Almond Eyes
Badam milk can be a divinely reviving drink in summer
Who would want to travel by air these days? It isn't just the risk of cancelled flights due to striking pilots or cashstrapped airlines, but the even greater risk that follows from that — of being stuck at the airport and dependent for food on what you can get there. We may be getting swanky new airports, but the dining options in them most often seem limited to the most tired and boring fast food outlets, for which, to add further insult, you have to shell out even more than usual.
A friend who works in airport catering explains some of the reasons for this. You can't use gas to cook inside airports, so have to depend on electric gadgets that are much more expensive to run. And every employee who goes inside has to have a background check by the police which is a problem in the food service industry where rapid staff turnover is common. Combine these factors with delays in security checking food consignments, which can affect perishable items, and you have food that is both bad and expensive (though he does tell me that better options are opening in Mumbai and Delhi soon).
But amid this array of soggy sandwiches, greasy rolls and microwave idlis so firm they almost bounce, there is one food item I always happily order every time I pass through Chennai airport — chilled badam milk. This is, admittedly, not inside the security checked area, and its part of a chain run by Sri Krishna Sweets, which is most famous for its Mysore Pak (or Mysurpa, as they've tried to brand it), so its not special to the airport. But it is so divinely reviving in the worst of Chennai's heat that it seems able to smooth away the worst irritations that you might encounter as you prepare to fly.
Badam milk is a slightly confusing term since it implies almond milk which is really a different thing. That is made like coconut milk, by soaking and grinding almonds with water and squeezing out a milk-like fluid. This is actually used as a milk substitute by people who are lactose intolerant, and has a long history, particularly in the Mediterranean world. But badam milk is like an almond milkshake with part of the milk replaced by kheer to give it a bit of that rich reduced milk taste, scented with saffron and cardamom for an extra delicious taste.
You can get instant powders to make it by mixing with milk and they aren't bad, either hot or cold, but the chilled version at Chennai airport is just better. Other places in the city also serve good versions and some are even richer — Shree Mithai, another sweets chain, sells badam milk so packed with chopped almonds that it's the only drink I know which has to be chewed as much as sipped. This is almost too much which is why I think the slightly less rich Sri Krishna version is a bit better. But I also admit that that I almost never drink badam milk outside Chennai airport — it has now become a habit, an expected and perfect small compensation for the stress of flying.
Different versions of this drink are made across India, and they all have energy giving associations thanks to the high value placed on almonds in ayurveda. Wrestlers, in particular, are associated with it — the anthropologist Joseph Alter in his study The Wrestler's Body: Identity and Ideology in North India, notes the strong symbolism of "the almond-grinding wrestler, who spends hours with his mortar and pestle (a strong sexual symbol in its own right) mashing his almonds into a thick, rich, golden paste. He mixes this paste with honey and milk and drinks it as a post-practice tonic."
Badam milk shades into thandai in North India, which is a slightly different concoction. Most obviously there's the bhang or hashish, which makes thandai notorious, but even without it thandai has a different taste which is partly due to the mix of nuts and seeds used, not just almonds, but also other thickeners like poppy seeds and charmagaz (a mix of melon seeds). Even more startling, for those not used to it, is the pepper that adds a lingering bite that is unusual with milky drinks. Badam milk is a soothing indulgence, but the rich, peppery kick of thandai is a stimulant, just what's needed to get you going in the summer heat.
Thandai, in fact, can be so good that I think its link with bhang does it no favour. So many tourists, in particular, now seem to expect to get a rather different kind of stimulation from thandai that it can be almost hard getting the non-spiked kind. Perhaps we need to start reclaiming plain thandai, as much as badam milk, for their very real benefits, but it just occurs to me — given that Indian airlines chaos shows no sign of ending, perhaps bhang thandai is really what we need to help us survive our airports!
No comments:
Post a Comment