You've got fennel in your beard

Kevin travels, eats, writes, and takes pictures. Mostly for his own enjoyment, but also for your's if you're into that sort of thing. Recipes Rants and Exposés Reviews

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Dal

Dal is one of the staples of an Indian diet.  Dal literally means "lentils" in Hindi.  There are tons of variations on Dal, depending on what things you have on hand and what your tastes are.  There are also a ton of regional variations.  Generally, the main idea is to cook the lentils in water for a while, blend them a bit, and pour an oil infusion in.

This recipe is one I've been working on for a while, and I think I've finally got it.  Although I will give it in Indian style, without exact measurements.  You'll have to experiment a bit with your ratios to fit your taste.

Ingredients:

-Any yellow lentils (tuor or moong preferably) -Red onion, diced -Serrano chili, minced -Garlic, sliced -Ginger, minced -Tomato, diced -Turmeric -Hing (asafoetida) -Salt -Coriander powder -Mustard Seeds -Cumin Seeds -Chili powder -Butter (or ghee) -Cilantro

Method:

Wash the lentils well.  Let them soak for 1 hour.  If using a pressure cooker, don't worry about soaking.  Fry the onions in a little butter until browned.  Add the ginger and Serrano.  Fry for another minute or two, until fragrant.  Take off from the heat.

Add lentils to a pot, along with salt, turmeric, hing, and water (the amount of water should be 2 1/2 times the amount of lentils, or 4 in a pressure cooker).  Bring to a boil and maintain a simmer on medium low heat for about an hour, or until the lentils are tender and cooked through.  If using a pressure cooker, bring up to pressure and cook over medium heat for four whistles, then depressurize and open.  If you need to add more water as you go, do so.

Once the lentils are done cooking, use a hand blender or wooden spoon to beat the lentils until the consistency is smoother.  Add the onion, ginger, serrano mixture, along with the tomatoes, Set on low heat with a lid, just to keep it warm.

Melt some butter in a small pot over medium heat.  Add (in this order) mustard seeds, cumin seeds, coriander, garlic, and chili powder.  Once the chili powder is in, fry no more than 30 seconds so the chili doesn't burn.  Once the infusion is fragrant, take off the heat immediately and add it to the dal, stirring well.  Add chopped cilantro and remove from the heat.

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Coming out of exile soon....

To my tens of readers: I apologize for not updating in a while.  I've just been getting acclimatized to America and an American diet, and I've been sorting through a lot of my notes and things from India.  Rest assured, there will be a few posts (Indian recipes and such) in the near future.  I have a week before I move back into college, where I will be able to get posts out with more efficiency.  Until then, I'll keep binge watching TV shows on Netflix and enjoy my time at home.

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What do you do in your free time?

I'm a big fan of reading, and recently I've been tearing my way through One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  I also do a bit of writing, poetry and fiction when I'm not doing the non-fiction blog writing you see here.  I play music a little, but not as much as I used to (mostly guitar and saxophone).  I love to do random food research, and usually spend hours wrapped up in my books or on the internet chasing down recipes and ingredients and plenty of other strange things.  I usually cook too, but due to my relatively small amount of disposable income, my cooking experiments are small and cheap.  Of course, I internet a lot (yes, you know that it's a verb by now), and I watch a little TV and movies like regular people.

If time and money were no object and all my time was free time, I would travel a lot.  Although I just got back from India, I'm already starting to think about my next adventure.  Maybe Paris in May.....I'll keep you posted.

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My Experience in the House of an Upper Class Indian Family (Part 2)

After a while, Cousin called again and told us it was okay to go home.  We went back to the house and Bhai made dinner.  I tried to sit on the floor and eat, but he wouldn't let me.  Bhai pulled the table up to the couch and insisted that I eat on the couch.  As I ate, Bhai put on the TV and switched it to an Indian movie channel.  Over the past few days, when he didn't have work, he would sit on the floor, turn on the TV, and watch Hindi movies.  He particularly liked that action scenes.  So even though I was eating on the couch, and he was sitting on the floor, we were still watching the same movie, and commenting on it every once in a while to each other.  I know it wasn't the most equal of experiences, but we were at least sharing some part of that experience.  But it didn't quite satisfy me.

The next day, I talked with Auntie, and she arranged for Bhai to show me how to cook a few things.  The interesting thing was she used the verb "dekhna" which just means to watch, not the verb for to teach.  After she left, Bhai started cooking, and really just showed me what he was doing.  Anytime I tried to help, he acted as if I didn't know what I was doing, and would insist on doing it himself.  I understand though; this guy has probably been cooking for quite a while and knows exactly what he's doing, and here comes this strange guest from America who barely speaks Hindi, and he's trying to do things in the kitchen!  Make him get the fuck out, he'll mess it all up!

As the night went on and we spent more time in the kitchen, he realized that I was genuinely interesting in learning how to cook.  I was writing everything down and taking pictures every step of the way.  When it came to making roti, which was probably the hardest task of the evening, Bhai let me help put the roti on the pan and then over the flame.  It was obvious after one or two attempts at rolling the roti that I was no good at it, so I gave up and let Bhai do it.

When it was time to eat, Bhai did the same thing he usually did; he pulled a table up to the couch, and was about to set my food down on it, when I sat down on the floor in front of the TV.  I was able to tell him in Hindi that I wasn't going to eat on the couch tonight, and that I wanted to eat on the floor with him.  So he went back into the kitchen and brought all the food out on a tray.  We sat in front of the TV, watching a Hindi movie and serving ourselves.  We didn't talk much, but we ate together on the floor for about a half hour.  

Bhai seemed to be a bit unsettled about the whole experience; it seemed out of the ordinary for him.  I'm not going to pretend to be able to read his emotions that well, but I think he was happy at the end of the night.  After dinner, we just sat and watched movies together for a while longer.  Bhai was much more friendly to me, and struck up little conversations throughout the next few days.  He stopped calling me "Kevinji" (Kevin sir) and started calling me "Kevinbhai" (Kevin brother).  On the day I left, he even walked with me down to my taxi.  He gave me a handshake, which was about the only physical interaction we had.  It was still significant, though, as physical interaction between a servant and his employer or their guests is not really done.  

