On the whole,I would say that Indian restaurants have done more to shame the joy of Indian cuisine than to promote it. While I hold the restaurants abroad for giving 'desi bhojan' a bad name, restaurants here are no good either.
What initiates this monologue is a flashback from the recently released movie Queen,where Kangana Ranaut says that the pasta made by the enthusiastic Italiano lacks the punch, and the rather offended Chef goes on to say that Indian food is nothing but spicy. This projection is true and frankly offensive to me. Ask any person in the world to describe Indian food and 'spicy'/'hot' are guaranteed to be in the response.
It's a fallacy to confuse spices with spicy. I blame the 'exotic Indian restaurants' for this. The vastness of the Indian sub-continent facilitates the growth of the absolute crux of Indian food : spices. Yes,this includes chillies in all it's glorious,fiery splendour. However,it's also about the spunk of mustard seeds, the woody earthiness of cinnamon, the crunch of tempered cumin, the bitterness of coriander seeds,the subtlety of green cardamom and the almost musky sharpness of black cardamom and star anise. A big, dried bay leaf in a curry and the sourness of kokam. The colour of bright yellow turmeric and the splatter of curry leaves. Coconut -
fresh,dried,milk -first and second extracts,grated,powdered. Chillies - green,big,finely chopped,slit lengthwise,red,Kashmiri,Degi, for the colour or the tear-inducing kick,powdered or soaked and ground to a fine paste. The depth of dried kasuri methi. The freshness that comes through from even dried mint. The essential topping of dhaniya in anything and everything savoury. Spices are not confined to spicy. It's mellow and mild,earthy and fresh,refreshing and nostalgic of times spent well over a good plate of food.
The cooking medium - ghee, rich. The developed palate for strong mustard oil, scented and heavy. Golden,shining sesame oil. Groundnut, sunflower, rice bran. Olive oil for the modern health conscious urbanite. The glistening Amul butter on Pav Bhaji. The
dollop of fast melting fresh cream on your aloo paratha.
Where are all these ingredients in our food talk? Why is Indian food seldom about them? Admittedly, it is difficult to find a representative for India's gastronomic face. Biryani? Tandoori chicken/ chicken tikka masala? Aloo jeera? Palak paneer? Nothing can provide a picture clear enough. It's futile, so one mustn't even try.
A typical menu of an Indian restaurant in any city and of any price range features the same old dishes. A look at the vegetarian main course would look something like this :
Palak Paneer
Paneer Makhani
Paneer do Pyaza
Kadhai Paneer
Paneer Tikka Masala
Methi Malai Paneer
... +/- 2 a couple of Paneer dishes and then the menu goes on to become the Atlas Index of cities in India...
Veg Kolhapuri
Veg Hyderabadi
Veg Jaipuri
Veg Kashmiri
Veg Maratha
Veg Patiala
Veg Agra, Veg Bangalore, Veg Calcutta, Veg Dalhousie... You get the point. Same things, different names. There is a dish or two mentioning 'dhingra'( I know no one who would use that term for mushrooms in regular parlance, by the way), an aloo jeera/aloo mutter/aloo gobi, a bhindi and in a place that likes taking the occasional risk, maybe brinjal. I may be making a generalization, but this happens in restaurants which typically boast of these specialities : Indian, Mughlai, South Indian, Punjabi, etc. the extent of India fitted into a 6 page menu.
Understandably, it may not be feasible to sell karela or lauki or arbi or kaddu. Most middle class Indians have the mentality - "jo ghar main mil sakta hai,who bahaar paise deke kyun khaana?" - the why eat ghar ka dal-chawal when you can spend on yummy biryani instead perspective. Maybe, though, maybe we take this thought process in the wrong way. Urban households increasingly rely on quick,easy-to-make regular dishes. This is where restaurants have the market to sell dishes forgotten : Traditionally, home-cooked recipes of curries and wonderfully simmererd daal, fluffy or sticky aromatic rice and rotis that are not the forte of an average woman anymore - either due to their cooking skills ( or lack thereof), paucity of time, apprehension of new food or the ignorance of existing ones.
Increasingly, our bazaars are flooded with red and green bell peppers, fennel, avocados, artichokes, broccoli and red cabbage. Even in Tier 2 cities and towns, the masses fed on years of Sanjeev Kapoor, recipes in magazines and their travels are aware how these are used in European-style cooking. However, this is creating a mental block that clouds experimenting. Non-indigenous produce could be a brilliant source of contributing to the stagnant culinary
structure. Vikas Khanna is someone I've been following of late. Not only is he a much needed replacement to Vineet Bhatia on the food show Twist of Taste on FoxTraveller, but he also brings about a wonderful version to recipes from the Indian coast, most of which are unheard of outside the localised region. Incorporating French techniques or making sambar cake in a jar. Sounds ridiculous but interesting. A need for the evolving Indian palates.
I am not completely bashing restaurants that serve Indian food. Some of them have created landmark dishes in the recent past that are well known - for example, the kathi roll from Nizam Restaurant in Kolkata. Our take on Chinese food, an unabashed and unapologetic take on those who makes copies of everything. China-Made in India. We need restaurants to promote regional cuisines, experiment and create new food and to save face from the stereotype in the global context. Our food is unexplored and it demands attention now.
I realise there are so many more things I want to talk about when it comes to food. Snacks, beverages, desserts. Local foods, non vegetarian, sourcing, chefs. It's a vast alluring array that could become a hotspot of gastronomic wealth with a little effort. It's important for food writers to come out of their critical analysis job description, for restaurants in India to truly become 'specialists', for restaurants based abroad to project Indian food as it really is and for the general man to show up with a stomach for all this.
