FOODIE SPECIAL.............. Celebrating the Hodgepodge

Celebrating the  Hodgepodge   It is the ability to throw together disparate flavours and textures  -`western'  ones, too -in a single dish that makes our cuisine `Indian' This Navratra, as we stand in our kitchens adding pure ghee to the karahi (caul dron), slowly sautéing semolina in it till the aroma of the  halwa-in-the-making mixes with incense and hawan-smells, a tiny little detail may escape us. Enveloped in the sense of purity and piety that only cooking up prasad sum mons up (and which only stirrers of ritualistic offerings know), food history may be the last bite on our minds. But it is essential, nevertheless. Halwa, that most revered of offerings in mandirs, gurudwaras and, well, “Indian“ homes, is not so desi, after all -despite floating in all the desi ghee.  My Greek friend Aliki makes it in olive oil, and fin ishes it with a dash of  cinnamon powder, instead of, well, cardamom as we do at home. But it is  as legit a halwa as my Indi an mom makes. It is also legit Greek! Indigenous, yet Foreign The halwa, of course, is only one of those many pan-Indian “Indian“ dishes that has travelled across the breadth of at least one continent to reach us. From the zenith of the Ottoman Empire to the perfumed streets of Dilli and beyond; so that whether it is the Maharashtrian sheera or the Mysore kesari bhaat, the halwa remains one of those strangely contrarian dishes in our midst:  indigenous, yet foreign -a bit like we the people! The post-World War universe has celebrated diversity. But it makes even more sense to do that  in India, the land of contradictions. Our sambhars change character every few hundred miles, as do the fish curries; our most popular snack  -the samosa -is a ripoff of the MediterraneanTurkish filo pastry, and our best dishes are as pastry, and our best dishes are as chaotic, layered, and mixed-up as our identities. What really is “Indian“ food? That is a question only fools rush in to answer. We have in our cuisine coriander, fenugreek, cumin from the Mediterranean, the perfumery and mewa from Iran, melons from Afghanistan, patata-batata from Portuguese trade and, above all, Guntur chillies from the Columbian Exchange. Like people, like food -a hodgepodge of influences and experiences. It is that hodgepodge that we celebrate in our daily lives, even if we pay scant attention to details. Did the nargisi kofte (egg wrapped in mince so that when it is cut it resembles the petals of the nargis flower) inspire the Scotched Eggs, or vice versa? Is the aloo tikki inspired by the cotol e t t a c u t l e t c r o quette, made of lamb, veal and fish? Did the chicken tikka get dunked into the chicken tikka masala, India's best known export which is not make-in-India at all? These are all culinary conundrums that leave you only half satiated as the best of feasts invariably do!  Then there is the biryani. Is it swadeshi enough? And not merely because of those strands of saffron (Iranian, because Kashmiri is so expensive) that ambitious commercial cooks put on the basmati? In fact, is it even one dish? Those are delicious deliberations, provided we make them out of the shadow of bans. Because the hand that stirred the biry ani pot is certainly not foreign. From the  puritanical, no-fuss rice and meat dish of GreeceTurkey and Central Asia, the pilaf travelled east to the subcontinent, creating a whole new category. There are biryanis and biryanis -from the subtle yakhni pulao of old Delhi and Avadh to the kachchi biryani of Hyderabad much more robustly spiced with Deccani ingredients than the pucci biryani of Avadh (where rice and meat cook separately and are finally layered on dum only to finish) to the not-without-mypotatoes concoction of Kolkata, incorporating the New World substitute for meat... And then there are the biryanis of the south – from Chettinad to Mopallah concocted via trade ties, showcasing the bounty of the home terrain. Like Food, Like People There is yet another detail: Rice itself may be un-Indian! The pre-historic Indus Valley kitchens showed wheat; rice came in later from Thailand, suggest food historians. If there's no baat without bhaat, equally, try to think  of the “Indian“ kitchen before the tomato-potatochilli days. Even better (or worse), try cooking without them. Or, try looking for pippali, the long chilli pepper indigenous to India much before Raja mircha earned its fame and notoriety and even before black  pepper dominated world trade. You are perhaps likely to find it in Italia, to where it (expensively) travelled, rather than in Patna! If it is not the ingredients, what is it that makes “Indian“ cuisine Indian? And distinctive? One of the things surely is the ability of the cooks to throw to gether disparate flavours and textures in a single dish. If “Western“ chefs celebrate a single ingredient  -truf fles from Alba, Chilean seabass, and, err, that which shall not be named from Kobe, Indian chefs celebrate inventiveness and a melange of flavours: A little chutney on the bhel, garam masala on the curry, panch phoran in the achar; heck, even the kandha poha has to be perfectly balanced in Pune: half and half of sugar and salt in the seasoning. With coriander and lime. Like food, like people.

Anoothi Vishal

 ETM20SEP15