In memory of the man who spread edible happiness

For the uninitiated, Michele Ferrero was a real-life Willy Wonka and innovator of marvellous confections and owner of the chocolate manufacturer Ferrero SpA. He was the man behind the magical Nutella Hazelnut spread, the mouth-freshening Tic-Tacs, the dense and rich Ferrero Rocher chocolates and every child’s all-time favourite, the Kinder Joy eggs. He died this week and his passing feels like an immensely personal loss, for he touched my life and my culinary universe in more ways than one.

At almost all given points in time, I am likely to have the trademark little plastic tin of Tic-Tacs in my bag. I like to call these mouth freshening pills, ‘mintlets’ with just the right amount of sweetness and zing. Among the staples in my larder, there is always that much-loved glass bottle of Nutella that has offered succour when days were cold and dank, an element of joy when meals were bland and cheat moments during diet breakfasts comprising bottomless bowls of Dickensian gruel. Whenever I have been at a loss for presents, the Ferrero Rocher pralines have been my go-to last-minute saviours, immediately adding a suitable sense of gravity to any occasion.

Mr Ferrero pretty much thought of it all, offering smart plastic cases that were pretty enough in their own right and available in different sizes for the varying relationships between the gifter and the giftee.

If there is one thing that Mr Ferrero made that I missed trying, that would be the Kinderjoy egg. Always a stickler for collecting Easter eggs, this little egg-shaped chocolate surprise entered the supermarket and my life in a post-lib India long after I had left my childhood long behind. Although the idea of having my own Kinder egg appealed to me, the idea of being in queue with wee babies, cajoling their parents to buy them yet another one, was a tad embarrassing. However, this week in tribute to this man, I shall sacrifice my adult composure and return to the innocent joy of discovering a toy inside a chocolate egg. 

And Nutella... Well... I could sing paeons to this creamy chocolate-hazelnut spread that has spawned hundreds of pretenders but never a worthy equal.

The journey from a Napoleonic war-time substitute created from the hazelnuts of Piedmont to a gianduja (an Italian chocolate and hazelnut sweet) inspired by World War II cocoa shortages to the modern-day phenomenon which was launched in its current Nutella avatar as late as 1964 and has since spread across the world, is remarkable.

The product has spawned reams of numbers and statistics including the near unbelievable one which states that a bottle of Nutella is sold somewhere in the world every 2.5 seconds! A World Nutella Day is celebrated every February 5. Nutella recipe festivals, competitions and even a postage stamp commemorating this jar of joy.

It is Mr Ferrero’s masterful blend of chocolate, hazelnut and palm oil that has emerged as a winner, turning his father’s small pastry shop into a veritable chocolate empire and one of the most successful businesses in the world,

It also skyrocketed its owner into the list of the world’s richest men. Despite the success, the company has remained family-owned, Mr Ferrero remained reclusive and closely guarded his secret recipe through his life.

One could almost expect an army of Oompa Loompas to be manning the sprawling factories in Alba.

While Michele Ferrero might be no more, he leaves behind a marvellous legacy and continues to spread the happiness across the world.

This was published in The New Indian Express Bangalore on 21 February, 2015

Around India in 29 Plates Part IV

Culinary Treasures of the Northeast

While travel and food are intrinsically linked, sometimes the latter becomes a singular aspect of a culture and a reflection of its way of life.Visiting local joints, sharing home-cooked meals with strangers and eating your way around a place is almost the cryptic route to the heart of a land and its people. This week, we visit the beautiful Northeast through its food. The land of the seven sisters has perhaps the most eclectic and diverse cuisine, combining local produce and flavours with an entirely home-grown eating culture that is as exciting as it is unexplored. And no, momos are not a part of their daily diet! If there was a food spectrum with much flogged tandoori chicken at one end, the Meghalayan Jadoh would be on the other with a far richer flavour palette. This cuisine (which varies across each states with some commonalities arising due to a similar climactic pattern and local produce) is only now beginning to pop up in the urban Indian centres reappropriated as nouvelle cuisine for those who like to experiment. However, the best meals would be eaten at eateries by the side of hill roads or bustling markets in the Northeast, or if you can manage it, someone’s house with some a rather potent local alcoholic brew to wash it all down. It is also extremely hard to choose one dish from each state as different tribes and communities within the same state have dramatically different eating habits. The cuisine is wonderful for many reasons with spices, herbs and methods of cooking that predate modern appliances and are healthy, less oily and masala based and protein heavy.

Masor Tenga (Assam)

With an abundance of rivers, lakes and ponds, this gateway state of the northeast is rich in freshwater fish and this along with rice, forms the chief source of sustenance. The Masor Tenga with fleshy and tender pieces of rohu fish cooked in a light and sour gravy is a delight. Unlike the neighbouring rich Bengali fish curries, the tenga is a light and fragrant staple eaten in nearly every household.
 
Jadoh (Meghalaya)

Jadoh stalls are an extension of the community eating in Meghalaya. Jadoh is essentially a rice and meat stall. However, before you start thinking that this just your ordinary pulav, the unique Jadoh combines the joha rice of the region, fatty pork pieces (other meats can also be also used) and the condiments of fermented soya paste as well as companion dish of Doh Neiong (Pork cooked in a sesame paste).

Smoked pork with Akhuni (Nagaland)

While pork is indeed quite a staple around these parts, the Naga preparations of this meat burst with intense flavours derived from local herbs, dried and fermented leaves, shoots and beans and the famous Naga Morich, a close cousin to the bhut jalokia. This particular dish combines pieces of fire-smoked pork with Akhuni or fermented soy beans, lending it a lovely dark smoky flavour.

Gudok (Tripura)

Tripura’s tribal communities greatly influence the food in these parts. The dish was originally cooked inside bamboo stems, lending it a wonderful flavour. Essentially a black-eyed bean and fish preparation, this dish gets its unique tart fishy aroma from Berma, a fermented fish, which works a bit like the Thai fish sauce.

Pasa (Arunachal Pradesh)

While this dish is somewhat of an acquired flavour as it is a raw fresh fish soup, it is a tribal delicacy. In my mind it is a combination of the flavours of sushi and the French tartare. With a host of aromatics and raw fish paste, this dish was believed to have been a wartime inception when cooked food would have been a giveaway for the tribal soldiers.

Iromba (Manipur)

Combining Ngari or fermented fish with mashed boiled vegetables and a pungent chilli paste, this dish has numerous variations depending on the herbs, leaves and veggies used. The Manipuris eat this as a side dish, an entree with boiled rice and even as chutney!

Sawchair (Mizoram)

This traditional dish from the state of the rolling hills is a rice dish cooked with chicken, duck or pork and veggies. This wholesome all-in-one meal in a bowl is a hearty meal perfect after a hard day’s work


This was published in The New Indian Express Bangalore on 26 February, 2015

Around India in 29 Plates Part III

Food as a Map Through Which we Learn 

 This week, we continue our culinary journey across the country continuing from where we left off, somewhere in between the syncretic fulcrum of food and identity in Kashmir and the simple, wholesome and rustic fare of Haryana and Himachal. This week, as we move from the mountains to the northern Gangetic plains which is the ancient seat of power, the heartland of India and the proverbial rice bowl of the country, the task at hand for this humble chronicler becomes harder as this belt is a vast swathe of influences — from the ancient to the medieval to the modern era in terms of religions, culture and, by extension, the cuisine. Food is the cumulative result of a civilisation’s transitions through history and this week’s picks aim to be a reflection of the same.

Mutton Kebabs (Uttar Pradesh)
It is hard to pick one dish in a state that is synonymous with food. From a royal repast to street food delicacies, from the best of Awadhi cuisine to the princely Nawabi variations of the same, from chaats to an array of desserts, Uttar Pradesh is a gourmand’s dream with every part of the state offering a peek into a way of life and eating and Lucknow is the crown jewel.
While I have chosen mutton kebabs as a representative dish, this is more a sub-genre which covers everything from the esoteric and fragrant kakori kebab, the tender and spiced boti kebabs, the melt-in-the-mouth galawat or galauti kebabs to the robust shami and pasanda discs and the delicately spiced seekh cylinders. There is very little chicken in the kebab lexicon of this region. These kebabs are part of the elaborate set of starters in a traditional Dastarkhwan (a ceremonial meal) conceptualised by gifted khansamas (chefs) as well as the common man’s victuals from the smoky street tandoors paired with a variety of unleavened breads. Uttar Pradesh’s kebabs are ubiquitous as well legendary. Thus there is the myth of the toothless kebab-loving nawab in whose kitchen the famed kakori, or the softest kebab in the world, was born. Then there was the tale of the one-armed genius kababchi called Tundey Miyan who tenderised his meat with the stump of his amputated arm to create perfectly consistent kebabs, earning him legions of fans and a reputation that lasted generations. These stories are part of the food lore of a state whose cuisine has to be experienced to be believed.