What initiates this monologue is a flashback from the recently released movie Queen,where Kangana Ranaut says that the pasta made by the enthusiastic Italiano lacks the punch, and the rather offended Chef goes on to say that Indian food is nothing but spicy. This projection is true and frankly offensive to me. Ask any person in the world to describe Indian food and 'spicy'/'hot' are guaranteed to be in the response.
It's a fallacy to confuse spices with spicy. I blame the 'exotic Indian restaurants' for this. The vastness of the Indian sub-continent facilitates the growth of the absolute crux of Indian food : spices. Yes,this includes chillies in all it's glorious,fiery splendour. However,it's also about the spunk of mustard seeds, the woody earthiness of cinnamon, the crunch of tempered cumin, the bitterness of coriander seeds,the subtlety of green cardamom and the almost musky sharpness of black cardamom and star anise. A big, dried bay leaf in a curry and the sourness of kokam. The colour of bright yellow turmeric and the splatter of curry leaves. Coconut -
fresh,dried,milk -first and second extracts,grated,powdered. Chillies - green,big,finely chopped,slit lengthwise,red,Kashmiri,Degi, for the colour or the tear-inducing kick,powdered or soaked and ground to a fine paste. The depth of dried kasuri methi. The freshness that comes through from even dried mint. The essential topping of dhaniya in anything and everything savoury. Spices are not confined to spicy. It's mellow and mild,earthy and fresh,refreshing and nostalgic of times spent well over a good plate of food.
The cooking medium - ghee, rich. The developed palate for strong mustard oil, scented and heavy. Golden,shining sesame oil. Groundnut, sunflower, rice bran. Olive oil for the modern health conscious urbanite. The glistening Amul butter on Pav Bhaji. The
dollop of fast melting fresh cream on your aloo paratha.
Where are all these ingredients in our food talk? Why is Indian food seldom about them? Admittedly, it is difficult to find a representative for India's gastronomic face. Biryani? Tandoori chicken/ chicken tikka masala? Aloo jeera? Palak paneer? Nothing can provide a picture clear enough. It's futile, so one mustn't even try.
A typical menu of an Indian restaurant in any city and of any price range features the same old dishes. A look at the vegetarian main course would look something like this :
Palak Paneer
Paneer Makhani
Paneer do Pyaza
Kadhai Paneer
Paneer Tikka Masala
Methi Malai Paneer
... +/- 2 a couple of Paneer dishes and then the menu goes on to become the Atlas Index of cities in India...
Veg Kolhapuri
Veg Hyderabadi
Veg Jaipuri
Veg Kashmiri
Veg Maratha
Veg Patiala
Veg Agra, Veg Bangalore, Veg Calcutta, Veg Dalhousie... You get the point. Same things, different names. There is a dish or two mentioning 'dhingra'( I know no one who would use that term for mushrooms in regular parlance, by the way), an aloo jeera/aloo mutter/aloo gobi, a bhindi and in a place that likes taking the occasional risk, maybe brinjal. I may be making a generalization, but this happens in restaurants which typically boast of these specialities : Indian, Mughlai, South Indian, Punjabi, etc. the extent of India fitted into a 6 page menu.
Understandably, it may not be feasible to sell karela or lauki or arbi or kaddu. Most middle class Indians have the mentality - "jo ghar main mil sakta hai,who bahaar paise deke kyun khaana?" - the why eat ghar ka dal-chawal when you can spend on yummy biryani instead perspective. Maybe, though, maybe we take this thought process in the wrong way. Urban households increasingly rely on quick,easy-to-make regular dishes. This is where restaurants have the market to sell dishes forgotten : Traditionally, home-cooked recipes of curries and wonderfully simmererd daal, fluffy or sticky aromatic rice and rotis that are not the forte of an average woman anymore - either due to their cooking skills ( or lack thereof), paucity of time, apprehension of new food or the ignorance of existing ones.
Increasingly, our bazaars are flooded with red and green bell peppers, fennel, avocados, artichokes, broccoli and red cabbage. Even in Tier 2 cities and towns, the masses fed on years of Sanjeev Kapoor, recipes in magazines and their travels are aware how these are used in European-style cooking. However, this is creating a mental block that clouds experimenting. Non-indigenous produce could be a brilliant source of contributing to the stagnant culinary
structure. Vikas Khanna is someone I've been following of late. Not only is he a much needed replacement to Vineet Bhatia on the food show Twist of Taste on FoxTraveller, but he also brings about a wonderful version to recipes from the Indian coast, most of which are unheard of outside the localised region. Incorporating French techniques or making sambar cake in a jar. Sounds ridiculous but interesting. A need for the evolving Indian palates.
I am not completely bashing restaurants that serve Indian food. Some of them have created landmark dishes in the recent past that are well known - for example, the kathi roll from Nizam Restaurant in Kolkata. Our take on Chinese food, an unabashed and unapologetic take on those who makes copies of everything. China-Made in India. We need restaurants to promote regional cuisines, experiment and create new food and to save face from the stereotype in the global context. Our food is unexplored and it demands attention now.
I realise there are so many more things I want to talk about when it comes to food. Snacks, beverages, desserts. Local foods, non vegetarian, sourcing, chefs. It's a vast alluring array that could become a hotspot of gastronomic wealth with a little effort. It's important for food writers to come out of their critical analysis job description, for restaurants in India to truly become 'specialists', for restaurants based abroad to project Indian food as it really is and for the general man to show up with a stomach for all this.