I may have broken all the rules, and done it somewhat uncomfortably for Bhai, but I couldn't stand to see him working and living in such an environment.  I respect and understand Indian culture, but it certainly has its dark sides.  I've experienced living with a very wealthy Indian family, and as interesting as it was, I was very uncomfortable the entire time.  I loved my experience, but I don't think I'll be repeating it anytime soon.  I just hope that Bhai ends up alright.  He doesn't have the luxury that I do to say "I don't like this, so I'm leaving."  Bhai is bound by much bigger forces, which unfortunately don't look like they're going to be moving anytime soon.  Against my better judgement, I ended up giving him 1000 rupees as I left.  I probably shouldn't have, but he needs it much more than I do.

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My Experience in the House of an Upper Class Indian Family (Part 1)

To protect the names of the people I stayed with, I will call them by different names.  Uncle, Auntie, Cousin, and Bhai.

After my program ended in late November, I still had some time to kill before my plane left for the US.  About 3 weeks to be precise.  Through an odd bit of circumstance, I knew friends with family in Mumbai who offered me a place to stay for free for two weeks.  I took them up on the offer, thinking that living with an Indian family would give me a truly Indian experience.  So on December 1st, at 7 in the morning, I took a cab to the Delhi airport and hopped on a plane to Mumbai.  I'll spare you the details of my flight, because quite frankly, they have nothing to do with food politics.

My friend's family, I quickly found out, has two houses.  The address for their main house, in Lalbaug, was the one Uncle gave me a few weeks earlier in an email.  But when the taxi pulled up, the security guard at the gated entrance told me "Uncle-sir is out."  He suggested I call him to figure out what to do, so I did.  After a while on a terrible cell phone, he gave me the address to his second house, the one he was just moving into.  His second house is in Churchgate, a swanky area of Mumbai with all the old British buildings, close to a lot of main attractions, and right on the waterfront.  The taxi driver drove me to Churchgate, and I called Cousin.  He leaned out the window while he was on the phone, and waved at me to come up to his house.  Just to clarify, when I say house, I actually mean apartment.  But everyone here calls it a house.

As soon as I stepped inside, I smelled spices.  Auntie was in the kitchen, not cooking anything, but rearranging spices.  Bhai was there as well.  I said hello and put down my bags.  Immediately, Bhai came out and set a cup of tea and plate of biscuits in front of me.  Auntie kept asking if I was hungry, which I was, and would constantly be yelling into the kitchen for Bhai to make something or bring something or do something. Bhai would do whatever Auntie told him, usually very quickly and precisely.  He seemed to have a lot of deference for all of the family members, and even me.  Since I was a guest of the family, I was seen as an extension of the family.

That evening, I figured out what sort of thing was happening with Bhai.  Uncle told me that if I needed anything, I could always just tell Auntie or "the servant" if my Hindi is good enough.  The implication was that Auntie would translate to Bhai, their servant, who would do whatever I needed.  If I needed bottled water, as I did fairly frequently, I was discouraged from going out and getting it myself.  "Let the servant do it.  That's what he's here for."  This phrase came up very often, referring to just about anything that involved undesirable effort.

The strangest thing was the cooking aspect of their arrangement.  Although Auntie professed to be a very good cook, and very involved in the kitchen, it seemed that Bhai did most of the cooking too.  Auntie would stand in the kitchen, telling him what to do, and occasionally tasting or stirring or something.  But Bhai did all the labor.  When it came time to eat, Auntie would go sit at the table and shout into the kitchen for Bhai to bring things out.  Anytime it looked like I was running low on something, Auntie would shout to Bhai telling him what he needed to bring for me.

After a day or two, the family nearly all cleared out.  Most of my time spent in that house was just with Bhai.  As I would wake up, I could hear him putting breakfast together in the kitchen.  Almost immediately after I took a seat on the couch, Bhai would pull up a table in front of me and set down a tray with a plate of toast and a mug of Chai.  It went like that for most meals, with me sitting at the couch or table, and Bhai bringing me a plate of food, constantly refilling my bowls with Sabzi and giving me more roti.  I usually didn't have to ask for it; he would just look over and duck back into the kitchen for more of something.

Over the course of the next few days, we shared only a few words.  Bhai did not really speak English, so we used Hindi.  My Hindi isn't great, but I was able to at least convey a few simple ideas.  There was one day where Uncle was being detained and interrogated by government officials in his office, and Cousin called me and told me to escape the house immediately and take Bhai with me.  In about 15 minutes, I packed my things, ate lunch, and was out the door, telling Bhai that we needed to leave.  I still don't know if he understood what exactly was going on.  During our time out of the house, we sat at a park and watched cricket for a few hours.  We tried to converse in some simple Hindi, and although my Hindi isn't brilliant, I learned a few things.

Bhai is only 16.  He came to Mumbai when he was 13, alone.  His family still lives in Bihar, almost 2000 kilometers away.  Bhai came to Mumbai to make money for his family.  Other than a small amount of money from his salary that he uses for himself in Mumbai, the rest of his money goes back to his family in Bihar.  Bhai talked about "bara admi" and "chota admi" (big people and little people), explaining that bara admi have money, and chota admi don't have much money.  He told me that Uncle, Auntie, and Cousin are bara admi.  That's why he works for them.  But Bhai says that he is chota admi, and that's why he's not allowed to use the furniture, and why he's not allowed to eat until everyone else has eaten.  It's things like that which distinguish between bara and chota admi.  Bhai says it's okay that he sits on the floor and eats on the floor because he is chota admi.  When he has money, he will sit at the table, he says.

To be continued in Part 2....

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Biryani

In South India, one of the most popular dishes is Biryani.  Almost every self-respecting restaurant has at least one gigantic pot of it at all times, ready to scoop out a bowl and plop it in front of someone's face.  In fact, it seems that the most popular local street joints are always serving Biryani.  That's the mainstay of the working man's diet, on the streets of south Chennai at least.  Biryani is a Mughal dish, probably stemming from an older Persian form of Pilaf that has been modified to incorporate South Asian flavors and techniques.  It was extremely popular with the military because you can cook it all in one pot and it contains starch, protein, vegetables, and plenty of flavor.  Biryani is all you need in a meal.  The dish is popular throughout all of the subcontinent, but for some reason it is even more popular in the South.  There are tons of regional variations on the dish, all of which are too subtle for me to really understand completely.

