Monsoon Diary (20 page)

The trick to eating at South Indian weddings is to keep an eye out for waiters as they start out from the kitchen, and notice what they are bringing. If they are bringing seconds of a curry that you like, you had better finish what’s left on your banana leaf even though you might be in the midst of some other dish. Only then will the waiters give you seconds. Similarly, when you see waiters bringing out the
rasam,
you need to quickly build a circular dam with the rice to catch the
rasam
in the middle. Otherwise it will run in streams all over and out of the banana leaf. The
payasam
is trickier because it is a meal in itself and doesn’t require rice. The only way to eat
payasam
off a banana leaf is to quickly scoop it up with bare hands and slurp it down, as many old-timers do. Your hand has to be trained to serve as spoon, fork, knife, and scoop, all in one.

When Ram and I had our first lunch as husband and wife, some of his cousins ganged up and demanded that I feed my husband.

“Come on, feed him, feed him,” they chanted.

I was in a quandary. I had no intention of taking some runny
rasam
rice in my hands and dripping it all over his face. I looked at my banana leaf with its assortment of food, all of which suddenly looked dangerous. Suddenly I had an idea. I lifted the tumbler containing some cool
panagam
and set it to his lips. It was the first thing I fed my new husband.

OUR WEDDING RECEPTION was held on the lawns of the Woodlands Hotel in Madras that evening. Located on Edward Eliot’s Road, equidistant from the Madras Music Academy and Marina Beach, Woodlands was the bastion of Southern tradition, advertising itself proudly as serving “pure vegetarian cuisine.”

At two in the afternoon I woke up from a siesta and sat in the hotel suite, surrounded by six women who were getting me ready for the evening reception. Two Chinese beauticians, known simply as Helen and Sui, were puffing and combing my hair into an elaborate coiffure. Four girls had taken possession of my hands and legs and were touching up the intricate maroon henna designs that they had drawn a few days earlier.

Three hours of beautifying later, bedecked and bejeweled, our two families converged on the lawns. The sprinklers were on, and the leaping droplets of water made a million rainbows as they caught the long rays of a magnificent magenta sunset. Born of the Bay of Bengal, a salty breeze lifted steamy sighs from the moist earth, mixed them with the smell of basmati rice, nutmeg, and fennel from the hotel’s kitchens, and swept them into the twinkling colored lights on the swaying ashoka trees.

Car after car pulled up, depositing men in summer safari suits and women in silk saris that matched the impetuous streaks of orange, purple, and vermilion that were flung across the cerulean sky. My parents and in-laws stood at the arched entrance, greeting the guests. There was a flurry of activity as the governor appeared—he was a friend of my father-in-law’s—surrounded by uniformed bodyguards, paparazzi, and flashing lightbulbs.

I was dressed in a burgundy silk sari, and Ram was wearing a dark blue suit. Behind us was an elaborate mosaic of flowers with the words SHOBA WEDS RAM spelled out in yellow daffodils, pink balsams, and green basil.

We were married.

PANAGAM

There was an
asura—
a really bad man—who made an impossible wish. He didn’t want to be killed by man or beast, not inside or outside, not during the day or night, not with a weapon. As children, we were told the tale of this
asura
along with the whodunit: how did Lord Vishnu kill him? Well, he took an avatar as Narasimha, in which he combined a lion’s face with a man’s body. Then he carried the
asura
to the threshold of his palace. At twilight he ripped open the
asura
with his nails and killed the evil man. This god was called Nara-simha (man-lion), and
panagam
was his favorite beverage. There is a temple near Vijaywada, in Andhra State, where the presiding deity is called Panaga Narasimha.

Panagam
is usually made during Sri Rama Navami, a Hindu festival celebrating the birth of Lord Rama, hero of the epic
Ramayana.
It aids digestion, and it was continuously consumed during my wedding.

SERVES 4

2 tablespoons jaggery
1 teaspoon ground ginger
Pinch cardamom powder
1 teaspoon lime juice (optional)

Mix the ingredients in 2 cups of cold water and serve.

SEVENTEEN

Honeymoon in America

AS A NEW BRIDE, one of the first things I received from my mother was an
anjala potti.
Shaped like a biscuit tin, this stainless steel container had six compartments filled with black mustard seeds,
urad
dal, cumin, coriander seeds, fenugreek, and
channa
dal. With these spices I could cook any South Indian dish I wanted. At least in theory.

