries, the change itself. But how many of my contemporaries recognize the changes?

For all I know, a lot of them does and i'm probably a little late but my annual sojourns home lead me to think otherwise. Bangalore, my home town, for example is full of what a friend describes as 'girls who wear high heels and short skirts just to go out for a coffee, boys who wear tight jeans and leather jackets and a thriving upper middle class who drink white wine and are constantly vying for their photos to appear on Page 3 of the local newspapers.' It has become fashionable to sit around drinking wine, discussing David Letterman's toilet habits and visiting the mall. This isn't an accusation but merely an observation and it might seem slightly leftist but I am hardly that. In fact in my 25 years of existence I have been ignorant and naive when it comes to political thought. Indeed, who am I to accuse anyone when I myself have reaped the benefits of the changes that are happening and indulge in these things. I am all for development. All for being able to eat food I have never eaten, in my backyard. But change needs to happen without the shoddiness and crassness both of which you will find in abundance.

The point I am trying to make is merely that I think it is important for me to understand what is happening in my country. In our history lessons at school we were told that India has this wonderful ability to withstand foreign invaders by assimilating their culture with ours. Globalization is as foreign and as invasive, if not more than the British, the Portugese, the Mughals put together, especially when it is allowed to spread as rampantly as it has in India. It hasn't invaded by taking lives or looting gold but by employing a similar technique to that of a parasite. It has slowly and stealthily crept upon us not giving us time to think of it's consequences. How are we dealing with it?

In Pankaj Mishra's 'Butter Chicken In Ludhiana' the author travels around provincial India chronicling the changes that were taking place then; 1994, four years or so after the economy was liberalised. With a sense of mordant irony and humour in his prose he describes a succession of characters and places affected by these changes. I read the book after the trip home and I realized that I had encountered some of the characters. The answers to the questions posed above (Who were these cheap-copy european restaurants fooling?) were at the buffet table in the hotel restaurant. The Marwari businessman with his gold chains lambasting the waiter for not having pizza on the menu, the Punjabi lady admonishing him for not having butter chicken on the menu and so on. The chef at the restaurant, a soft spoken man of timid demeanour almost always succumbed to these wants and said with a strained voice when I asked him why there was only one local dish on the menu ' What to do sir? All these people are wanting these kinds of foods only. If I don't cook for them then they will stop coming here only. Don't worry sir, tomorrow we are making some appams and fish stew for lunch.'
The appams were fantastic.

Is there a certain crudeness that has befallen the middle class in India? Especially in the provinces? The middle class of post-colonial India in these regions was so different. That middle class used to listen to Amin Sayani on radio and watch Chitrahaar and Rangoli on Doordarshan. They worked in the schools, hospitals and railway stations of provincial towns and cities. The new middle class is brash, bold and clueless about its predecessors. It works in call centers, watches MTV, laps the multitude of sensationalist news channels available to it and eats pizza and Spaghetti Niopolitan in small, provincial restaurants in Kerala.

I have gone off on a bit of a tangent and I would like to say that I want to use this blog to talk about some of these issues and use a medium that I think I'm comfortable with- food. I use food to tackle most issues in my life. Eat it when i'm hungry, cook it when i'm tired, bored or stressed and think about it when I actually should be concocting a thesis.

2009-01-15T15:21:00.001-08:00

I find my self regularly day dreaming about that delectable idli I had at the Mavalli Tiffin Room, better known as MTR to me and my fellow Bangloreans. It was a moment I will never forget, the Holy Grail in my quest to find the best idli ever. Can it be bettered? Perhaps, for I would like to think that I have age on my side and surely, there must be idli havens unexplored. But till that happens let me dwell on this moment while it lasts. The meal satisfied all the rules of thumb that govern good idli eating. The idli was soft but at the same time had an element of firmness and body such that I didn’t dissolve instantly in my mouth but melted away slowly as if taunting me to have more. Crucially, unlike many other idli and coffee shops (some that figure in the top five of my list), the accompanying chutney was perfect. It was thick, minty and piquant without blowing your taste buds out of orbit. So many of my favourite coffee bars are resorting to diluting the chutney to a watery gunge in order to cut costs, something that baffles me as it is such an important element of the experience. The pièce de résistance was the little thumb sized steel container of thick, golden ghee that melted and soaked beautifully once spread on the surface of the idli. Uninhibited joy! I rue the fact that I had only one, for in leaving space for the disappointing dosa that came after, I felt like I missed out and now the wait till my next trip home will be agonising.