Biryani is a rice dish, where the rice is cooked with spices and other flavorings.  You can always tell a good Biryani by the deep orange color that indicates saffron, although some places just use food coloring and other spices to replicate the orange color.  Most often, it is cooked with chicken, mutton, or egg.  Like a pilaf or a risotto, the rice and spices are fried in oil first to brown them and develop the flavors via caramelization, then water is added and the rice is cooked until tender.  In the South, short grain rice is usually used, and the spices usually include mace, cinnamon, cumin, nuts, raisins, and usually a healthy amount of chili powder or even whole dried chilies.  Sometimes vegetables are added as well.  In Chennai, it's common to serve Biryani with a dish of Brinjal (eggplant) curry, which is very thick and slightly bitter, and also with some raita, which is a watery yogurt mixture with cucumbers and onions mixed in.  There's also a green condiment that is extremely salty and sour, that is commonly served alongside the Biryani as well.  I still have no idea what its called because nobody seems to be able to name it.

Like any good Southern Indian, you must learn to eat with your hands if you want to eat Biryani properly.  It's actually way more fun than using utensils.  First, mix the Biryani and whichever other condiment you like together with you hand, then pinch it into a ball.  Put it on the edge of your ring, middle and index finger, held together like a spoon.  Use the back of your thumb to shove the food into your mouth.  It's simple.  Just try not to get it all over yourself and look like a foreigner.

When picking a Biryani restaurant, do not be put off by the large pots of already prepared Biryani.  As long as they're covered and in plain view as they're scooping the Biryani out, you should have no problems.  If you see a sign that says "Dhum Biryani", you're in for a treat.  This is when they take a cloth and spread it over the top of the pot and put coals on top.  The Biryani cooks from both sides, and picks up a slight smoky flavor from the coals.  You might get a piece of rice that was caramelized on the side of the pot, like at the bottom of a paella.  Eat it.  Yeah, it looks gnarly and burnt a little, but it tastes like everything you ever wanted and more.  Seriously, you know that new car you were dreaming about the other day?  The burnt bits of Biryani taste like that.

Don't expect to sit in a nice, air conditioned restaurant.  Find a neighborhood place with plastic/metal chairs, wooden tables, and one ceiling fan that doesn't quite spin fast enough to have any effect.  Especially if their menu is not in English, you know you've hit the jackpot.  If you can find a Biryani restaurant right next to a butcher, you're in luck.  The butcher and the Biryani shop usually have close ties and will send business to each other.  Plus, you're more assured that the meat is good and fresh if the Biryani place is next to a butcher.  The best Biryani shops should usually be in crowded areas near a lot of other shops, and like most good local food in America, you should see a slow but steady stream of people going in and out.  An auto rickshaw parked outside is always a good sign.  The clientele will be mostly men, probably just finishing with work, and most people will be there with one goal in mind: eating Biryani.  

It's probably one of the most local experiences I've had in my trip, and there's really nothing better than sitting in a crappy restaurant full of sweaty men all shoving Biryani in their mouths with their hands.  In that moment, with a fistful of good spiced rice, maybe a little chicken and brinjal, you cease to be anything but another part of the working city.  It's beautiful.

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Who is the usual cook in India? Are the dishes difficult to make? I am very interested to hear from you, thank you!

The usual cook is fairly similar to Western culture, in that domestic cooking is the woman's job.  Usually, large families will live in one household, and it's the most senior woman who is in charge of cooking.  Girls will learn to cook as they start to mature through puberty, usually with the intent of making them good potential wives.  Girls will usually learn to cook from their mother, or whoever their dominant domestic female figure is.  As I discussed in an earlier response, recipes don't really exist in India the way they do in the Western world.  Indian cooks go by feel almost exclusively.  There are standard dishes of course, but these are usually only based on ingredients, like aloo ghobi, which just means potatoes and cauliflower.  From there, different cooks will use different spices, cooking methods, etc. depending on their taste.  Since these women have been cooking nearly their entire lives, mostly without recipes, they have a very intuitive approach to cooking.  

However, almost all professional cooking is done by men, most of them formally trained on some level or another (a lot of them doing apprenticeships).  Although restaurant cooking is much more formulaic, recipes are still not used.  It's simply that the cooks memorize the specific method and ingredients.  They still cook by feel, but it's much less about what their tastes are than the tastes of their customers.

In terms of difficulty, Indian dishes can range anywhere from so simple a corgi could make it to difficult enough to trip up a professional chef.  Domestic cooks, since they have little else to do and are very limited in ways to experiment and express themselves, tinker endlessly with recipes.  In fact, most domestic cooks will make their recipes as complicated as possible in order to make it more elaborate, and so that others cannot claim to copy their dishes as easily.  The range of spices varies greatly depending on which region, or even which household, you are in.  In the course of a week, you could learn dozens of slightly different versions of daal.  If you want to make truly authentic Indian food, expect to be in the kitchen for a few hours and to have a lot of different stages and things that may not make the most obvious sense.  Methodology can become extremely complex very quickly.  For home cooking purposes, try to get a good base for a recipe from a reliably authentic source, and then tinker with it as you see fit to bring out different flavors, make it more complex, and suit your tastes.

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Do you think you'll eat differently when you return home? How has living in India changed your concept of food, and what you would prefer to eat every day?

What a question.  The first part is a bit easier to answer.  Yes, I will definitely eat differently when I return home.  I've been living a mostly vegetarian existence here with meat only every once in a while (once a week maybe).  I feel healthier and happier.  I'm not entirely sure whether that is because I've cut out meat from my diet, but I certainly think the mostly vegetarian style of eating is the way to go.  Especially in terms of sustainability and being a responsible and ethical consumer, it's better to make meat a luxury than a necessity.  Besides the meat question, I'll also probably start cooking more Indian food, simply because I know how amazing the authentic Indian food is, and I've been learning how to make it.

In terms of how India has changed my concept of food, I could probably write pages, but for the sake of keeping this interesting, I'll keep my answer shorter.  There are a lot of interesting issues surrounding food in India.  Take one of my recent discoveries.  In the western world, diet traditionally dictates class (i.e. higher class people can afford better cuts of meat, more spices, etc. while lower class people have to make due with worse cuts of meat and adapt their cooking methods to make due), but when two people of different classes come together and share a meal, it effectively equalizes them because they are both eating the same thing.  In India, the diet itself dictates class as well, but interestingly enough, communal eating dictates class politics even more starkly than diet.  The order food is served, the division of labor and food, all of these subtle factors give big indicators as to who is top dog at the table.  Food is one of the biggest ways people are able to assert their power in India, in terms of class.  Although India is trying to do a lot to combat this, it's so ingrained in the culture that it persists today.  This has made me consider that my previous ideas about how unifying and comforting mealtime is as a generalization.  It's put into perspective how little I know about food in a non-Western culture, and how complicated the politics of that food are.