Bal Mithai (Uttarakhand) 
The beautiful mountain kingdom of Uttarakhand is washed by the River Ganga, resplendent in natural beauty with its misty mountains, folk traditions, ancient temples and sprawling national parks. The fairy tale setting of the region is in sync with this iconic sweet of the region which is rich, sweet and milky and covered in sugary balls that pop in your mouth. One can imagine this to be the treasured candy out of an enchanted edible house that tempts all with its appearance and aromas. Especially popular in Almora, some version of the Bal Mithai is found in most towns of the state. Cooked with khoya, cane sugar and covered with sugar coated poppy seeds (posto), this home-grown fudge which was invented by an enterprising Almora halwai, is a hit among kids and adults alike. With no cocoa content, it is interesting that this sweet is locally known as ‘chocolate’ and is a delicious treat on winter days that will warm you right till the cockles.    

Laal Maas (Rajasthan)
This list does not escape the bias of the listmaker and in this case, my own love for meat. Despite being an avowed carnivore, this state’s vegetarian food is a treasure trove with offerings that smack of invention and are derived from the local produce. With culinary influences ranging from the all-vegetarian Marwari community to the robust meat-centric Rajput cuisine, Rajasthani food is an amalgam of its land, its weather conditions and its people. Thus one can pick from an assortment of savouries like mirch ka pakora (batter-fried chilli peppers) and pyaaz kachori (onion fritters) and preparations like the ker sangri sabzi (a piquant desert preparation of dried beans and tart berries). But for me, Rajasthani food shall always be the eye-popping and aromatic Laal Maas, a fiery red mutton curry cooked in a dried red chilli paste. Redolent of garlic, chillis, yogurt and more chillis, the base meat can be goat, deer or any other game meat and while sure to raise your temperature by a couple of notches, this food of the Rajput warriors will transform food into a sensory experience intended to fire your blood with new life and vigour.

Litti Choka (Bihar)
This traditional celebratory food, this spiced wheat and powdered lentil ball is infused with fragrant ghee and roasted over coals or a chulha (traditional oven fired by cow dung cakes), or even deep fried. This cross between bread and savoury fritter is accompanied with chokha, a delicious flame-roasted eggplant and tomato preparation. Litti-chokha is a wholesome meal in itself to be had on winter evenings by a raging fire and while time-consuming to make, is equally comfortable in both urban and rural settings.   

This was published in The New Indian Express Bangalore on 19 February, 2015

Around India in 29 plates (Part I)

India has long been regarded as the land of diversity, and in no segment is that more apparent than in its food which is as varied as its topography and  the culture of its people. Drawing inspiration from the local produce, climactic patterns, aesthetic influences and historical background of a place and its people, food is a true reflection of the nation’s polymorphous identity and in this series, we take you around the country in 29 delicious plates. This week, we introduce some of the standout and perhaps uncommon dishes that reflect the diverse metropolises that are Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

 Sitaphal Cream (Mumbai)
This simple and uncompromising dessert is a perfect representation of a city which is always on the go, always open for business and rarely sleeps. A city teeming with people, Mumbai belongs as much to the shanty-town dweller as it does to the Bollywood stars who live in their skyscrapers away from the ground-level grime and dust. Mumbai is a city of possibilities and disillusionment. Hundreds of dreams die every night and new ones are born in its place. In such a city of global cuisine and vada pav, the Sitaphal Cream silently holds its own. Invented at the iconic Haji Ali Juice Centre, this seasonal dish is incredibly popular and standing and relishing a bowl of this dish with the waves crashing behind you and the city going about its frantic life is an experience akin to none. And it’s really quite simple ­— custard apple or sitaphal and cream are served together with some sugar and a dash of vanilla. A juicewallah came up with this divine concoction and it has flown off his counter since then and has not been replicated in the best restaurants in star hotels. While the custard apple ice cream is common enough, the fruit cream is a rare dish and the best part is that it comes at a price point that makes its accessible to all — from a skyscraper dweller indulging in a late night dessert to a balloonwallah counting out the saved up rupees for this treat, the Sitaphal Cream belongs to all.

Daab Chingri  (Kolkata)
This sophisticated delicacy is an exercise in innovation. This dish is believed to be an adaptation of something called the Malay Curry, a recipe that travelled with migrant workers and the colonisers as trade flourished between this all-important erstwhile capital city of the Raj and the rest of Southeast Asia. The Daab Chingri is all about the tender green coconut which blesses this steaming tropical state with its plenitude. It is about the pungent yellow mustard, a Bengali’s response to the Japanese wasabi. And finally it is about the prawns, the queen of all piscine creatures, the crustacean served at every special occasion and found in abundance in the rivers and lakes of this state. In this dish, fresh tiger prawns (chingri) are marinated in a delicious green chilli and mustard paste and then inserted into fleshy and tender green coconuts (daab) and slow-cooked till the prawns are tender and have absorbed all the flavours of the coconut. This dish when cooked right is sophisticated, simple and just bursting with flavour. One could describe it as creamy golden sunshine with a taste of the sea. This is a regal dish and one that could send its eater into a rapture. It also represents the people who put great value on the finer things in life, like the perfect Daab Chingri accompanied with soft, fragrant Gobindo Bhog rice and a refreshing afternoon siesta vis-a-vis matters of industry or a life spent in fast food meals. This dish is the crowning glory of every Bengali kitchen and a testament to the culture’s obsession with all things food.

Idlis (Chennai)
While some might consider this a plain-talking dish, in my books, an early morning breakfast at the Murugan Idli shop in Besant Nagar, with a view of the expansive beach and the blue curling waves in the distance is unmatched. The texture of those warm fluffy idlis with a delicious array of chutneys as well as the aroma of the sweet-sour-spicy sambhar is something that could make me roll out of bed every day of my life. Capturing a unique ethos of the city that combines daily living with tradition and functionality with flavour. Somewhere in between the city’s sunny days, cultural pursuits and political brouhaha, there is always time for this delicious breakfast served on a banana leaf bookended by frothy cups of strong filter coffee and great conversations.

Whole Mango Kulfi (Delhi)
This winner of a dessert is the stuff of sheer ingenuity and a perfect fit in this city of immigrants and erstwhile refugees who have survived and flourished by dint of their ingenuity alone. Old Delhi is a bastion of business which drew in merchants, traders, khansamas, artisans and labourers, basically anyone who had a skill to hawk and a business idea to sell. This congested walled city then became the place for innovations and food like no other. While the culinary delights of Purani Dilli are neverending, there is something about this particular dish that has just embedded a certain blazing summer day under the arches of an old haveli into the brick and mortar of my mind. I ate this kulfi at Pandit Kuremal’s Kulfi Shop in the gullies of Chandni Chowk. This magical dessert is clearly one of the best things I have eaten in this city. The whole mango is sliced, deseeded, stuffed with kulfi and put back together. When it is served later, the mango is peeled and you get delicious chunks of fruit with your creamy and icy mango flavoured kulfi. This dessert could give many exotic ice creams a run for their money and combines the best things about summer – Alphonso mangoes and ice creams in one fell sweep. For me, this is the best indigenous homegrown ice cream there could ever be and a lasting taste memory of the capital city.

This was published in The New Indian Express on 29 January, 2015

For the love of Biryani

For anyone who has grown up in Kolkata, biryani is the holy grail of food in the city and one that is available in plenitude, around street corners, in nondescript eateries, five-star establishments and historical hole-in-the-wall establishments. The distinguishing mark of this biryani is the gleaming white boiled egg and the delicately spiced potato perched on top of the otherwise Lucknowi style of dum pukht biryani. Having been weaned on this particular meat-rice-egg-potato combination my entire life, in my later migrant wanderings, while I discovered much by way of food, the perfect biryani remained elusive even as I trawled the back alleys of Jama Masjid and Nizammuddin in Old Delhi, the heart of Mosque Road in Bengaluru and Mohammed Ali Road in Mumbai. It is true that my quest has been far from perfect and I have missed the the two essential stops on the biryani map. Lucknow and Hyderabad, rival bastions of biryani, still remain like hidden pearls.

