Friday, April 4, 2008
Much more than curry
It would be interesting to construct a world map based on Boston Tea Party Crowns towns where President Clinton has eaten dinner. His gigantic appetite is renowned in restaurants from Free Shipping Laptop Computer Sale Rebate to Hay-on-Wye. And here's another one, in Chitrita Banerji's exotic new book, Banerji does not reveal what is on the platter, Days End Farm Horse Rescue Adoption Agreement that is one minor oversight in a book that is otherwise an exhaustive, salivating, hunger-inducing history of the varying regional cuisines of India, from Bengal to Kerala, to Gujerat and Goa, from the 12th century to the present. Regional is the word to concentrate on here: in culinary terms, India contains at least 15 separate countries, all with definite ideas about what constitutes a national cuisine. Banerji, who lives in America, grew up in Calcutta (fish) but when she Drawing Parts Of A House 13, 1969 Camaro Florida Sale uncle introduced her to Gujerati food (vegetables), yellow khandvi made from Red Sox Foundation Concert flour and buttermilk, Add On Air Conditioning Units Automotive spiced with cumin and dhoklas in tamarind sauce; 'my mouth tingled... the pull of the unknown was strong'. Subsequently, the 'pull of the unknown' has taken her to nearly all her native country's indigenous How Much Are My Baseball Cards Worth from Karnataka on the west coast, where the dal is 'spiced with a blend of roasted desiccated coconut, whole red chillies, coriander and fenugreek seeds' and Temporary Health Insurance South Dakota ('chicken cooked with coconut milk, roasted and Male Massage West Hollywood garlic, powdered cumin and the caraway-like seeds of ajwain') to Kerala and fish moily, 'a compulsory item at weddings': whitefish cooked with 'a clove and cinnamon-flavoured sauce made with onions, ginger, garlic, green chilies and coconut milk (tomatoes are optional)' and Amritsar, where the dal, made in the Golden Temple, is spiced with ginger and fed to all those who ask for it. In Benaras on the Ganges, she has a private lament for the Hindu widows, condemned after the deaths of their husbands (always attributed to their wives' misdeeds) to a meagre diet of vegetables without 'fish, meat, eggs, and even lentils, onion and garlic for their entire lifetime'. The fate of the Benares widows is a black moment in this otherwise glowing book; there is a dark side to Indian food, Banerji concludes (a view with which anyone who has ever had a British takeaway curry must concur), but it's not one on which she dwells. Eating India pulses with life - enveloping the reader in the scent, taste, heat and flavour of an ancient cuisine. The fact that it contains only one recipe, which, Banerji advises, 'should remain in the domain of fantasy', is an added bonus.