That being said, India has really expanded my philosophy regarding food.  Like the Chinese, Indians do not believe in the "one dish one meal" approach of the West.  The administrator at one of the schools we stayed at talked with me at length about Indian culinary philosophy and said "A good Indian meal is not complete unless it has about nine different components, all in balance.  I am Bengali, so in my house, a complete meal is: rice, daal, a fried vegetable, a boiled vegetable, a curried vegetable, a dry vegetable, a pickled vegetable, a yoghurt or curd, and a sweet, or maybe two.  There will sometimes be more dishes if it's a big occasion."  That rocked my boat.  I'd never considered the amount of labor that goes into making all of those dishes.  If that's typical, then a cook would have to spend most of the day in the kitchen.  This is typically also a women's job, so these women must have a lot of hours logged in the kitchen.  Cooking becomes instinctive for them.  Recipes don't exist, because it's just a few of these, a spoonful of that, and let it sit on the stove for long enough to do its thing.  This really rocks the boat of a guy who is used to precisely tuned recipes.  It also shows that if you obsess over recipe too much, you won't have a chance in an Indian kitchen.  It's done by feel out of necessity and practice.  The idea of balance too is something that I'm a big fan of.  In Indian society, food is directly related to medicine and health.  If you feel out of sorts, a doctor might prescribe ginger and tea instead of medicine.  In fact, there are very well outlined sets of doctrines regarding which foods are hot and cold (not temperature), and which ones produce bile versus phlegm.  Because there is such a developed tie between health and food, a balanced meal is considered completely necessary.  Rather than feeling bloated, gassy, headachy, or any other side effect from a typical gigantic Western meal, if you follow Indian conventions and have a balanced meal, eating the dishes in the correct order, if possible, you will leave the table feeling full but never bad because of it.

So, basically, living in India is making me re-examine my entire approach to food, how to put ingredients together, how to create a dish, how to think out a menu plan, how to be more responsible with food, and a lot of other things that would be difficult to elaborate on.

On the what I would prefer to eat daily question, that's quite easy for me.  A dhosa for breakfast with a few chutneys and some sambar, maybe some tea as well, a big Thali style lunch with a lot of different dishes (eggplant curry, daal, chana masala, paneer, some sort of potato, to name a few) and a lot of rice, and a smallish dinner including lighter fare than I had at lunch (a salad, a curry, maybe a few pakoras, to name a few more).  Lunch and dinner would both include Indian pickles, which are spicy and extremely briny and acidic, and some yoghurt or curd.  As for Indian sweets, I admit I'm not a huge fan unless they're of the fruit or fried variety.

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What do you want to know about Indian food?

This is the unfortunate part of my journey where I have a lot of information that I can write about, but nothing in mind for any specific post.  I'm asking for questions.  What do you want to know about food in India?  Ask me using the little "ask" box on the left, or you can email me at [email protected] and I will post the response.  Ask me anything you're curious about, whether it be gender roles in food preparation, restaurant culture, regionalism, ingredients, or whatever.  Happy asking!

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Bakri-id

WARNING: This article contains graphic images and material, specifically a water buffalo sacrifice.  Read at your own discretion.  That said, it's really interesting reading.

Bakar-Id is one of the three annual Id celebrations in the Islamic calendar.  It celebrates Abraham's sacrifice over the course of three days.  Our main lecturer in Varanasi, Nita Kumar, was able to arrange it so we could go see one of the sacrifices that happened daily over the course of three days in the Muslim neighborhoods in Varanasi.  A few days later, we were piled into the school bus, like usual.  We rolled through the village as the sun rose.  The bus was silent with anticipation.

When we arrived at the Muslim neighborhood, a man met us and took us to his house to sit for a while before the sacrifice.  He showed us his family's photo album, and then showed us a video he took with his phone of the camel sacrifice the day before.  He propped the video up on a stool, and proudly replayed the part where the animal's throat was slit multiple times, to show the Americans just what exactly they were in for.  After about an hour of nervously waiting in this man's living room, not knowing what exactly was going on, we were led through a series of alleyways to a courtyard, where there were about a hundred other people, mostly men on the ground level, but one or two levels up were plenty of women and children.  

As we walked by, we saw a few men surrounding a water buffalo that had a muzzle on it.  After a few seconds of us milling about in the crowd of Muslims, they led a water buffalo in.  The butchers began washing it, and petting it, trying to calm it down.  As they were tying its legs together, the buzz in the crowd began to rise.  I found an elevated space, which had a lot of kids, probably none older than 12 or younger than five.  One little girl posed for a picture, showing a smile that was missing a few teeth.  

After about 10 minutes of the buffalo slowly walking around the courtyard, the team of about five butchers were ready.  They approached the animal and gave it a few big splashes of water from a plastic bucket.  After being slapped and petted by enough people, the buffalo must've gotten scared.  It shat itself, and all that was left in its bowels was washed away with another bucketfull of water.  The butchers tried to calm it down, working faster but with just as much care.  They gave it a drink of water, both to calm it and clear the windpipe for the knife.  The butchers carefully fit the animal's legs through lengths of rope that they cinched until it fell.  I'm sure it would have made a sound, but the butchers held an improvised muzzle of rope and garden hose over its mouth.  As the animal lay on the ground, it could barely fight back, and about eight men immediately came and sat on its side as they spun it around by its tail.  At this point, the buffalo was done trying to fight.  As it was being turned around it pissed itself too, which was once again washed away by a bucket of water.

I saw one butcher sharpening a knife, and the crowd gathered closely around the animal in anticipation.  I made my way to the edge of the crowd, trying to get a good picture.  As soon as the men noticed that I was trying to take pictures, I was enthusiastically shoved to the front where a friendly man about my age was shoving people out of the way for me to get the shot, lining me up for the best angles.  I found a great spot and hunched down with my camera, taking a shot as the butcher put the knife to the buffalo's throat.  

"Bismillah!  Allah hu akbar!" was the cry that they shouted as the knife was raised and sliced clean through the buffalo's throat.  Although I wouldn't have noticed what words they were saying if nobody had told me.  It didn't sound like words, just an excited crowd.  In about four seconds and four strokes of the knife, the animal was dead.  I was at a perfect angle, which meant that I was in the spray zone.  Blood sprayed onto my feet as the animal bled out.  The majority of it gushed out within the first few seconds from the neck, but more kept coming for the next half minute or so.  It was a quick death.  Only four or five seconds of pain, but the muscle spasms continued for about a minute, mostly in the legs and abdomen.  

As soon as the spasms were subsiding, the butchers flipped the buffalo on its back and took off the rope.  They skinned it and began sectioning it, with at least two butchers working at a time.  Once it was skinned, the same butcher who killed it took a gnarly looking axe and hacked open the sternum.  Their knives looked terrible, but they were extremely sharp, making the buffalo look like butter.  With a nonchalance that spoke to their comfort with their profession, the butchers made every cut expertly and quickly.  They had a formula down, and it was beautiful to watch as their knives danced through the animal, dividing it just as the anatomy of the animal demanded.

I watched the whole process, taking pictures all the way.  Everyone around me was talking, smiling, laughing.  Friends were conversing as they watched the butchers cut off different portions.  Children went back to their playing, and the women ducked their heads back inside.  The butchers just worked, not paying attention to anything but keeping their knives sharp and getting the animal broken down.

This animal would provide the community with meat for about a week, depending on how they chose to divide it.  Although it was a community event, there was a sole owner (or possibly two or three) of the animal who got the choice cuts and donated the rest to the poor and the community.  The celebration lasts three days.  The first day, a series of goats are sacrificed, done individually, each family sacrificing their own goat.  The second day, the whole district gets together to sacrifice a camel.  I went on the third day, when the neighborhood gets together for the water buffalo.  Every year this is done according to the lunar calendar.

As I walked out, the man who had been standing next to me and helping me with my pictures smiled and extended his hand.  "Shukriya."  I shook it, thanking him for being my temporary guide, even trying to wash the blood from around my feet.  As I walked back to the bus, I couldn't help but contemplate how easy it would be to kill anything I saw as I walked.  With a swipe of a knife and a few seconds, these people killed a buffalo.  I went with a group of other people from my program, some of whom expressed their sorrow and disgust about the killing.  They found it useless and cruel.  I felt nothing of the sort.  If anything, I felt happy and jubilant, picking up on the attitude of everyone at the celebration.  The animal is just an animal.  A sacrifice to God, a source of food, and a community building experience is much more significant than a water buffalo's life, at least in my opinion.  

The same day, I was talking with a Muslim kid at the school about the sacrifice I just saw.  His face lit up and he smiled.  We talked about the significance of it for half an hour, and even the logistics surrounding such a big celebration.  He told me that his family sacrificed five goats and is trying to get through all the meat.  The next day, even though it was a Saturday and he did not have school, Abu showed up at school with a bowl of curried goat, specifically for me.  I sat and ate as the spice burnt my throat and the garlic warmed my tongue, happy to be an extension of this beautiful community by receiving this goat, in curried form.

[inquiriesinfood-blog]

Street Food

Since being in Varanasi, I've decided to take the bull by the horns and dig into some Indian street food.  I've been previously wary of Indian street food, fearing that it might make me sick.  But recently I said to myself, "Fuck it.  If I get sick from some street food, its not the end of the world.  It's all in the experience of going to India."  So with a pocket full of rupees and a reckless death wish, I ventured out into the street of Varanasi in search of anything edible on a cart.

My first, and still my favorite, venture into Indian street food is a sandwich called Baan Tikki, although it is known by many other names.  The Baan Tikki is comprised of a potato patty, made from mashed potatoes formed into a patty and fried, various sauces and vegetable toppings, and a lightly toasted bun.  Cheap, filling, and somewhat burger-like, I've become a fan of the Baan Tikki, which is ubiquitous in India.  You can get these literally everywhere for about 15 rupees, depending on how fancy the wala is making them.  It reminds me of all the comforts of an American sandwich while still being extremely Indian.

Omelettes have become one of my go to snacks, or sometimes even a large part of my street meals.  Men with crates of eggs will crack however many eggs you want into a mug with some onions, tomatoes, peppers, spices, and a little ghee.  These omelettes are cooked over very high flame, so even though they only take a minute per side, they cook all the way through.  For extra points, ask for double roti, which will result in the omelettewala folding a few pieces of buttered and lightly toasted white bread into the omelette.  Prices vary, but even at the fanciest omelettewala you will never pay more than 20 rupees.  Most omelettewalas also sell hard boiled eggs sliced in half with a good dose of onions for even cheaper, around 5 rupees for one egg.

Samosas are a staple of Indian street food.  You will easily be able to tell when a good samosawala is just pulling a batch out of the oil, because a large crowd including everyone from old women to young men in suits on scooters will gather around, all haranguing the samosawala for a bag of samosas.  A samosa usually consists of a vegetable filling, usually potato based with onion, garlic, and some other spices or vegetables, wrapped inside a pyramid of dough and then fried in oil until golden brown.  Most samosawalas have a sauce to put on their samosas.  The guy down the street from our guest house had a spicy banana sauce for his savory samosas.  Sweet samosas are also quite popular, and are usually filled with ground nuts, spices, and plenty of sugar, usually in syrup form poured over the top.  They resemble baklava in flavor and baseballs in density.  At only 4 rupees per samosa, you get easily get a sack of them to bring home for a small amount of rupees, or just a snack for an even smaller amount. 

Golgapas are a fairly regional thing in Varanasi.  Also called pani puri (water bread), golgapas consist of a mini puri, a fried bread that is now more like a crispy dough sphere.  The golgapawala will use his thumb to break a small hole in the top and fill the bottom with chana of some variation, a few various things on top (honestly whatever he has at the time, whether it be fresh veg or chutney), and then he'll dunk it in water that is flavored with chilies.  These are perfect bite sized snacks that only take a minute to make, a second to eat, and three of them are only 10 rupees.  You will be encouraged to eat them as soon as they are handed to you, all in one bite.  I wouldn't make a meal of these, but they're a very interesting, fun snack when you don't want something too heavy or hot.