I have however eaten countless degs of this dish inspired by the styles propagated by the two cities. From Luknowi dum pukht biryanis by specialist cooks to numerous plates of Hyderabadi biryanis from various establishments called Hyderabad Biryani House serving up a spectrum of the dish ranging from virulent to dull-orange.

The entire point of this prelude is that I stuffed by belly with many artery-clogging plates of biryanis, always to return home disappointed. In all those years that I lived away from home, the only plate of biryani that has sparked my taste memory has been a plate of reheated biryani brought by a friend from the legendary Paradise Hotel in Secunderabad.

Even though this box had spent a few hours on a flight before landing up on my plate, the taste was unmistakable and from the saffron-laced long grains of rice to the spiced gravy from the melt-in-the-mouth pink mutton pieces to the mirch ka salan, this pukki-style biryani was as different from the Kolkata-style one as could be and yet it was a keeper in my taste memory.

Many years later, while doing the usual weekend round of our neighbourhood high street, Indiranagar, I spotted a sign which immediately jogged that half-remembered memory. While I may not be an expert on the original Paradise, my sample portion being too small, I know that it is spoken of with the same reverence that I have for my  much-loved Kolkata-based eateries.

While this gleaming avatar of Paradise on CMH Road may not score high on the character and history attached to these legendary joints, it is a smart fuss-free modern format that works for the diner on the go and also serves up a pretty good biryani. And even though   it missed the egg-potato accompaniment, it did check many of the other boxes.

Our group arrived in the middle of a chaotic day as the restaurant had just opened and despite being hungry, we were also feeling rather charitable. And even if it took a few long minutes, the food did arrive without too much of a delay, only our lime sodas were forgotten till the very end, but given the biryani in front of me, I could wait. The mutton biryani was flavourful with the trademark pink-tender mutton pieces, a surprising find in a city where the meat has always been a bit too chewy for my liking. Layered with a rich and flavourful gravy, this typical Hyderabadi pukki biryani came with a cooling raita and a mirch ka salan.

Unlike the over-spiced orange rice in most packaged Hyderabadi-style biryani, this dish with individual grains of white, yellow and saffron-coloured rice, although spicy was also a complex combination of flavours.
Apart from this, their chicken biryani, something I usually avoid like the plague due to the tendency of the over-large pieces to dry out, was rather good.

A plate of chicken tikka did not disappoint though it was a tad on the spicy side. Their mutton tikkas were really well-grilled and tender.  Comparisons always tend to be scathing in their dismissals and a tad unfair and while I am sure there will be those who will argue about the merit of the original joint vis-a-vis these far-flung outposts, Paradise brings to Bengaluru a flavour of an old city and its Nizami kitchens albeit in a 21st century package.  

This was published in The New Indian Express on 24 January, 2015

Decoding Kerala with a Brief and Whimsical Lexicon

In Fort Kochi, one can never be far away from a good meal, a story and a picturesque photo-op. These are epic tales of a God that resides in these parts and is sometimes benevolent and sometimes not. There are fishermen’s songs whose timbre matches the ebb and flow of the tides; tales of men with red and green faces whose dance chases away the nightmarish hobgoblins; stories of food that makes you weep with its aroma of love, loss and longing. These picture-stories are memory stamps of spectacular sunsets, a hundred shades of green, tinkling laughs and an everlasting romance with the backwaters...

A for Avial
Avial, a simple, steamed vegetable dish transformed  with freshly ground coconut and tempered with just a hint of mustard seeds and curry leaves. It is highly recommended that you eat avial as a soothing first course before the fiery spice-laden fish curries and pepper fries arrive. It is also recommended to eat this wonderfully fresh and flavourful preparation straight off a banana leaf with a mound of steamed rice and preferably a view of the serene backwaters. 

B for Banana
Surrounded by the swaying fronds of young banana tree and lulled into catlike contentment after gorging on flaky and tender banana fritters, it is hard to escape thoughts about the banana plant in Kerala. There is a single-minded obsession with the fruit as the people eat it as chips and chops, jams and jellies, cakes and candies. Grown in every backyard, big or small, eaten in nearly every form sweet or savoury, the banana is an omniscient presence and a familiar green stain along the whole coastline. The banana fruit carries with it memories like those of grandmothers making the delicious puttu for breakfast and the sound of the gentle waves of the narrow backwaters where rural country boats laden high with freshly plucked bananas, make their way to the local markets.

C for Coconut
Coconuts in Kerala are scattered all over the land. Nestled in sheltered boughs and protective fronds, these moon-like spheres come of age under the sun and by the sea. From a tender green fruit to a browned and hardened nut, their sweet water and milk nourishes the men and women of the soil. They form the mysterious quintessence of fish curries, pot roasts, avials, and custards. They reveal a glimpse of a kitchen in thrall of this all-purpose fruit that cooks and priests offer obeisance to.  

C for Chinese Fishing Nets
The Chinese went in two by two...hunting for the fish that had vanished from their own seas. They built giant creaking contraptions like the machines of Mordor. These nets were the scourge of the sea as well as the boon for starving fishermen. Today, they are silent sentinels of bamboo and net that are silhouetted against the docks. Their catch serves this quaint and historical erstwhile fishing village. In Fort Kochi, it is likely that every time you see the sign which says Catch of the Day, its probably found its way to your plate through the Chinese Fishing Net. 

K for Kathakali
The Kathakali dancers twirl in a frenzy of skirts and swords as they tell stories of gods, emperors and folk heroes. They bicker, growl, joust and dance. They are the immortals for the night that they spend on the stage, outside their body, their time and their context. They fence with papier mache sabres. The gods and demons who are stabbed and burnt as the story unfolds in a crescendo of drums and music. They collapse into a heap of red, white and gold. They live and die with their eyebrows puckered in surprise.

S for Spice Market
While the Spice Market had many treasures to reveal, it was home to the wonderful allspice, a miniature globe containing the whole world within its circumference. All the spices in the kitchen dropped their essence into this tiny, innocuous, mud-coloured ball and it bloomed into existence as the Queen of exotic flavours. This apart, the myriad coloured peppers, the rolled and aromatic cinnamon bark, the multitude of dried berries, each with its own medicinal and cooking instructions, a spice market in Matancherry, Kerala is an experience akin to walking into God’s own kitchen.

U for Uruli
Uruli, the light of my kitchen, the fire of my stove, my faithful cauldron of delight. Oo-ru-Lee...the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Oo. Ru. Lee. It is a cooking utensil unlike any other. With its versatile uses, its wide and deep-bottomed character and its ability to heat and cook food to that miraculously perfect temperature, this one merits being lugged across the world. 

V for Vallom
Vallom or the typical Kerala country boat is both livelihood and instrument of leisure. As the laidback life of the backwaters unfolds with each dipping motion of the vallom sluicing through the tranquil waters, one cannot help but settle into a peaceful self-reflection. This one is a ubiquitous part of the landscape from public transport to fishing boats, from a romantic honeymooning couple’s ride of choice to a local lad’s school bus.

This was published in The New Indian Express Bangalore on 15 January, 2015

Tales of Spice and Curry

It is not often that one meets a chef and food writer who is an ex British RAF pilot, a stage lighting specialist an an expert on all things curry. But then again Pat Chapman is not your regular bloke. This bright-eyed 64-year-old has visited India 44 times and his personal roots lie firmly intertwined with the history of India. It is not much of a surprise that Chapman carries the sobriquet of Curry King confidently and is as eloquent with his knowledge of the different masalas and spices as he is deft with preparing dishes based on andaaz. Recently in town for a special demonstration on marinades and grills, Pat Chapman held forth on what curry meant for the British people and how he has in his own way tried to popularize the concept without owning a restaurant, or manufacturing ready-to-eat TV dinners a la Sir Noon to the populace, thus making it nearly as ubiquitous as the neighbourhood fish and chips in 21st century UK.

According to old family records and his grandmother's stories, Pat Chapman can trace his history right back to the first British presence in the country. In a tale that reads straight out of a great East-West novel, Chapman's great great great grandfather came to India with the East India Company merchants way back in 1715. Not too much is known of this period and it is only in the the mid-19th century that the trail picks up again with his great grandfather who was enlisted in the British army and was living in India with his wife and infant daughter. As the tide of favour turned against the ruling powers and found expression in the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, great violence ensued throughout the country. Chapman's great-grandfather and his wife were killed and the little daughter ended up as the sole survivor of the family. Although she was raised in England, the moment she came of age, she returned to India to study at the St Joseph's College, Nainital and lived here till things got unpleasant for the Raj. Her daughter, Patrick's mother was also born in Nainital. When his grandmother did return to England, she carried with as a legacy, a wealth of culinary knowledge from the country. And it was this legacy that she passed on to her grandson Patrick.

