Indian Cooking For Dummies. Monisha Bharadwaj
as being cloying. But wait, have you ever had a box of chocolates? It’s the same principle: Commercially available sweets have a lot of sugar to increase their shelf life. Indian homemade desserts are subtly flavored confections (see Chapter 21 for some easy and delicious recipes) bursting with fruit, milk, spice, and all things nice.
The eastern state of Bengal is particularly known for its sweet offerings. According to historians, the original name of the area was Gauda, derived from the Sanskrit word for jaggery, the sweet, thickened juice of sugarcane. Because this crop grew here in plenty, and old texts affirm this, it can be safely said that sweets were an important part of the cuisine for several centuries.
But Bengali sweets are unlike those of anywhere else in the country, mainly because many are made with cottage cheese as a base. I’ve heard that the Portuguese, who were in India before the British, brought the skill of cheese making to Bengal. The Hindus considered the curdling of milk taboo, but that didn’t stop them from falling in love with the resulting delicacies. They quickly created recipes using fresh cottage cheese, spices, sugar, and nuts and produced pillowy-soft confections that melted in the mouth and left you wanting more. As these began to be mass produced in factories, the sugar content increased. Today, the gulab jamuns and ras malai you see on Indian restaurant menus have set the stage for everyone thinking that all Indian sweets are syrupy sweet.
Odisha and fish with everything
The state of Odisha enjoys a long coastline along the Bay of Bengal, so it’s hardly surprising that fish features regularly on many dinner tables there. Lying on the east coast, Odisha nestles between the South and the North, so the food is inspired by both. The Northern part of Odisha, which borders Bengal, uses mustard paste in curries, whereas southern districts use tamarind, in keeping with South Indian traditions.
I don’t hear people around the world talk much about Odia cooking, but this state has produced some of the best cooks of the East. They’re known for a simple yet flavorful style, so they’re in high demand in other parts of India. Many centuries ago, Odisha built maritime trade ties with Bali in Indonesia, and no doubt they also introduced Indian spices and curry pastes to that land.
The South: Of Temples, Coconut Groves, and Spice Routes
I think of the South as the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Goa. Each has a unique cuisine, with a few similarities because of what crops grow there and the climate they share.
Sacred foods
All food is considered sacred in India. Nature is worshipped for its generosity, and many ingredients that come from the earth are revered. Wasting food is seen as an insult to the benevolence we are blessed with. Rice, for example, is seen as a staple that can feed countless people and is associated with abundance. Turmeric, the spice, has been valued for its healing properties for centuries and is used in rituals of cleansing and purification.
Invasions through land routes preceded those from sea routes, which were discovered much later. Southern India is surrounded by sea, so it saw relatively fewer foreign invasions, and the ones it did see came later than in the North. It’s believed that the native culture of India, both religious and spiritual, is better preserved in the South. Because religion is so pervasive through every aspect of life in India, the food here is also influenced by these beliefs.
South India is well known for its many beautifully sculpted temples. On many of my travels to these temples, I’ve found, to my great delight, sculptures of ancient foods that were served to devotees who visited or given as offerings to the gods. Some of these carvings are 800 years old and seem like a novel way to preserve the region’s culinary heritage!
Goa and the Portuguese influence
Although most people think of Goa as a beach holiday destination, its culinary history is fascinating for what it did to all food in India. As the demand for spices grew in the Western world, Europeans set out in search of the lands that grew them. The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama reached the Malabar Coast in Kerala in 1498 and opened the routes for the spice trade.
The Portuguese invaded Goa in 1510 and brought great changes to the cuisine and culture of the region. Many Hindus were converted to Christianity, and people who had earlier not eaten beef and pork began to cook these foods in their homes.
The Portuguese brought to India many ingredients that some people may think are native. Chilies, cashews, potatoes, and tomatoes forever changed the way recipes were prepared. Chilies replaced black pepper, and today, tons of chilies grow all over India, finding their way into almost every savory dish.
Leavened bread called pao is another Portuguese food that has endured over the centuries. It’s eaten dipped into sweet tea for breakfast or with curries like the vindaloo, another Portuguese-inspired Goan dish. Made up of the Portuguese words for wine and garlic — vino and alho, respectively — the dish has been interpreted by Indian restaurants around the world as the hottest curry on the menu. People outside India may think of it as being one of the country’s best loved curries, so predictable and constant is its presence on menus. In India, it’s a tangy, hot curry spiced with chilies, vinegar, and spices that is eaten locally in Goa and is not ubiquitously popular all over the country.
Kerala and its Hindu, