World Cuisine

"I'll bet what motivated the British to colonize so much of the world is that they were just looking for a decent meal." ~Martha Harrison

Ofcourse with no offense to anyone who is British, but they did come to India to look for spices. There are jokes made in India that they loved it so much and the food was excellent that they decided to stay on and on and on and on.

There are often many such jokes about foods from different parts of the world. For example, it is said that British food is meat and potatoes, that are absolutely tasteless. American food is considred to be hamburgers, hot dogs and soda. When we think of Italian food, we think of pizza and pasta. Similarly, Indian food is always thought to be spicy and something that may cause flatulence. There is nothing wrong with stereotyping foods from all these places. There are always exceptions ofcourse, but they are also unique.

I feel that in the world today, we are losing this uniqueness. Why do we find a Wendy's or a Mac Donalds in places like India and China? It is not supposed to be there. Why do chain restaurants and food corporations have to take over the world? Now if you travel you can get the same food all over. In India, there are always lines of people to get into these chain restaurants. It has become like a status symbol. These irreplaceable food characteristics are fading away into the memories of these magnificent places. The cultural practices are making way for globalization.

This epidemic should be stopped! We need to protect our indigenous foods and make sure that they do not get lost in time. We are what we eat and we are all different, then how can we all eat the samething?

Finger Lickin' Good

According to me the best way to enjoy food is to eat with your hands. I have grown up enjoying my rice with dal with my hands. There are a lot of reasons why people like or do not like eating with her hands, these are mine:

Temperature: This is such an important reason! You can test the temperature of the food if you gently poke or touch the food before stuffing it in your mouth and burning your tongue as a result. When we eat rice, we put the rice in a small mound on our plate and take the rice from the sides to check the temperature. Rice cools from the sides and this I know because I have been eating with my hands.

Texture: Don't we all love to have a meal that has a variety of textures? We want a bit of crisp, a dash of crunch, a pinch of softness and a dollop of smoothness. We look for that on a plate when doing a presentation. When eating with your hands you can feel the texture of the food. The graininess or the lightness of that food. Specially with foods like rice, when eating with your hands you can feel the separate grains of rice with your fingers. The delicate grain sticks to your finger as it leaves the rest of the rice behind on your plate.

Taste: May be this part is controversial but I believe that a meal tastes much better when enjoyed with your hands. Obviously I don't expect one to eat spaghetti with your hands but I am talking about all rice based dishes. The moment when you touch the rice with your hands you have made a connection. It is like a bond with that rice on your plate, your fingers and your taste buds. They are all connected together the minute you lay your hands on the fluffy white pearly grains. After the meal, we lick the remnants of our finger, pondering the food we just devoured. It's like you want to eat again. That simple act of licking the last drops of food off your finger calms you. It is pure satisfaction and bliss. This orgasmic feeling could not have been enjoyed with a fork or a spoon.

Blazing Hot Chicken Jhol

This recipe is probably one of my favorites. It reminds me not only of home but also comes out very close to the original recipe. I make this chicken jhol when I am hungry and when I am homesick. It is Blazing hot because I add a lot of chilli powder to the recipe, but it can be adjusted to suit individual tastes.

The word jhol, is a Bengali word, meaning a water based sauce flavored with onions, ginger, garlic and a wide variety of spices. It is this perfect harmony of the spices that appeals to not only the tastebuds but to your other senses as well. It seems to be that spices have what we call " a perfect marriage". None are over powering and even if you add a lot of chilli powder, you can still taste the hint of ginger or onion and that smithering of garlic. You can also distinguish the cumin and coriander and all this contributes to this wonderful amalgamation of flavors. It is definitely a treat best enjoyed with hot white rice. A kind of rice that absorbs the jhol perfectly and plumps up the grain. Just writing this is making my mouth water and I feel like cooking this again soon.

Spaghetti with Meatballs

What is it about a food memory? Sometimes when I am reminded of a certain food-- be it anything-- I just can't seem to get it out of mind. It is embarrassing to admit, because I think I am the only one who probably sometimes watches Full House, ever since I saw an episode where Michelle was eating Spaghetti with Meatballs, it has been stuck in my mind. I just couldn't get rid of the image of that little girl spooning the noodles into her mouth with most of it landing on her lap. Since that episode I have been craving spaghetti with meatballs.

Herein lies a problem. My image of the spaghetti is what my mother would rarely make back home in Kolkata. The meat sauce she would make would be a spicy sauce without using too many tomatoes. This was the dilemma in my mind. I was craving spaghetti with meatballs but I didn't realize until later on that it was my mother's version that I was dying for.

This weekend I had the opportunity to finally satisfy my deep desire. I went for lunch to a restaurant called DownCity on Pine Street and lo and behold, there was Spaghetti with meatballs! I know I am going on and on about this simple yet perplexing situation. I felt that I had to write this and share it with others. I ordered the spaghetti and as usual the sauce was a heavily tomatoed sauce, which I am not particularly fond of. But eating it made me realize something. How powerful food is. It is one of those elements of your life that sometimes feels seemingly unimportant but is actually one of my sole reasons for living.

Food has so much control over our moods, personality and sometimes even relationships. This petty experience really did open my eyes up.