Patrick grew up eating Indian food at a time when it was a rare thing in England. "I remember in those days there were 6 Indian restaurants in all of Britain while today, there are over 9000. Things are very different now and everything is available in your local mom n pop store. When I was young, I remember my grandmother ordering spices from the chemist as that was the only chance of getting a hold of them," says Chapman.

Growing up in the wake of a post World War II England, Patrick developed an interest in curry as a hobby. Since he had grown up eating Indian food, he decided to take his interest and knowledge a step forward by helping out friends, colleagues and acquaintances with recipes and information about spices. In keeping with this, he founded the Curry Club, an offline social network (this was 1982) to disseminate information about Indian curries. This hobby expanded into a full-time profession and very soon, Chapman was a consultant, cookery show host and food writer with his recipes and knowledge about Indian food making him a much coveted expert in the field. It is thus quite apt that Pat Chapman was in fact invited by the Kerala government to give a talk on spices at an agricultural fair.

According to Chapman, the term 'curry' which has been appropriated into the British culinary vocabulary today, is a word that is unmatched by anything else from another geography or another cuisine. "The word curry describes a dish, a meal and the food of a nation and I don't think that there is anything quite like it," says Pat Chapman. Chapman who travels across Britain giving cooking demonstrations and teaches amateur as well as first-time cooks the nuances of spices, encouraging them to move beyond the Chicken Tikka Masala and its clones realizes that the diversity of Indian food is far too great to be captured by curries alone. "Since the earliest settlers and consequently the earliest restaurants in England were the Punjabis, that is also the Indian food which has remained most popular in the nation. Today, we have broken away from the stereotypical pastiche of Indian food that used to dot every menu in London. Chefs are introducing regional cuisine as well as fusion," says Chapman even though he remains a purist who loves the authentic and often fiery nature of curry rather than hybrid versions of the same.

Chapman stands as a beacon of Indian food in a foreign land helping make it global, accessible and giving it the recognition that it deserves. He is the undisputed curry king who loves his Goan Vindaloo which he believes gets its right flavour only with the hard-to-get toddy vinegar and the high levels of heat that might make most people squirm, but rests easy in the belly of the 'Curry King' .

(this was published in the New Indian Express, Bangalore on 1 November 2014)

Durga Puja: a time to eat and pray

 It is a fact universally acknowledged that conversation at a Bengali dinner table will inevitably revolve around food and matters of the digestive tract. And it is in perfect sync with this idea that almost every big or hole-in-the-wall shop selling sweets and fried savouries is flanked by a medicine shop for that quick after-meal pudin hara digestif. Thus for any self-respecting Bengali, all festivals big or small are as much about the special foods prepared for the occasion as they are about the rituals and religiosity. Durga Puja, which is the biggest festival of the Bengali calendar is an occasion to pray to the goddess, show off the entirely new Puja wardrobe (with a new daytime and nighttime outfit for each of the five days) and eat with abandon and without a care for diets or restrictions otherwise followed through the year. And this is hardly a tradition restricted to Calcutta or the big metros across the country. Every community or household puja in India, has its own special menu for each day of the festival. Typically, most Bengali households close their kitchens for the five days of the puja and queue up for the afternoon bhog. The evening is a different ball game altogether when all and sundry dressed in their Sunday best make their way to the numerous food stalls and gorge on deep fried and terribly delicious temptations on offer. Here is an easy primer to help identify the foods blessed by the goddess and eaten by her ever-hungry devotees.  

Bhog
Among one of the unique aspects of the Durga Puja is the fact that there is a clear demarcation between sacred food or food that is offered to the goddess and then eaten by her devotees and street food. Bhog (or the offering to the goddess) is typically vegetarian and comprises Khichudi (the Bengali version of Khichdi or Kedgeree). This wholesome dish has its own special recipe in every puja pandal and household. Accompanied by deep fried vegetable fritters and a mixed vegetable preparation, the khichudi, while varying in its sweet and spice index, remains a community puja food, cooked in giant cauldrons and relished by thousands on a daily basis. Dashami is usually celebrated with a lavish meal of Kosha Mangsho (dry spicy mutton) and Luchis (the Bengali version of pooris made with maida).

The Street Food
Large food courts serve tangy chaats, jhaal muri (the Bengali version of the popular bhel which is dry puffed rice with julienned onions, green chillies and peanuts and topped with a generous sprinkle of mustard oil), fat kathi rolls overflowing with kebabs, fried and crumbed fish fillets, chicken and lamb.
Interesting Bengali innovations and Puja pandal favourites include the Dimer Devil or the Egg Devil (a hard boiled egg covered in a minced layer and then crumbed and fried), the Kabiraji Cutlet (literally the poet’s cutlet where minced mutton or chicken is crumbed with bread and covered with a layer of egg to create a greasy, filling) and the mochar chops (a minced banana flower filled chop). For those looking for a more substantial meal, there are numerous specialties like Hilsa fish and prawn stalls offering generous portions of curried, steamed and fried fish with mustard sauces and steamed rice. Then there is the Kolkata-style biryani — a unique evolution of the saffron yellow Awadhi biryani, but with a whole boiled egg and potato.
There really are no rules and from all— vegetarian thalis to tacos and burritos, the Durga Puja street food courts straddle the local and the international, the big brands and the neighbourhood caterer with equal laissez faire.

Anandamela
Literally translated as a fun fair, this all-woman initiative brings together families, old and the young as they turn cooks as well as entrepreneurs for an evening. Wives, daughters and mothers of committee members and associates of a particular puja whip up their family favourites gleaned from age-old recipes and set up little stalls to sell their produce. From pickles to pakoras, from cakes to pilafs, the sky is the limit and the imagination is extraordinary. This little food festival encourages healthy competition between the ladies and also provides first timers with a perfect and expansive introduction to Bengali cuisine.

 This was published in the New Indian Express, Bangalore on 29 September 2014

Soul fish from the streets of Punjab

Nearly every neighbourhood Punjabi dhaba worth its salt in Bangalore boasts fish
Amritsari on its menu and it is one of two fish dishes to find a prvileged spot in
generic menus inspired to give those craving boti and roti (meat and flatbreads),
a quick introduction to North Indian food.

While Da Vinci might argue that in simplicity lies the ultimate sophistication, to the
common man, simplicity could also be well be earthy, wholesome and a touch
loud. Just like the zippy Fish Amritsari. Bursting with spices, colour and tang,
this bright orange-yellow double fried piece of crisp fish is a party in your mouth.
If Fish Amritsari was a girl, she would be a simple, traditionally dressed country
lass doing a crowd-stopping number at the newest disco!

Perhaps the second most ubiquitous Punjabi dhaba snack after the tandoori
chicken is the Amritsari fish that has riven itself from its provincial beginnings
into widespread acceptance across the country and even on foreign shores.
Everywhere the Punjabis went, their culinary traditions followed and butter
chicken, which has established its dominion over the world of global curry, is
a case in point. The Fish Amritsari is not too far behind in the race where it is
served up in forms as diverse as a Norwegian salmon-based kebab, an Indian
style fish and chips and even a sushi roll in restaurant menus across the world.
Like many other Indian dishes, the Fish Amritsari straddles many Indias where
it graces tables at fine dining restaurants of the metros, erstwhile colonial clubs
of India with a stiff upper lip heritage and nondescript stalls in dark alleys of tier-
3 cities. It is, however, most comfortable in a world populated by weather-beaten
faces, blue-and-white Bata Hawai chappals, rugged unshaven faces, large trucks
with neon signs, camp cots and dusty highways.

This deep fried fish tikka with overwhelming notes of ajwain (carrom seeds),
lemon and chaat masala actually finds a respectable place in the annals of
Indian culinary history despite its humble character. While it may be a poor
descendant of its royal Mughal forbears and an across-the-border version of its
Lahori counterpart, it nonetheless holds its own in any gathering of connoisseurs.
The marinated fish dishes from the Mughal and Nawabi kitchens with their rich
array of exotic spices found an echo in the villages and taluks of undivided
Punjab. Thus both Lahore and Amritsar, hoarding their supplies of fresh sole
and carp fish from the Ravi and Beas rivers, came up with a home-grown rustic
spice rub which they slathered on to the chunky boneless fillets, dipped them
in a flour/chick pea flour and deep fried them twice to their preferred levels of
crispness. This snack quickly caught on and every street food vendor, dhaba and
kebabwallah worth his salt was soon deep frying his way to the bank.

