Who are we? We tend to identify ourselves using race, language, religion and culture – but food? Could each one of us really be so unique? Since I have signed up for this English 1101 “Foodies Gone Wild” course, the significance of food in defining our identity has started becoming clearer. In other words, we are what we eat. Here is my story.
Perhaps the earliest food related memory I have is of eating beef stew with rice in the kitchen on the floor. I can clearly remember my mother smiling down at me from high, high above as she ladled more rice on my plate. I was about 3 or 4 at the time. To date, my mother’s cooking has never been topped by anybody else, not even chefs with graduate degrees working at five-star hotels (the few times I have had the opportunity to try them). My mother learned to cook from her mother, and good cooking has been a family tradition, passed down from generation to generation.
I’ve grown up to love meat. In fact, this love of meat and associated expertise on judging the quality of different kinds of meat has become renowned in my extended family. So whenever anyone wants the last word on a rare steak or lamb chops, they consult me. In my hometown, butchers actually compete for my seal of approval!
There is actually a back story to this. Family legend has it that my maternal grandfather was so pleased when his first grandchild (me) was born, that he distributed meat to everyone in the neighborhood. Since then, my meat-devouring prowess is unmatched by any of my relatives. (That’s saying something – my mother has 5 brothers and a sister; my father has 8 brothers and 2 sisters – and most of them have children!)
Here is a selection of what my mother cooks at least once a week. Most of them are popular Indian dishes, but my mother cooks them in our traditional family variety.
Clockwise from top-left: Biryani (Spicy rice and meat dish), Matar Paneer (Cottage cheese with peas in curry), Butter Chicken with Naan, and Aloo Paratha (Potato-stuffed flatbread served with butter, pickle and yogurt).
To be fair, two major culinary traditions have influenced the kind of food I like. Growing up an Indian-Muslim meant that my mother’s cooking was typically Indian, and pork and alcohol were banned on our table. And it sure meant that there was a lot of meat, even though many Indians are vegetarian. On the other hand, fast food and international cuisine are more of an acquired taste for me.
My native state in India happens to be Bihar (somewhere in the North-East-Central portion of India). India being a large and diverse nation, boasts of several regional specialties that I began to appreciate as I grew up. You can picture these as my first tentative steps towards gastronomic experimentation. My mother usually prepares these for luncheons or dinner parties, and again, most of these have become quite popular with many Indians.
Clockwise from top-left: Achar Gosht (Sour pickled meat curry – considered a Pakistani recipe after the partition of India in 1947), Baghare Baingan (Deep-fried sour and spicy Eggplant – a dish from Hyderabad, a major city in south India), Hyderabadi Haleem (A type of casserole dish made with mutton and different lentil varieties), and Masala Dosa (Stuffed crispy-rice toast served with spicy Sāmbhar and various chutneys).
It may surprise some of you to know that Indians tend to overcook their food (as compared to say, Koreans, who like to eat raw seafood). India produces hundreds of spices and its abundance is reflected in our cuisine – thus the hot and spicy nature of our food. Sometimes when I try American or Continental dishes, I am taken aback by the blandness of the dishes.
Picture a five-year old child. Most probably the child likes milk, chocolate and ice-cream but is neutral on most dishes. Now picture a ten-year old kid. Now this kid likes pizzas, cheeseburgers and most probably hates veggies. My point here is that though our taste buds develop much earlier, children aged 5-10 undergo a crucial transformation in terms of culinary development.
This is exactly what happened to me. We moved to Qatar and stayed there for the next five years. Then a year in Canada, followed by more than seven years in Kuwait. So most of my culinary development took place outside India. Naturally, our exposure to Middle-Eastern and Western cultural scenes had an effect on my mother’s cooking. It was still basically Indian cooking – but maybe with that Arabic hint or that dash of Chinese in it. And of course, I grew fond of cheeseburgers, pizzas and all kinds of fast food, along with several Arabic specialties (but I still love veggies, so I don’t completely fit into the aforementioned stereotype).
From top: Shawarma (Diced chicken or beef roasted with Arabic seasoning), and Falafel sandwich (Chickpeas, tomato, cucumber and mayonnaise filling)
Many a times, my mother would learn a new recipe (or a new variety of a native recipe) and share it with her mother when she would visit India. Then my grandmother would improve upon this new addition, creating in turn new recipes, new varieties and hybrids of dishes that would taste completely different than either of the original. It is a dynamic, fluid process and constitutes “Gastronomic Research” as I imagine it to be.
And now I find myself in America for the first time, and my culinary journey continues! I have tried many American dishes before, but I am still relatively inexperienced. So here is a unique offer for you – if you can guide me through the quagmire of American cuisine, and tell me how to get the best out of the melting pot America is (Is pizza even Italian anymore? Is Chow Mein Chinese at all?), in short, if you can add another dimension to my tastes – then you get to define who I am. You get to shape a part of me.
Didn’t I mention that we are what we eat?
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Image courtesy:
Biryani: http://lifeismystery.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/chicken_biryani.jpg
Matar Paneer: http://render2.snapfish.com/render2/is=Yup6aQQ|%3Dup6RKKt:xxrKUp7BHD7KPfrj%3DQofrj7t%3DzrRfDUX:eQaQxg%3Dr%3F87KR6xqpxQQQ0x0eQxGlJxQQQ00eQGlJlPGqpfVtB%3F*KUp7BHSHqqy7XH6gXPGe|Rup6lQQ|/of=50,590,442
Aloo Paratha: http://www.showmethecurry.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/alooparantha.JPG
Butter Chicken and Naan: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3213/3157980280_3c721e2da7.jpg
Achar Gosht: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2378/2036126907_51470177ca.jpg?v=0
Baghare Baingan: http://lh4.ggpht.com/_1t_oSoHZQnY/SBfQJDHMpCI/AAAAAAAACok/BIOYHjhUERI/Baghare+Baingan.jpg
Masala Dosa: http://cooking.vandeindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/masala-dosa.jpg
Falafel Sandwich: http://www.mourascafe.com/images/falafel-sandwich.jpg
Shawarma: http://www.discoverlebanon.com/en/recipes/shawarma.jpg
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