Green Mango Delusions

Little droplets of sweet chutney

Dribble down my chin.

Thin slices encrusted with red chilli 

Burn their fiery way down my gullet

Chunks of fruit in a chicken and coconut curry

Do a little pirouette across my dinner plate. 

Roasted with a dash of spice, water and ice

It makes me swoon in sheer delirium.

You lie scattered all over my backyard on little squares of yesterday’s news

The jars of golden oil remind me of magical Arabian nights and forty broiled thieves

The process of pickling has begun.

I trap your memory in muslin-covered bottles.

Chase your shadow in candy bars, essences and fruit leathers.

Invoke your spirit with soaps, perfumes and aerated drinks. 

When the summer has receded into the innermost whorls of the last autumn flower.

I take that last bit of pickle from the jar

And close my eyes to share the delusions

Of mad dogs and Englishmen who go out in the midday sun. 

Ode to a Sun-Dried Tomato

Gently kissed by the sun,

You are like the light sprinkling of fairy dust

That creates a midsummer night’s mayhem.

You are the harbinger of that perfect wine-drenched afternoon

Redolent of the aromas of a Neapolitan kitchen.

You add a certain je nais sais quoi

To plates across the world.

Bottled to preserve the sunshine,

Your Midas touch

Transforms a modest slice of bread

Into an expensive dish with an unpronounceable name.

Like an artist’s palette,

You infuse colour and life

Into the smoked and dried winter meats.

Bringing a hint of summer artistry

Into the empty, grey canvas of December.

A little brown paper bag full of joy,

You, my lovelies,

Are the esoteric fifth element;

Of fragile terrines,

Of fragrant swirls of handcrafted pastas,

Of rich and mysterious sauces,

Of crisp garden salads,

Of beautiful meaty casseroles

And of dainty hors d’oeuvres

A delicate creature of whimsy,

You are crushed by men with deft fingers.

This little act of violence

Leaves little slivers of red trim in its wake.

You vanish without a trace

Down the serpentine belly of the city

All that remains is 

A dark red seed, a bit of pink skin

Along with crusty ends of   

Wood-fired pizzas

And drippings of cheese

On smooth wooden table tops

In warm attic cafes

Along cobbled alleys

In the markets of my city.

a pinch of salt

This was written a long time ago. Its back on this blog because it is perhaps the life blood of the kitchen and hence a pivot for my tales...


This salt

in the saltcellar
I once saw in the salt mines.
I know
you won't
believe me,
but
it sings,
salt sings, the skin
of the salt mines
sings
with a mouth smothered
by the earth.

from Ode to Salt by Pablo Neruda

These humble, modest grains rose from the sea and went forth and multiplied. Sedimented, mined, dried and boiled, the earth yielded its salt painfully, grain by grain. This "white gold" marked the beginnings of our culinary history and rescued our meats from decline and decay. 

Salt has been referred to precisely 35 times in the Bible. Eating habits in Islam recommend salt before and after every meal.

Wars have been fought over salt. Slaves have been bought and sold for salt. Salt has been taxed. Man over many centuries has levied the tax and has revolted against the tax in turns. Roman soldiers were paid in salt and well, the modern word salary has its convoluted roots somewhere at the bottom of a salt cellar.


I could put little piles of the different types of salt aside for every day of the week for the next whole year and I would still have some left over.

There are salts for every reason,
Salts that cause treason and 
Salts that there are rubbed into a lesion.


They come from every country. Seeping out of the cracks of the earth, these Celtic salts, French sea salts, Hawaiian sea salts, glittery African salts, Italian salts pour themselves out over the maps of the world.
There are coarse salts that cling to the tongue after the meal has long wound its way down your food pipe. 
There are flake salts that sprinkle themselves over delicate gourmet dishes like light snowfall on a crisp and bright winter day.
There are table salts which like marching bands gather together in symmetrical crystals in their mass produced jars and do a little functional jig over the daily bread.
There are sea salts and smoked salts. These are creatures of romance that walk with your perfect cut of meat or richly exotic farm fresh salad leaves and vegetables like lovers in the rain sharing a single umbrella, revelling in the moment of complete togetherness.  
Just like a brilliant auteur crafting the work of his lifetime out of seeming nothingness, man in a flash of genius excavated the the pink Peruvian salt from a nearly inaccessible spring deep in the mountains of Peru, which is then carried down the slopes as bricks on the backs of furry llamas.
There are sociologically accurate salts, which, by its very presence defines what is kosher what isn't.
Then there is the wildly exotic caviar of salts – fleur de sel which is hand-harvested in special ponds and scraped off before it can float down to the bottom, a feat as arduous as the quest for the Holy Grail. 
There are the esoteric dead sea salts – salts that share space with blood red hibiscus flowers and vanilla scented candles lining the edges of cavernous marble baths. An exercise in luxury.