My idea of a perfect meal included a bottle of a summery chardonnay with some spicy blue corn nachos and salsa to start off; a crisp, garlicky bruschetta topped with vine-ripened tomatoes and red onions as an appetizer; some Turkish
tzaziki
to clear the palate; a fiery vegetarian
pad thai
with lemongrass,
galangal,
spicy peanut sauce, and kefir lime for the main course; and for dessert a tiramisu and cappuccino.

There was just one problem. Ram loved Indian food and had a discerning palate that could detect the slightest mistake I made. When we were first married, he put up with all my culinary experiments, even though he didn’t particularly care for nouvelle cuisine. We lived in Connecticut at that time. Ram worked for a consulting firm and I stayed at home, since I didn’t have a work permit. While waiting for my green card to be processed, I took to cooking. My type of cooking, that is. For a while we became macrobiotics, until Ram complained that he had no desire to live with the seasons if it meant eating turnips and kale every night for dinner. I became a vegan for a while. I experimented with world cuisine. I found that stir-frying potato pierogis in mustard oil with some sesame seeds and cilantro created a Polish-Chinese dish that unfortunately didn’t taste as nice as it sounded. I layered Indian vermicelli with some Stilton cheese, covered the whole thing with tangy pizza sauce, and baked it like a lasagne. I went too far when I mixed fava beans, buttermilk, garlic, ginger, and tofu into a curried concoction that I stuffed into pita bread and served by candlelight. It tasted awful. The pungent garlic and the fermented tofu had somehow intensified each other’s flavors, making the sticky, yellow mass a morass of taste.

Ram complained bitterly and went on a hunger strike. “I want Indian food,” he said. “Could you make that, please? I’m tired of entertaining the United Nations in our kitchen.”

Ram’s idea of good food was very simple. He preferred Indian dishes made according to the recipe. “Why are you experimenting with recipes that have already been perfected through five thousand years of trial and error?” he would ask.

ONE EVENING I returned from an errand to find Ram already home. As I hurried into the kitchen to heat up our dinner, Ram said, “Wait a minute. I have a surprise for you.”

He reached into the refrigerator and took out a cake. At least, it looked like a cake. It was a white, circular blob with cherries on top. As I walked closer, I recognized it as the spaghetti I had made earlier. The white strands had congealed into a tight lump and taken on the shape of the circular cake container they had been left in. Ram had simply turned the whole thing upside down and placed some cherries on top. He stood with a teasing grin, triumphantly holding aloft his white “cake.”

“Want to eat out?” he asked.

AFTER THAT, I took pains to make traditional Indian recipes. Even though my inclination was to add a pinch of paprika here, a touch of lemongrass there, and a hint of miso, I ceased. I knew that Ram’s ever-vigilant palate would be alert to my experimenting.

“The
rasam
tastes funny today,” he would say after taking a sip.

“Oh, really?” I would ask innocently, rapidly calculating whether I had hidden the bottle of Japanese
umeboshi
paste within the innards of my pantry. After all, I had only added half a teaspoon.

Over several months I found that it didn’t matter whether it was a pinch of wasabi or a spritz of soy sauce over my Indian curries. Ram could always tell.

“Look, if you can’t cook Indian food, don’t,” Ram would say. “I realize it’s tough, especially since you don’t have any training.”

Of course I could cook. Better than he ever would. I replaced the wasabi with asafetida, the soy sauce with tamarind, the soba noodles with basmati rice, the
umeboshi
paste with mint chutney, and the spaghetti with vermicelli. I was ready to embrace Indian food, using childhood memories and hastily written recipes as my guide. No more experiments, no more trying out fusion cuisine. Instead, I cooked a different Indian dish every day, trying to prove to myself—and Ram—that I could indeed cook. It was hard at first. Indian cooking—indeed, any cooking—is mostly about getting the proportions right, and mine were all wrong. My
rasam
had too many lentils, and my
kootu
not enough; my curries were either underspiced or overdone; my rice dishes were more like dense risottos than flaky pilafs.

I took to the challenge with the fervor of a graduate student. I missed the goals and achievements that marked student life and transferred all my energies into cooking. Cooking well became my goal, and when I succeeded, it was an achievement. At least for me.

I frequently called my mother while I cooked, with questions like “What color does the cauliflower have to be before I know it’s done?” or “Should I grind the lentils in a blender or food processor?” She was delighted by my interest and gave detailed answers about each recipe.