Chaat is a Varanasi staple, almost as common as Baan Tikki.  Chaat is basically just a pile of stuff, usually comprising a few potato patties from the Baan Tikki, as well as some sort of stewed veg or chana, a few different vegetables and chutneys.  There's also usually some crushed mini puri from the golgapas on top too, which adds some nice crunch.  It's delicious, complex, warm, and filling.  Most of the time its served in a bowl, but if the chaatwala is really fancy, he'll have tin plates for you to use.  The combination of flavors and textures in chaat can vary from mediocre to masterful.  When you find a chaatwala who really knows how to mix flavors well, it's like finding your name spelled out in the seeds of your watermelon, and by that I mean a religious experience.  For 20 or 30 rupees, I think it's well worth the price of admission.

Dhosa is more of southern Indian food, but every once in a while, you'll find a Dhosa stand in the North.  Dhosas are basically thin crepes made with rice flour and stuffed with a potato curry.  They are usually served with Sambar, a vegetable gravy, and a chutney or two, usually coconuty and spicy.  These things take a lot of skill to make, so your typical Dhosawala will probably be an man who has been doing this for most of his life.  Due to thinness, Dhosas take only a minute to cook, and they are extremely filling.  Often, you will also get a vada with it, which is a donut shaped rice cake with spices and vegetables, deep fried.  Dhosas may be hard to find, but they're worth it.  Expect to pay about 20 rupees and hunch over your plate shoving the Dhosa in your face as quickly as you can.  Yes, it's that good.

Lassi, while not really in the "food" category, is a necessary addition to the list of street foods.  You might be wary of getting a dairy item from some guy on a street with a pan of yoghurt sitting in front of a clay pot with a stick in it.  Understandable.  But take a walk on the wild side for a minute, and get a lassi.  The fermentation makes it safer than a lot of other things you would get off the street, and the tangy-sweet taste is unforgettable.  You'll realize that all the things people have been giving to you in American Indian restaurants and trying to pass of for "Mango Lassi's" are shit.  30 rupees gets you a big clay pot of lassi, which you slurp and then smash the pot on the ground.  I would happily pay twice that amount just to smash the clay pot!

Also, I appologize for the relative lack of posts over the past month.  It was hard to find a stable wifi connection in Varanasi, and I've been moving around and very busy.  While I'm in Chennai, I'll probably blog more often.

[inquiriesinfood-blog]

In the Lion's Den

I've been exploring a lot of different Indian foods lately, but one of the most fascinating to me is Indian fast food, especially when they try to emulate American fast food.  Yes, the Golden Arches have found their way to India, and I took it upon myself to find out how terrible McDonald's is internationally.

My first step into McDonald's in India was in a neighborhood of Delhi called Sarojini Nagar.  It stood in a mall type complex, in stark contrast to the street market and food stalls just across the street.  The air conditioning hit me, and the same linoleum floors and plastic furniture was there to greet me.  It was a familiar sight, although much more colorful.  The menu was much the same as well, with big pictures and not that many appetizing choices.

I followed my first impulse and got the Indian version of the Big Mac, which is aptly named the Maharaja Mac.  It's basically a Big Mac, three buns, two chicken patties, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and Indian Mac sauce, which is actually sweeter and creamier than the US Mac sauce.  It tasted like a bad fish taco from Taco Del Mar.  I kindof liked it.  It was completely different in taste from American McDonald's, but I could tell that it was nearly identical as it settled in my stomach.  The overwhelming feeling of guilt, pleasure, and fat was so familiar, and strangely welcome.  The fries and drink that come along with it are absolutely identical.

On another trip I got the grilled masala burger.  Spicy, tangy, and a nice oniony bite, I would consider getting this again.  Still, the post McDonald's belly feel was present, and I began to become disillusioned.  Sure, it's different from American McDonald's, but is it better?  Not really.  After only a few trips, I never wanted to set foot in and Indian McDonald's again.  It's exactly what I hate about McDonald's in the US, and other fast food places as well.  They're bastardizing American food just like America bastardizes Mexican food at Taco Bell, or Chinese food at Panda Express.  While Indian McDonald's is a novel experience, it can burn you out quick.

Still, it's good to know that American Imperialism doesn't stop with our military or our politics; it extends to our food habits, especially habits that encourage quick, cheap, terrible food that appeals to the lowest common denominator.

NOTE: Pictures to come when I have a more stable WiFi connection to upload them.  The place I'm staying at in Varanasi does not have WiFi at all for the time being.  More soon.

[inquiriesinfood-blog]

ATTENTION: Better blog name coming

As I've been in India, I've had lots of time to reflect on a lot of things, like how privileged I am, how different India is, and how shitty my blog's title is.  "Inquiries in food?"  Why didn't anyone tell me this sooner?!  Honestly, I was unaware of it, but I promise that there will be a new blog name: You've got fennel in your beard.  It was just one of those things that someone said to me tonight at dinner that sounded so perfect for a blog title.  And I think it works much better than Inquiries in Food.

As a sidenote, I've started to venture into more dangerous food territory.  After a few weeks in India, I tried my first streetfood today.  I forget what it was called, but it was a ground potato and lentil cake that was fried and put inside a bun with a few different chutneys.  Delicious and cheap at only 15 rupees (25 cents).  I'm eating my way through Amritsar currently, where I do have internet connection and am frantically working on a few blog posts to put up once I have more reliable WiFi.  Expect something better in about a week.  For now, it's just YOU'VE GOT FENNEL IN YOUR BEARD!!!

[inquiriesinfood-blog]

Thali

As I've spent more time in India, I've become acquainted with one of my favorite food traditions ever: Thali.  Originally, Indians only used metal for their plates, trays, and bowls, usually tin.  The word Thali actually just describes the tin tray you get, but it has come to also mean the style of meal as well.  Even though plates of porcelain are used in India, it's still much more common to eat off of tin trays.  This style of meal was developed mostly for the working class so that large mess halls could feed a lot of people at once, and on a tight budget as well.

(This picture is completely unrelated.  A group of kids posed for us at a monument, and I thought it was really cute.)