The best Fish Amritsari is usually bright orange, fresh off the griddle and piled on
to a simple thali, with some raw onions, lemon quarters and liberally doused with
chaat masala and preferably a fizzy cola on the side. The secret to a good piece
is that it must be eaten fresh and crisp. Let it grow cold and the fish separates
from its sagging orange wrapper. Serve it on a cold winter night around a raging
bonfire with boisterous company and there will be merriment, songs and perhaps
even an occasional brawl. "Amritsari" and "Lahori" are mere geographical
markers of its origin, the real heart of this everyman favourite lies in street stalls
in crowded and colourful markets full of smoke and aromas that fire the belly and
imagination alike.

(this was published in the New Indian Express, Bangalore 15 Sep 2014)

The Supernut

(A version of this article appeared in Food Lover's Magazine Dec-Jan '14 issue)

 “When an almond tree became covered with blossoms in the heart of winter, all the trees around it began to jeer. 'What vanity,' they screamed, 'what insolence! Just think, it believes it can bring spring in this way!' The flowers of the almond tree blushed for shame. 'Forgive me, my sisters,' said the tree. 'I swear I did not want to blossom, but suddenly I felt a warm springtime breeze in my heart.”

― Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis

 It is perhaps the abundant heart of this tiny kernel that has transformed the almond into a talisman down the ages. The ancient Romans would shower their newlywed couples with almonds, believing it was a symbol of fertility and there are numerous references to the almond in the Bible as a symbol of plenty. Interestingly enough, these symbolic attributes were ascribed to a nut that was equally a thing of nourishment as well as the raw material for a deadly poison, making it a study in opposites. The bitter wild almond upon processing creates the toxic cyanide. The poison retains a unique smell that has tickled the acute olfactory senses of wily old ladies as well as hardboiled sleuths alike. Their knowledge of this signature scent of bitter almonds have allowed many a Miss Marple to solve a cases and save lives with a series of well-timed sniffs.

At some stage of human history, the sweet non-toxic variety of almond was discovered giving rise to the ubiquitous nut that quickly became a part of our daily food intake. From the flaked almonds in the morning muesli to the chopped nuts in the brownies and cakes, to the luscious paste of almonds in Indian gravies, this versatile genius with its creamy and nutty flavour combination became a perfect addition to drinks, savoury dishes, desserts and even liqueurs. From almond chocolates to rich Mughlai pasandas, from the delicate French macarons in rainbow hues to the sticky ghee-laden badam halwa, the possibilities were as calorific and artery clogging as they were endless and divine. And then there was marzipan. Wedding cakes, Princess cakes, Christmas Cakes and a child's delightful birthday cake would be robbed of elegance, imagination or style without its almond candy icing.

One could dedicate a whole book to marzipan and how it breathed a new life into the art of confectionary. In the days before stodgy fondant, marzipan rolled over desserts made them happier and prettier. This pliable mix of sugar and almond meal could be nudged into a whole variety of shapes and textures that could top off plain looking cakes and toffees and make them the stuff of a child’s sweetest fantasy. Marzipan characters have been the highlight of many a birthday cake and often more exciting than the more flavourful interior of the confection. My memories of a zoo cake for my eighth birthday complete with its menagerie of giraffes and zebras and my exquisite 1st wedding anniversary cake with its blue roses, will be my foremost memories of marzipan love.

The mystique of almonds goes beyond its identity as the star of the pantry. The almond-shaped eye is an aesthetic representation of geometric perfection. It is the evocative beauty of the pink and white almond blossom immortalized by Van Gogh’s exquisite painting that exploded in the tapestry of my mind in all its colour, light, shade and magnificent glory. Amsterdam will forever be denoted in my mental map of the world as a little blue and white shaped patch of almond blossoms.

Almonds will always be the magic stuff that emerged from the Kabuliwalla’s bag of goodies. It will be the nut whose name will be pronounced in a strange rich accent. It will be the nut that forever connects hime with his home. It will be the soul food that lessens the loneliness of this world-weary traveller by giving  him an unlikely companion -- a little girl called Mini who reminds him of all that he has left behind.

A thing of beauty and terror all at once, the almond is life and death -- a dream ingredient in every dessert chef's arsenal, the chief ingredient in the poison capsules worn by spies, terrorists and dangerous cult groups. It is the nourishing must-have in a new mum's larder and a vegan's substitute for nearly everything, an almond deserves every bit of its superhero status.

The Fragrant Tale of Biryani

(A version of this article appeared in Food Lover's Magazine Oct-Nov '13 issue)

Since rice is a staple in vast swathes of the subcontinent and is also abundantly available, it assumes great significance on any table both plain as well as in its fragrant avatars as biryanis and pulaos. Although these dishes are ubiquitous today, they have evolved through history and been influenced by the varied foreign influences, rice is no different. Well-cooked rice is an essential part of any meal, either as the basic carbohydrate component or the centrepiece of the table as a biryani or pulao. In both cases, the type of rice used, its cooking time, texture and aroma determines the flavour of the entire meal.

The journey from an 8^th-century caliph’s court in Persia to a 16^th century Mughal war camp to the modern day biryani chains in every city in India, is a tale of conquests, travels and trade relations.  The biryani and pulao or pilaf piggybacked its way into India on the backs of the foreign cooks that accompanied the various merchants, traders and foreign invaders. They were assimilated into the culture in different parts of the country depending on the availability of ingredients, local tastes and the variety of rice that was popular in the region. The earliest biryani can be traced to the 14^thcentury when Timur or Tamerlane, Babur’s ancestor visited India on conquering raids and probably introduced this particular Persian dish into the native cuisine. It was in the Mughal Emperor Akbar’s kitchens that the Indian biryani was born. As Lizzie Collingham writes in her book on the history and culture of Indian cuisine, Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerers:

Akbar ensured that the central Asian culture and Persian influences melded with Hindustani culture to create a Mughlai culture which was a synthesis of all three. The same process of synthesis went on in the kitchens. Here the delicately flavoured Persian pilau met the pungent and spicy rice dishes of Hindustan to create the classic Mughlai dish, biryani.

 Travelling across India, one will find a local variant of biryani and pulao in nearly every state of the country. From the long-grained saffron laced goat meat biryani made famous by the Nizams’ kitchens in Hyderabad to the short-grained spice and dry fruit laden Thalassery biryani popular all along the Malabar Coast, there is a nuanced difference of texture, spice levels and cooking techniques that make the biryani a unique and much debated over dish wherever you go. The basic difference between the biryani and pulao lie in their cooking styles rather than ingredients. While the biryani uses the technique of layering parboiled rice and meat and then cooking them in the dum style (cooking by sealing the dish to trap the flavours), the pulao is cooked together with spices, vegetables and/or meat. This is also known as the kachchi or raw style and many debates range over whether a rice dish cooked in the kachchi style is biryani or pulao.

It is a well-known fact that the elegant and flavoursome Basmati is the favourite of biryani makers across the country. Not only does it add to the aroma and texture, it also forms the aesthetic bridge between the local pulao and its sophisticated relative from the city, the lovely biryani. It is this basmati that is the main element in biryanis as diverse as the Calcutta-style biryani with its potato and egg component as well as the Bangalore biryani with its coriander and mint accents. The basmati rules the roost whether it is in the Nizami speciality from Hyderabad or the Awadhi Dum Pukht biryani from the famous chefs of Lucknow. Unfortunately, although the Basmati might be the chosen rice, it is fairly expensive and cannot be the stuff of daily home-cooked meals. There are other cheaper and local varieties of rice that have been adopted to make different types of biryani. The most famous among these is the Kaima or Khyma rice used to make the popular biryani of the Malabar region known as the Thalassery biryani. The medium grained Sona Masuri rice available in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka is often used a substitute for Basmati while making biryanis and pulaos and many feel that this version is gentler on the digestive tracts.

Apart from biryanis, there are a number of classic pulaos from various parts of the country which get their unique flavours as much from the local ingredients as from the rice used. Jadoh, a Khasi delicacy from Meghalaya uses short grained rice called Joha which is then mixed with spices, fresh ginger, garlic and meat (usually pork) to create a tasty and wholesome staple which is eaten in households and available at nearly every street corner in specialized Jadoh stalls. Bengalis around the world swear by the delicately flavoured Bengali Mishti Pulao or Sweet Rice made with the incredibly fragrant short-grained Gobindobhog rice which is cooked with peas, cashews, raisins and sugar, ghee and whole spices and coloured yellow with turmeric. This pulao is usually cooked for feasts and festive occasions and is delicious on its own or as an accompaniment to spicy meat and chicken dishes or lentil curries.