I had an easy way of judging whether I had succeeded in my efforts. Each of the women in my life had her own specialty, and I judged my cooking by my memories of their food. If my
sambar
tasted like my mother-in-law’s
sambar,
then I had made the grade. If not, I needed to work harder. If my
rasam
tasted like Nalla-ma’s
rasam,
it was good. If my curries were as delicate and flavorful as my mother’s, I was okay.

The thrill of cooking is the immediate gratification it gives. As the months passed, my culinary skills developed to the point where I could understand and enjoy the nuances of each dish I cooked: the heft of a rich pilaf, the delicacy of cilantro, the comfort in eating fried potatoes on a winter night, the piquancy of cumin. Even though I didn’t expect to, I began to enjoy my own cooking. The Indian food that I had been used to in America had been mostly from Indian restaurants, oily and overspiced. When I discovered that I could duplicate the flavors of my childhood, I realized how much I missed them, and how much I enjoyed creating them.

I had another source of gratification when I cooked Indian food: Ram’s obvious pleasure in eating it. As a new bride, I didn’t want merely to feed him—I wanted to dazzle him. Although we went on a four-day honeymoon in India right after we were married, I remember those halcyon days when I cooked a different Indian dish each day as my extended honeymoon.

PURIS

If I had to pick one Indian dish that offers the greatest bang for the buck, it would be
puri
and
masala.
Although the basic dough is simple to make, the
puris
puff up like little balls when you fry them, which looks really impressive. As a bride, I made
puris
often to impress Ram. They are a great couple food because they look good. They become labor-intensive when you make them for more than four people, since they have to be eaten immediately or they will collapse. I once made
puris
for a dinner party of eight and ended up spending the whole evening frying them in the kitchen and watching my guests gobble them up. It didn’t make for a great party, I must say.

SERVES 2 TO 4

1 cup durum-wheat flour or
atta
(available in Indian grocery
stores; if you don’t have
atta,
substitute all-purpose bleached
flour)
2 tablespoons semolina
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
2 to 3 cups canola or other vegetable oil

Combine the flour, semolina, and salt in a bowl and stir in the milkand 1/2 cup water. Knead until it forms a smooth, soft dough thatisn’t sticky to the touch. It should be about the consistency of pizzadough.

Make small balls out of the dough, about the size of a small Floridalime. Flour the work surface and roll out each ball into a thin, flatcircle about 2 inches in diameter, about the size of a small pancake.Dust with some flour if the dough sticks to the rolling pin. (A tor-tilla press works beautifully for
puris.
It is quick and efficient, and the
puris
come out perfectly round.) Repeat this with all the re-maining balls.

In a wok, deep saucepan, or an Indian
kadai,
heat the oil to 375˚ F.Working in batches of four, put the flat
puri
into the hot oil, andwatch them puff up. If the
puri
doesn’t puff, it means that the oilisn’t hot enough or the dough isn’t supple enough. Wait until the oilheats up a little more before you put in the next one. Also, kneadthe dough well with your hands to make it supple. Make sure thatthe dough is rolled out evenly. These three things will help makeyour
puris
puff up.

Once the
puri
puffs up, flip it and cook until both sides are goldenbrown. It should puff up into a ball. Remove the
puri
from the oilusing a flat spatula, tongs, or a salad fork. Drain on paper towels.

Repeat with all the dough balls. Serve hot with potato
masala
or
channa masala,
chopped onions, and lemon wedges.

POTATO MASALA

Potato
masala
is the traditional accompaniment to
puris
and one of India’s most favorite foods.

SERVES 2 TO 4

3 small potatoes, Yukon Gold or Russet
1 teaspoon canola or olive oil
1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon
urad
dal
1/2 teaspoon
channa
dal
1 to 2 green chiles, Thai or serrano, slit in half lengthwise
1/4-inch sliver ginger
1 onion, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
Chopped fresh cilantro
Juice of 1/2 lemon or lime

Boil the potatoes in a medium saucepan until tender and drain. Cool until they can be handled. Peel and coarsely mash them.

Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan and add the mustard seeds. When they start to pop, add the
urad
dal,
channa
dal, chiles, and ginger. Sauté for 1 minute. Then add the chopped onion, and sauté until golden. Add the mashed potatoes, turmeric, and salt. If it seems dry, add 1/2 cup water. Mash potatoes so that they become a semisolid gravy. Boil for about 10 minutes.

Garnish with chopped cilantro and a dash of lemon or lime juice.