At a Thali restaurant, you will be given a large tray, usually with anywhere from 6 to 12 bowls.  In each of these bowls will be a different main course, almost always vegetarian.  These are commonly different types of curries, soups, and stews.  Usually the restaurant will change their main dishes daily depending on what's in season and what the cook wants to do.  In addition to these mains, you will get a bowl of daal (yellow lentil soup) and few different chutneys and sides, like pickled mangoes or julienned onions.  The mains are usually referred to as curries, and the sides as sabzi (meaning vegetable).  There will be a nearly never ending supply of roti or puri to scoop up all of the mains, and rice to mix with the mains.  Waiters come around with more of everything on a very regular basis, because this meal is all-you-can-eat.  Indians call it "unlimited," which I think is far more classy than all-you-can-eat.  As the great philosopher Degeneres once said, "Should you really be eating all you can eat?"

Of course, nearly all of this meal is eaten with your hands.  Expect little conversation, and more concentration on the food.  The great variety involved allows for each bite to be completely different.  You might have a bite of aloo jeera, then switch to raw onions and green chutney, then a spoonful of daal with a dab of spicy garlic chutney.  I love this style of eating; sampling a little bit of many things is a great way to get a feel for the cuisine without committing to one dish.  You can find Thali from many different regions of India: it's popular to do Rajasthani Thali, as well as south Indian.  Don't expect any meat.  Thali is vegetarian almost without exception.  But if all vegetarian food was this good, I would have no problems giving up meat.  Yes, I said it.  Kevin has come down off his pedestal of meat worship to prostrate himself before the sabzi of India.

The best thing about these meals is that they're very cheap.  At the very fancy Thali restaurant in Connaught Place, I paid 400 rupees (about $6), and at the not so fancy but really delicious one near India Gate, it was 100 rupees ($1.50).  Because the restaurant is just making this food en masse, there's always a fresh batch of everything, and it's always good.  Waiters are generally fairly attentive, constantly walking around with their bowls of food, rushing to and from the kitchen.  No matter if you go to an upscale Thali restaurant or a no frills sort of place, you can expect to always have your plate loaded.  Because its so cheap, filling, and delicious, Thali is extremely popular as a lunch item.  At Andhra Pradesh Bhavan, near India Gate, they open the doors for lunch at noon and are usually packed within 10 minutes.

I will miss Thali when I leave India.  It's quickly become a favorite of mine for the variety and ease.  This is not something you would want to replicate at home though; best leave it to the professionals.

[inquiriesinfood-blog]

Sickness and Spongebob

So I've been mildly sick (congestion and cough) for about the past week now, and I've just recently had a bout of the Delhi belly.  I haven't been eating as hard or heavily lately, which is why this week's post is both late and short.  It's also why it has absolutely nothing to do with India.

I was watching spongebob the other day, an episode (patty hype) which I've seen dozens of times, but something about it hit me.  An obviously starving fish crawls up, and when presented with a Krabby Patty complains "Oh, Krabby Patties huh?"

Mr Krabs: Finest under the sea! Fish:  Yeah, yeah, sure, but where's the pizazz?  I mean look at this place.  What's the theme here?  Underwater?  It's boring.  (he crawls away)  Food!  Water!  Atmosphere! Mr. Krabs: No one goes to a restaurant for atmosphere.  They go for the food!

The scene then turns to two other fish meeting on the street outside the Krusty Krab.

Fred:  Hey, Tom! Tom:  Fred!  Hey, you wanna eat at the Krusty Krab? Fred:  Nah, I'm going to the shell shack.  They've got a talking dog. Tom:  Great!  Say, what's a dog?

They walk away, and Mr. Krabs is dumbfounded.  The rest of the episode revolves around Spongebob's new business venture, making krabby patties in different colors.  While laughable on the surface, they very rapidly gain appeal and Spongebob becomes a gigantic success.  However, he misses the Krusty Krab and ends up trading his commercial success for the key to the Krusty Krab.  The episode ends with Spongebob squeaking two pickles together, completely oblivious to the outside.  

Maybe this is just me being way too much of an English major, but this episode made me think about how the Krusty Krab is a paradigm for everything I love in restaurants.  A strong focus on food over anything else, a cook who is passionate about the food above all else, an owner who will do whatever it takes to keep his restaurant running without unnecessary frill and fluff, a cashier who doesn't even pretend to care.

There is further evidence of all of these aspects in many episodes.  Spongebob is always enthusiastic about his work and, as a result, produces allegedly the best burger in Bikini Bottom.  Even Neptune admits that Spongebob makes a better burger.  This is always a result of the amount of care Spongebob puts into each Krabby Patty.  Whenever Squidward has to take over for him, he ends up ruining everything due to his apathy.  He even burns a customer's shake.  But Spongebob's Krabby Patties even turn the apathetic Squidward into a Patty loving fiend.

What's my point?  I guess it's just that Spongebob, when read from a restaurant and food lover's standpoint, is a paradigm for a good restaurant.  If the Krusty Krab were real, it would definitely be on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.

[inquiriesinfood-blog]

Keep the roti coming

As my first week in India draws to a close, the only thing I can talk about with any level of confidence is eating with your hands.  I'm sure many of you are aware that in India, silverware is not used very often.  Soups and serving is done with the help of spoons, but otherwise it's paratha, roti, and naan all the way down.  I'm still getting used to doing it, and it seems nearly impossible to eat without getting a little food on your fingers.  Yet as I watch and eat, it becomes much easier.

Let's get one thing straight before continuing: India is a land of unleavened breads.  There are absolutely no breads that have been risen.  This makes it much easier to make them en masse, as you don't have to account for rising time.  The blanket term for most of these flatbreads is Roti.  Most roti are completely flat with a somewhat tough texture, and a rough wheat flavor.  It makes for a very good utensil, since it has minimal interference with other flavors.

It is with these roti that you eat just about everything.  It's not as simple as scooping it like you would with a spoon.  As far as I can tell, there's a triangle formed with the thumb, index, and middle finger, and you use this to pinch at whatever food you're eating.  The pinch is done with the index and middle finger scooping in from the bottom, with the thumb pressing down to secure it from the front.  Once you have your food in place, you quickly bring it to your mouth so that the food wrapped in the roti will hit your tongue first.  Sometimes, when the roti has something of a pocket in the middle, you can pry the top and bottom apart from each other and use the small roti pocket to pick up your food.  This works much better with foods where there are distinguishable chunks, like paneer (cheese), chicken, or aloo (potatoes).  When dealing with a particularly saucy dish, especially the remnants of the sauce from anything, it is entirely appropriate to mop it up with the roti.  For this, I find it works very well to fold it into a makeshift spoon.  Above all, be confident with your motions with roti.  If you hesitate, the food will sense it and you will end up with palack paneer on your lap instead of in your mouth.  Yes, I will parrot all the hyperactive soccer moms here: Confidence is key.

