During my growing up
days, going to a restaurant was a treat, most days we ate at home, a
traditional Sindhi meal- Curry Chawal, Sai Bhajji or simple vegetables (fried
or stewed). Snacks and salads were made on special occasions. A simple curd
and Papad was always served at the meals. When we visited our friends, we ate their
speciality,Gujarati cuisine at Guju friend’s house, idli-dosa at south indian
friend’s house, heavy ghee laden paratha in our Punjabi friend’s house. We
never shared recipes, we hardly talked about food..eating food was sheer
enjoyment and we came back satiated.
We have come a long way
now. We hardly find sindhi food made regularly at Sindhi homes, it is more
frequently made in my non-Sindhi friend’s home. We have become international. Pastas
and sandwiches are more common now and eating out on week-ends is so very
fashionable.
So now we have food
festivals to bring back the culture of a certain place. Many restaurants have
adopted this food festival trends to boost their business. People have begun to enjoy
different regional cuisine.
Its fun really..one more topic to discuss besides the juicy topics of who is dating whom and who is the better sinner. You go
to a friend’s house for lunch and you dissect the food, inquiring about the
recipe and how it is different from your traditional one. You click pictures
instead of saying prayers, with oily hands you jot down notes on ingredients
and cooking method (if you don’t trust your memory) and yes..you have to
discover new words to describe a dish..a boring words like “tasty” or
“delicious” is so very childish.
So while you are
chewing, you are learning…same vegetables but cooked differently in different
parts of the world. A humble potato, when boiled and mashed becomes a side dish.
Recently, I attended
Assamese Food Festival at Special School at Belapur. I stood side-by-side with
children to learn about this cuisine. I have never before tasted meal from that
part of India, so naturally I was curious. Assamese Chef Mamoni Gogoi and her
daughter were invited to cook in our school kitchen and a great variety of food
was cooked.
Mamoni had brought few
raw vegetables that are available in her part of the world. We discussed in
great details about the use of Elephant Apple, lime and those red hot chilis
“Be careful, don’t
touch the red chili, your hand will burn”
she warned me when I tried to inspect
Bhut Jolokia chili. You can imagine
its effects on your tummy lining then… (I am used to hot and spicy food..but
for delicate people, it is compulsory NO)
The smallest morsels can flavour a sauce so intensely it's barely edible. Eating a raw sliver causes watering eyes and a runny nose. An entire chilli is an all-out assault on the senses, akin to swigging a cocktail of battery acid and glass shards.
I asked her to cut the Elephant Apple because I wanted to taste it. But she said that it cannot be
eaten raw. It is boiled or cooked to make sauces or jams. It can be used to aromatimize
curry.
Preparing elephant apple isn’t an intuitive process: if eating the fruit raw and out of hand, the edible portion is the gelatinous flesh surrounding the pistons, as well as the crunchy “petals.” These may be cut lengthwise into strips, pressure cooked with a pinch of turmeric to soften, and then sautéed and stewed as a curry fry.
Not sure if she used
these ingredients in her cooking, but the fragrance from school kitchen was
heady.
There were soft hunger
pangs that were beginning to knot my tummy but I am not allowed to be greedy, (children should be fed first, no?) so I diverted my attention to clicking pictures.
Payash
Masoor Bor
Mati Dhal
Lusi
Aloo Pitika
Labra (Assamese style
mix vegetables)
Tomato Tok
Papaya Khar
I have blogged in great
detail about this event on my other blog for school. …..you read HERE
Many of our students
were aware of the food that they were served on that day, because they were
shown flash cards of the dishes many days in advance and some of the dishes
were discussed in great details,
Every child had grasped the
subject according to his ability but all enjoyed the real food.
Do read ‘Assamese Food
Festival – Part One on my other blog.