Whatever be the rice, one thing is certain that the dish complements its maker and each brings its unique flavour to the pot. Pratibha Karan in her introduction to the bestselling cookbook, Biryani (2009) writes about the striking alchemy between biryani and rice –

The magic of the biryani is the way in which rice is transformed into something ambrosial – absorbing the rich flavours of meat and spice, scented with the dizzying aromas of saffron, rose, jasmine or screwpine; the white grains taking on a gem-like mien.

Malaysia truly Asia

Prologue

Malaysian food was not something I considered particularly alien or particularly exciting for that matter. Coconut, red chillies, peanuts, steamed rice, dried fish in various permutations and combinations with chicken, prawns, and vegetables had become a staple in the ever mushrooming clutch of oriental restaurants in my neighbourhood. So much so that by the time we actually decided to go to Malaysia, I had eaten enough Malay food to last me a life time and even the thought of the real deal—authentic Malay food in Malaysia—hardly inspired a spark of excitement, much less a foodgasm.

Part I  

Air Asia might be a low budget carrier, but the food is a surprise. It outshines the rubberized fare we are accustomed to in many of our full service airlines and comes piping hot in little silver foil containers. Remove the lid and you are assailed with the aromas that do more for me than the ‘Malaysia truly Asia’ jingle. They are alien and nothing like the nasi lemaks and rendangs I have had back home. Suspended thousands of feet above ground, in between countries, I ate my first Nasi Lemak in all its pungent, pickled and preserved glory. The first rumbles of excitement quickened my gut. I was ready to touch down in Malaysia.

KL glitters by night. It is Fritz Lang’s metropolis of towers and spires of chrome and glass. It is futuristic and grand sonnet in steel. As we are driven to our bed in the 22-storey tower, I watch the city in a semi slumber. The lights never go out but the people do go to bed. And our food options diminish rapidly. I will gloss over the part where we go to a McDonalds stuff our faces with a Quarter Pounder with Cheese as it is vulgar. Instead we shall fast forward to the hotel/tower with a glorious pool on the roof with a view of the famous Petronas Towers.

It’s nice to wake up to a gorgeous view of the city’s impressive skyline from the glass wall that runs along your bed and continues to the bathtub. We awoke to a new day of sightseeing and eating. Late to rise, short on time (we had one day in the city before we moved to our next destination), we sped through Petaling Street with its impressive gates opening on to an older world removed from the glamorous malls and corporate skyscrapers. As we stepped into Chinatown, we were greeted by strange snake-like creatures on grills, herbal concoctions being served out of beautiful Chinese tea pots in tea shops, a dozen roast ducks skewered through their hearts and precariously balanced from hooks. There were stalls selling longan (a litchi like fruit), stalls selling Chicken Rice (a specialty around these parts and an essential part of Malay cuisine) and stalls selling Indian food with virulent orange tandoori chicken hanging as organic symbols of the tri colour. Most of these stalls were right on the road. Some had a few plastic chairs and a table, while others had even less. We dodged vendors selling ‘fake originals’ and old toothless ladies waving bits of meat, till we arrived at a chicken rice stall which had a crowd around it. This was my test of any non verified establishment, big or small. If people flocked to it, it couldn’t be a complete disaster. The Chicken Rice came with a giant bowl of stock, little servings of red chilli paste, sliced cucumbers and a large portion of sliced chicken. The chicken was poached with its shiny, slightly glutinous outer skin providing nice texture. The reason this dish is so popular is because it’s a simple balancing of flavours and textures--the smooth tender chicken, the sticky grains of rice, the sharp edge of the red chilli, the cool crunch of cucumber and the hot broth to dunk your rice, chicken or your face in it (depending on the size of the bowl).

After many icy tender coconut drinks and many miles walked on burning asphalt and air conditioned mall floors, we decided to make our next food stop at the giant among malls – Berjaya Times Square. From steamboat restaurants to tropical fruit salads to sushi bars, it was all under one cavernous roof. After one poached meat, we decided to go the raw way despite the very inviting Uncle Duck’s Steamboat Restaurant around the corner which beckoned with its bubbling cauldron and pile of raw meats ready to be dunked, cooked and eaten. We were distracted by the cheerful lime green and yellow exterior of Sakae Sushi and promptly walked into what I regard as my best assembly line food experience till date. Our orders were on an ipad, our food came in little tagged bowls on a conveyor belt and we got a little photo op at the end of the meal which were the best photos of us on the trip.  Our first day ended with a strange experience at a leery beery odd little bar called the Beach Café Bar which even our cabbie disapproved of saying that it was not the ‘right’ kind of place for a young honeymooning couple like ourselves although we were neither all that young or honeymooning. But a few beers later leery men and beery women look pretty much the same. And happy and hungry we swayed into a place advertised as an Argentine steak house. With glorious peppered rib-eye steaks and Argentinean vintage in our bellies, we slept like well-fed cats.

Part II 

Morning saw us ensconced in a bus on our way to Taman Negara, believed to be the oldest tropical rainforest in the world. A 4-hour bus drive brought us to the Kuala Tembeling jetty. Thereafter the road ended and a boat awaited us. It felt like a journey into the green heart of the planet. The ancient, impossibly tall trees standing as gnarled sentinels to the ravages of time.

Our resort was right at the edge of the reserve itself. I walked under the soft spray of the constant rain, I heard bird song and I ate Beef Rendang (a spicy and semi sweet meat curry) Nasi Lemak and Chicken Rice for three days which was very nice. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth and that was a good thing because the resort was quite lacking in the dessert department with bright pink, synthetic cream pastries and angry green turgid jellies on offer.

But the place was far too lovely to complain about the food. I walked over the forest on a swaying walkway in the pitter-pattering rain. I saw as the birds did, the majestic sea of green seething with life and age. Everything around me had been here since the beginning of time.

We were hungry most of the time and we ate what was on offer without a whimper. Simple no-fuss Malay food is what we got. And we were content.

Part III

We returned to KL for Christmas Eve celebrations before our flight out to Penang. Arriving in the middle of the Christmas bustle, we were ready to eat. After an overdose of the lemaks, we wanted something a little more global. And thus we discovered Changkat Bukit Bintang. This particular street was buzzing with colour, food and drink. Lined with bars, al fresco restaurants and cafes specializing in food from across the world, this was a street with character and drama. Quiet and sunny during the day, this looked like a street grabbing a quick afternoon siesta in preparation for the big night ahead.

We were lured into Giovinoby the ‘Homemade Wild Boar Sausages’ scrawled on the blackboard outside. The quaint wine shop and restaurant serving Italian and Greek food and a lovely collection of wines did live up to its promise. The home made wild boar sausage was excellent and so was the wild boar stewed in red wine.

As the late afternoon sun faded into a dusky orange, I watched the city begin to heave and awaken. As I watched the first rumblings of activity, I realized the cultural mêlée that chequered the fabric of this country. It was a traditional country keenly aware of its history, its religion, its language and its roots. It was also a supremely liberal country. A small case in point was the fact that I was sitting in an outdoor cafe, gorging on wild boar and cider near the heart of a predominantly Muslim city. Across the road, a Tamilian family in traditional attire were dumping bags of groceries from an international supermarket chain into the boot of their car. A few streets away pretty young things were powdering their noses for a raucous night of partying on the party strip at Jalan Sultan Ismail. A few intersections away, Chinese housewives were gathering their pots and pans with simmering soups and crackling roasts and making their way to the night markets on Petaling Street. While, we were eating lunch Bukit Bintang had bedecked herself with tinsel, silver bells and fairy lights. Even in the sharp humid air, the smell of Christmas cake and mulled wine were hard to miss. As the muezzin gave the call for the evening prayer, I linked arms with the husband and made our way back to our temporary home in the clouds.

Only to emerge a few hours later. Christmas Eve celebrations were in full swing. Expats, Malaysians, tourists from the sub continent, tourists from the western world jostled for space on Bukit Bintang. A group of bikers on giant machines had arrived at a pub across us. We were drinking our nth bottle of cider, digging into the roast turkey and peoplewatching. Santa hats, crackers, whistles and a street wide countdown and crazy impromptu jigs made this a Christmas to remember. We hugged strangers. We danced with new friends. We ushered in a truly merry Christmas on a balmy tropical night.