It's actually much more fun and intimate to eat with your hands.  I think the connection to the food is greater when you're touching it before it goes into your mouth, as opposed to meekly stabbing at it with a fork.  I've only been here for a week now, but I'm acclimatizing very well to the food and the culture surrounding it.  I apologize for the distinct lack of pictures this week.  I've been hesitant to take my camera phone with me as I walk around the city, for fear of it being stolen.  Now that I'm more used to the city though, I think I will start bringing it to restaurants so I can be a good food writer and actually document my food travels.

[inquiriesinfood-blog]

Pickle Me Vegetable

For thousands of years, people have been preserving food by pickling it.  It's somewhat debatable who came up with pickles first, the Egyptians or the Chinese.  The records aren't clear.  However, we know that by at least 3000 B.C., both cultures had learned how to pickle in order to preserve.  This presented culinary history with its first method of preservation, and allowed cultures to begin to expand their tastes.  Preserving vegetables has always been important, especially to maintain a balanced nutrition when fresh vegetables aren't in season.  It became a symbol of ingenuity and status to be able to pickle.

Even though we can buy prettymuch all vegetables year round nowadays, and pickles are sold at an astounding rate, that doesn't mean we should let pickling fall by the wayside.  There's no better way to celebrate our culinary advances in methods of preservation than by practicing a bit of home-style preservation ourselves.  Besides, pickling isn't just for cucumbers: any vegetable of fruit can become a pickle.  You can even pickle eggs, or fish.

To start, we must understand how pickles work.  Usually, vegetables were put into a brine, a salted solution, always containing water and salt, and sometimes containing other spices, herbs, and liquids.  However, this brine never contained any acid to begin with.  The salt and water would preserve the vegetables well enough to let them begin to ferment.  It was the fermentation caused by naturally occurring yeast that lead to acid in the solution, further preserving the vegetables inside by killing off hostile bacteria.  When you stop to think about it, fermentation gave us a lot of advanced food techniques early in our development.  Bread, alcohol, and pickles are all products of fermentation, and they were all learned and put into use thousands of years ago.

But I digress.  Fermentation takes a long-ass time, and I don't have that kind of patience.  Plus, there are a lot of variables that are hard to control for with home fermentation, specifically what sort of yeast and bacteria you get floating around in your pickles.  Plus, you basically have to have a canning kit, which is not something I want to invest in.  No, I have to settle for a different type of homemade pickle.  Instead of waiting for fermentation to bring acid to the party, I have to start with acid in my brine.  This brings my brine to three basic ingredients: salt, water, and acid.  There's a fourth ingredient, however, that should always be present.  Sugar helps soften the acid and the salt.  Typically, it would give the yeast something to eat as it ferments, but here it simply mitigates some of the flavor.  So we have a brine of salt, water, acid, and sugar, as well as any other flavorings we like.

Our acid of choice is vinegar.  White vinegar is easy, as it doesn't really have much flavor.  There's also white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, apple cider, and even rice wine vinegar.  Each of these will give their own distinctive flavor.  A popular one to use is apple cider vinegar, as it is well balanced and slightly sweet.  Rice wine vinegar is used in some types of asian pickled vegetables, and it adds a sweet, pungent flavor to your pickle.  If you want more hands on control of flavor, just use white distilled vinegar and whatever flavorings you like.  Like we said earlier, the vinegar is doing some of the pickling for us rather than waiting for fermentation to do it.  However, salt is still an important component.  Along with adding flavor to balance the acidity of the vinegar, salt will help to preserve and pickle.  Salt always tries to provide an equilibrium between the moisture levels it is in contact with.  This means it will allow the brine to permeate your pickle, helping to pickle it more effectively.  Salt is also a deterent to nasty bacteria who want to destroy your pickle.  Plus, salt just tastes really good.  For this application, we will use Kosher salt, as it is the most common.  If you want to use pickling salt, reduce the volume by 1/3.  So if I said 1 cup of Kosher salt, you would do 2/3 cup of pickling salt.  The salt itself isn't any different.  It just has to do with the density and size of the crystals.

I'm going to give a general recipe for pickled anything, as well as an example recipe for some pickled jalapenos.  The only special equipment you will need is an airtight jar.  This doesn't have to be a canning jar or anything fancy.  Just use any leftover jar, but make sure to wash it our thoroughly.

Pickled anything

Ingredients:

-1/2 pound of anything -1 cup of water -1 cup of vinegar -1/3 cup sugar -2 tablespoons salt kosher salt -whatever other flavorings you like (I recommend using smashed garlic all the time, and if you're going to use herbs, go with dried.  If you're going to use spices, try to use whole instead of ground, with the exception of ginger.)

Method:

In a large pot over medium high heat, combine the water, vinegar, sugar, salt, and other flavorings.  Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, and reduce to a simmer for about 5 to 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare your anything.  If it's a vegetable, wash and possibly peel it.  You can cut it or leave it whole, it doesn't matter.  Just know that the bigger it is, the longer it will take to fully pickle.  Put your anything into a washed, airtight jar.

Once the pickling liquid is done simmering, pour it through a funnel into the jar filled with anything.  Let the anything sit in the jar until the liquid has cooled to room temperature.  Then seal it and store it in the fridge.  Depending on the size of the anything, your pickles will be ready in 2-5 days.

Mexican Style Pickled Jalapenos:

-10 jalapenos, sliced 1/4 inch thick -4 garlic cloves, smashed -4 bay leaves -1 tablespoon dried oregano -1 cup water -1 cup white distilled vinegar -2 tablespoons kosher salt -1/3 cup sugar

Method described above

Asian Style Pickled Jalapenos:

-10 jalapenos, sliced 1/4 inch thick -4 garlic cloves, smashed -3 star anise, whole -1 tablespoon corriander seeds -1 cup water -1/2 cup rice wine vinegar -1/2 cup white distilled vinegar -2 tablespoons kosher salt -2 tablespoons sugar

Method described above

NOTE:  I would've posted this earlier last week, but I've been busy packing and seeing people.  Plus, I didn't get my shit together with the photos for this post.  I've just moved into my temporary accommodations in Delhi, and will probably be posting about Indian food very soon.  In fact, expect posts about Indian food for the next few months, depending on how often I get internet access.