(wood-engraved illustration by Gustave Dore)

And there are ofcourse the legends of  sea water, shipwrecked sailors, thirst and hallucinations. Most of it made famous by salt. And some of it by Samuel T. Coleridge whose lines echo through my mind every time I'm on a boat.

Water, water, everywhere, 

And all the boards did shrink; 

Water, water, everywhere, 

Nor any drop to drink.

The fact that two thirds of our planet is covered with this salty undrinkable sea water is not a very cheerful thought. 

Salt and a Blonde called Honey

1. Honey is a pretty blonde with a delicate temperament. She wilts in the heat and swoons at any kind of excitement. She is revived from her fainting spell with the help of smelling salts. 
2. Honey is a pretty blonde who is sensitive and highly emotional. She often dissolves in large lachrymal puddles composed of water, mineral salts, antibodies and lysozyme.



Salt is an experiment in lexicology – from the lively wit of a notable Athenian to an indicator of class dynamics.

Salt is a salve for the digestive glands – from the old fashioned salt water potions to the modern day flavoured fruit salts. 

Salt is a powerful magical charm – from basic protection against the evil eye to extensive use in african hoodoo practices.

there is the salt that delights when it is rubbed on small pieces of raw mango and secretly gorged on during hot summer afternoons

there is the salty ham and chorizo which complements every sandwich, salad and gourmet meal.

there is the salt that is applied on loitta or bombil fish which is dried on lines as the wind carries its powerful smell to the corners of the city. This rather acquired taste favoured by Bombaywallahs and East Bengalis and presented as pickles or curries for the colonizer and Anglophile.

There is the salt I have carried with me in packets as my personal talisman against vampiric leeches. 
There is the salt in my tin that I have every once in a while mistaken for snow white castor sugar. And thus, I have had a salty chocolate pudding, a lovely vanilla cake dusted with fine salt, a salty chocolate and peanut butter milkshake and many cups of perfectly brewed fine Darjeeling tea with a teaspoon of salt.    
There is the salt that sits innocuously in a battered china salt cellar on my table which inspired me to write this piece. This salt changes its consistency almost daily with the weather. Nearly every morning there ensues a herculean struggle at the breakfast table.  Me on one side trying to get a few grains out through the five evenly spaced holes and the salt cellar on the other, a hardened and formidable opponent resisting at every step. 
I have never been successful at getting a perfect uniform sprinkle out of my salt cellar. I always stared enviously at the waiters in restaurants who would sprinkle salt over my fresh salad with a deft flick of their wrist. The chefs on TV would dust their beautifully crafted concoctions with salt, ever so elegantly while I sat across the television set working myself into a nervous frenzy in trying to extract even a few grains of salt from the dratted shaker. 
This old china salt container has some great nostalgic value for my mum and thus it was never discarded and thus, my travails continued. 
I subjected the salt container to much violence and yet, it stood intact and unyielding.
I applied home remedies to it by putting in a few grains of uncooked rice to keep it dry and powdery. And yet, the salt stayed inside never to see the light of day.   
I tried wrestling. Brute force achieves little and the beheaded salt cellar vomited all its contents on my perfectly fried egg.
I tried being gentle and tapped it lightly while poaching my egg. And all I got was a bland egg for my efforts. The salt itself had become a wet and soggy lump that was clogging every single opening of the shaker.
The only reason I saved this salt cellar from the dustbin was because I realized it had character. It taught me the values of patience and it made me appreciate the small things in life. 

Every once in a blue moon, there was the perfect egg with the right amount of salt, the perfect cucumber sandwiches with the perfect amount of salt and the perfect crispy Aloo Bhaja (fried potato strips) lightly dusted with salt. These rare moments made precious because of their scarcity, tinted the world in shades of rose. It was a perfect moment when me, my eggs, my cucumbers, my Aloo Bhaja, my salt and my salt cellar existed in complete and beauteous harmony with the larger motions of the planet. 

My little homage to salt is dedicated to such occasional moments of truth.