Part IV

Next morning we took a leisurely afternoon flight to Penang: the much awaited food capital of the country with its heritage buildings, its heritage food and white sand beaches. We were living in the heart of the Georgetown, the UNESCO world heritage site and the possibly the one of the most interesting and charming parts of Malaysia. Georgetown is street food paradise. On our very first night, ensconced in trishaws we made our way around the oldest part of the island just taking in the smells. There is nothing I enjoy more than sight-smelling. The aromas and odours of a city are so intrinsically twinned with its appearance that I can rarely remember one separately.

Gerogetown is not a town. It is a giant pot where culture, food and history melts into a curry that is entirely unique. The Peranakan or Baba Nyonya culture is predominant here. The early Chinese settlers married Malaysians and fused with them in an organic manner adapting their traditional food, clothes, architecture and language to a life in the erstwhile British Straits. Variously known as the Straits Chinese, Peranakan and Baba Nyonya, their food is exciting and redolent of flavours fused seamlessly to create a love child that is creative and full of surprises.

Randomly chosen off the internet, the wonderfully quaint and beautifully appointed Yeng Keng Hotel with its super nice and friendly staff was just perfect. This 19^th century mansion is a heritage site in its own right and also serves authentic Hainanese food.

From carts in the street serving up Chinese fare to Thai and Malay Indian food, this is street food paradise. Carts, makeshift stalls and a few plastic chairs is the basic infrastructure provided. But the food is fresh and delightful. I can’t help but lapse into clichés. But if there was a paradise for street food junkies, Georgetown would be it.

To cut a long list short, we ate from dusk till dawn. We ate Char Kway Teow, a staple consisting of flat noodles, assorted sea food and some veggies tossed and tossed on a wok till it waylays a hungry tourist and makes its way onto a plastic plate and a happy belly. Dim sum, banana fritters, sticky sweet rice and local fruit combos wrapped in banana leaves formed our breakfasts. Washed down with copious quantities of Ipoh white Coffee (coffee beans roasted with palm oil and either served as a flavoured premixed powder or served black with condensed milk) served on ice, we set out to explore the city. Colonial buildings, Nyonya architecture, south Indian green grocers, Chinese tea shops, massage chairs in swanky malls and a gorgeous promenade by the sea jostled for our space and time. And thankfully we were perpetually hungry.

I visited my first night market, the grand Red Garden Food Paradise and Night market which was a colourful permanent street food tent serving up everything from a claypot stew of frogs legs (which was delicious) to fried oysters, karaoke singers and the works ensuring that your night is a good one. We spent the evening wandering from one bar to the next on Upper Penang Road drinking ourselves silly at the line of bars with imaginative names and equally imaginative neon signage. We took a break to eat at the Night Market and then wound up the lovely evening with a nightcap at the gorgeous Eastern and Oriental Hotel, the grand dame among all the buildings in Malaysia with an unrivalled view across the ocean.

We spent our last day in Batu Ferringhi getting our fill of the sun and sand and NOT eating any seafood. A word of warning. Many of the seafood places with live tanks and aquariums on display housing all kinds of large and exotic creatures are traps as ‘price according to weight’ is a dubious thing indeed. We settled for a nice fish done Malaysian Indian style (in other words a fairly fiery curry with recognizable Indian spices and a dash of Malay herbs) at Helena’s Cafe and were not disappointed. Homely and full of natural flavours, the food was good and hearty. Batu Ferringhi is the assembly-line striped store wrapping to the hidden homemade toffee that is Georgetown and despite the sea and the sand, is good only for a day trip.

Epilogue:

Our last meal in Malaysia exorcised my devils and distaste in one fell sweep. Nyonya Baba Cuisinewas where we ate our last meal in the country. It was a serious name for a serious restaurant. Formerly known as the Dragon King, this was a restaurant with its heart and wok in the right place. Every dish on this family-run restaurant was lovingly created by the lady of the house and served fresh and steaming hot on beautiful red plates with delicate Chinese patterns. The restaurant was housed in an old Nyonya style building with Chinese and Malay accents. It was small, cosy and completely authentic. From the Otak Otak (fish steamed until soft as mousse in a banana leaf with an exciting array of Malay and Chinese herbs) to the deep fried and absolutely divine pork rolls served with a sweetish chilli dip, from the Hong Bak, or pork in a thick flavourful gravy to Curry Kapitam, a chicken curry with distinct Straits Chinese flavours, each dish was spicy, meaty, rich and bursting with flavour.

This was a meal to expel all pretenders who claim to know the truth about Malaysian food. The truth that is often missed by the expensive oriental restaurant in most countries and the truth that is apparent in a simple street cart in Georgetown and the truth that stares at you from red plates with Chinese patterns. That food is history and this history was contained in every mouthful of every meal that I ate in Malaysia.

(A much shorter version of this piece was published in the February issue of India Today Travel Plus)

Searching for Amritsar's Soul in a Pan of Hot Oil

While Da Vinci might argue that in simplicity lies the ultimate sophistication, I a mere, humble nobody choose to disagree. There is something perfectly vulgar in simple things. And this rough, un-pretty edge to simple things is what makes them so earthy and wholesome.

If Fish Amritsari was a girl, she would be a simple, earthy and wholesome country lass doing an item number!

Pile the virulent orange pieces of freshly fried fish high on a stainless steel thali, slap some raw onions and lemon quarters on the side, pour a few (large) shots of good ol' Old Monk rum into glass tumblers and serve it on a cold winter night around a raging bonfire...and there will be merriment, songs and perhaps an occasional brawl.
Fish Amritsari belongs to a world populated by weather-beaten faces, dusty cowboy boots/blue-and-white Bata Hawai  chappals, unshaven faces, dirt beneath the fingernails, large trucks with neon signs, camp cots and dusty highways. Take it out of this world, dress it up with vinaigrette reductions and vegetable art, pair it with a vintage French wine, serve it in expensive china, dismember it with your carefully placed fish knife and fork and you would have just destroyed the soul of Fish Amritsari, which lies in street stalls in crowded markets that fumigate your olfactory canals with their charred meat smells. It is perhaps the name "Amritsari" which gives the dish its charm rather than the actual bland looking white meat tacked on to it. It truly is the gloriously evocative name which conjures up old markets, the spires of the Golden Temple and centuries of history with a mere utterance.

My experiences with the dish itself have been wildly disparate. On the one hand Fish Amritsari is the stuff of my childhood memories. Dinners to the Army Officer's Institute located inside the impressive Fort William in Calcutta, were a weekly tradition. This grand British citadel used to be the pivot of the empire's defences at some point in history, however as a frivolous youngling oblivious to even the most obvious historicity of things, to me it was a mere cluster of walls, tunnels and buildings. The only highlight was the nice family club (the aforementioned Army Officer's Institute or AOI) which was a space for weekly entertainment, movies, May Queen balls, New Year parties and bingo nights. The point of the flashback is the connection with Fish Amritsari - a regular feature on the weekly dinner menu which maintained its spot on our preferred menu with each changing season due to my particular affinity for the dish. As a hybrid Bengali-Punjabi child who hated all the maach and maccher jhol she was fed every day (and today misses dearly), this orange fried fish preparation was something from another planet. Having none of the characteristics of the fish she knew, this dish was her own way of rebelling...by loving a fish dish that was disrespectful and considered a non fish dish according to every Bengali piscine norm because you couldn't taste the damn fish inside the orange Amritsari skin.
The second experience with Fish Amritsari was in the Deluxe Suite of Best Western Merrion Hotel, Amritsar where the weekend romantic/cultural getaway with the husband had transformed into a medical nightmare with the selfsame husband contracting dengue upon arrival. As I sat taking in the city skyline through the large picture windows of our incredibly plush room (the only bit of Amritsar I would see on this trip), I gnawed my way through a gigantic plate full of Fish Amritsari, I wondered at the popularity of this dish. The fish gleamed white inside its slightly soggy orange case which had separated from its body as it cooled. I tried to like it as much as I tried to be a good nursemaid and not have selfish thoughts about a ruined holiday...and in both cases I half succeeded...and half didn't.
This is one of my first posts where I will put up a recipe. I take no credit for it. It is in fact the much feted celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe. And like all his recipes, it is darned simple (am beginning to like the connotations of the word) and gives you a "no frills" dish swimming in authenticity and flavour.
Also I am putting up this recipe as I have strangely mixed feelings about this dish. I am not convinced it is a winner. I am not convinced it is a loser. In the midst of a crisis of indecision, I am hoping this recipe will be like a beacon of light drawing a lost sailor home or like a team mascot convincing me to believe in my losing home team.

Sanjeev Kapoor's Recipe for Fish Amritsari

Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 10 mins
Serves 4

Ingredients:
King Fish/Sole/Singhara fillets cut into fingers - 600 gms
Red Chilli Powder - 1 Tbs
Salt to taste
Carom Seeds (Ajwain) - 1 Tsp
Ginger Paste - 2 Tbsp
Garlic Paste - 2 Tbsp
Lemon juice - 1 Tbsp
Gram Flour - 1 cup
Oil to deep fry
Egg - 1
Chaat Masala - 1 Tsp
Lemon wedges - 2

Method:
Take the fish fingers in a bowl. Add red chilli powder, salt, carom seeds, ginger paste, garlic paste, lemon juice, gram flour and mix well. Set aside for a bit. Heat sufficient oil in a kadhai. Break an egg into the fish mixture and mix. Put the fingers, a few at a time, into the hot oil and deep fry till done. Drain and place on an absorbent paper. Serve hot sprinkled with chaat masala and lemon wedges.

The Accompanying Image for Sanjeev Kapoor's Fish Amritsari

Dear reader while you go through it, do take a minute to deliberate why fish in all its multicolored states and deboned avatars is still by and large an alien creature in the land of five rivers. The average Punjabi  makes fillets out of the most characterless fish, bludgeons any inherent flavour with spices and food colour into a kind of rubbery acquiescence and then usually deep fries them till even a seasoned gourmand wouldn't be able to distinguish between a piece of  wild, fresh river sole or a clump off the bottom of your shoe's sole.

I think it is quite apt to end with this piece I read in Punjab Newsline, an Internet news portal called the "Secret of Amritsari Fish". Its weird humour and surreal implications had me going from the word "fish". And I quote...

"The best fish for the dish are the verities caught from the Harike Pattan and Beas rivers."

So dear reader if you do land up on the strange shores where verities are fished out of a lake, fried and served to you with a sprinkling of good humour, you will know you have arrived in Amritsar...

In God's Own Kitchen (Part III)

A picture is worth a thousand words 

And there is a story always peeking around a corner.

It stands behind the curtains waiting for an audience

It hides in dark rooms waiting to be rescued

And it creeps through long corridors on stormy nights 

To ambush me and you. 

My stories have pictures

My pictures tell stories

Of a God that resides in coconut trees

And is sometimes benevolent and sometimes not.

Of a fisherman's songs

That match the ebb and flow of the tides

Of men with red and green faces whose dance

Chases away the hobgoblins of my nightmares.

Of food that makes you weep

With its aroma of love, loss and longing.

Of food that makes you love

And the memories that it evokes

Of a thousand tinkling laughs in a thousand glass bottles.

And so begins my story often meandering and often tall

Dear reader, do not judge me, for I might just trip and fall.

They twirled in a frenzy of skirts and swords
They bickered, they twittered, they growled, they jousted
They loved, they hated
They were men who played with dolls
They were men who fenced with papier mache sabres
They were the gods and demons from dusty old books
Brought to life by your grandmother's rusty voice
On hot summer afternoons
Cooled by bamboo curtains sprayed with scented water.
Stabbed, bruised and burnt, he collapses into a colourful heap of red, white and gold.
He dies with his eyebrows puckered in surprise.

The Chinese went in two by two...hunting for the fish that had vanished from their own seas.
They built giant creaking contraptions like the machines of Mordor. Sprinkled with fairy dust, the eye of a newt and the ancient songs of the sea, these nets were the scourge of the sea as well as the boon for starving fisherman.

In Fort Kochi, every time you see the sign which says Catch of the Day, its probably found its way to your plate through the Chinese Fishing Net. Every time you feast on the perfectly grilled fresh red snapper, think about how many hours ago it flopped to the floor with a last dying sigh after being caught in a Chinese Fishing Net? Every little crab that you ever ate around these parts walked sideways into a Chinese Fishing Net before appearing on your plate in a healthy shade of tomato red.

I always wondered why we never had gingerbread men in our country.I also wondered about the nomenclature of certain foods and why the only 'bread' in the little gingerbread man was in its name. I was more fascinated by the confection than the fairytale itself where the ginger bread man came to life. Through my travails, in the kitchen, I have peeled endless sticks of ginger. I have smelled ginger powder, eaten ginger candy, gorged on ginger biscuits, julienned ginger into elegant strips and consumed nearly a ton of ginger paste.

However, I have never ever seen a ginger bread man. And as the smells of this dried ginger factory percolated through my olfactory nerves, my heart filled with this unrequited desire to meet and eat a gingerbread man.

All Spice Market was home to the wonderful allspice, a miniature globe containing the whole world within its circumference. the Gods decreed that all the spices would drop their essence into this tiny, innocuous, mud-coloured ball and rolled it off the heavenly plates into the dense forests of kerala. With a plop it fell into the Brahmin's bowl of morning milk
And the rest as they say is all history

Thousands of years later I haggle, I shed tears and I swore like a fishwife to get my precious share of the queen of exotic spices - Mistress Allspice.

Avial, a simple, steamed vegetable dish transformed with freshly ground coconut and tempered with just a hint of mustard seeds and curry leaves. It is highly recommended that you eat avial while listening to Avial's (the Malayalee rock band) earthy rendition of Nada Nada complete with clanging guitars and metal tinged grunts and screams.

Uruli, the light of my kitchen, the fire of my stove, my faithful sidekick, my cauldron of delight. Oo-ru-Lee...the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Oo. Ru. Lee.

Hidden away in a freezer far from prying eyes and known only to a select group of die hard carnivores, beef is a rare (excuse the pun) commodity in Delhi. "beef" is also a dirty word in Delhi. Gau Mata would be a more appropriate title for this half goddess-half beast of burden. Our Gau Mata however, spends a large part of her time negotiating city traffic, scavenging rubbish heaps and languishing on the narrow dividers on arterial roads.

It is a strange journey from drinking cow urine to increase one's longevity (a practice made popular by Hindu nationalists) to eating the most succulent chunks of roast beef cooked in a mild coconut gravy and topped with a layer of crispy potato slices and fried onions. A strange journey indeed!

The red fire burned in his belly.  He clutched his sides in pain. It was an hour too late. He keeled over and collapsed in a heap.
The red, hot curry was always a dangerous idea. It had the seductive charm of a praying mantis attracting her mate. It would pull both skeptics and believers into its fiery pot of deceit.

"I told you not to mess with me," she said.
"I told you not to make me angry when I cook," she continued and patted him gently on his head.
"And I told you that you'd burn in hell, my love," she concluded with a sweet smile.

Postscript:
Just for a moment, I shall stop playing the fool
Only to say that the red fish curry is all about dreams of drool

Rub a dub dub,
Three men in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick maker.
Turn them out, knaves all three.

The nursery rhyme that always came to mind, the song that fluttered on my lips and the image that floated before my eyes, like black spots appearing before a perforated retina every time I saw a bakery.

A strange three-headed monster or divine avatar
A freakish mutant or a lesser God
Gave birth to a hundred coconuts
That went forth and conquered the world.

A hundred coconuts sunning themselves in the sun by the sea.
A hundred coconuts oozing their sweet milk over the land.
A hundred coconuts nourishing the soil with its succulent flesh.
A hundred coconuts dropped out of nowhere.
Just like a hundred fallen moons from some distant galaxy.
A hundred coconuts were reborn as the quintessence of fish curries, pot roasts and custards.

A hundred coconuts cracked open to reveal a glimpse of a colonized world of the future 
Of kitchens in thrall of this alien fruit
Of cooks offering deep obeisance to this grand oval of green
Of mothers using the hard brown nut
As a charm against all evil.
Of little children sucking the last drop sweet coconut water through cheap plastic pipes.
Of big corporations marketing the coconut and its byproducts as new age organic mumbo-jumbo

A strange three-headed monster or divine avatar
A freakish mutant or a lesser God
Gave birth to a hundred coconuts
That went forth and conquered the world.

Priestesses of this temple and storytellers beyond compare, Anu and Aniamma are the keepers of this patch of paradise. There is a bit of magic in their lives as the simple raw vegetable turn to gourmet creations beneath their deft fingers. A sprinkle of this and a dash of that yields a spectacular symphony of flavours and textures. Grand conductors of the kitchen, they cajole you into taking a ride into their world. Love pours out of their kitchens, heat exudes from the food. The land screams its history and the river sings a song through their food. One of the last frontiers of a harmonious world, eating in their kitchen is a peaceful homecoming.

finis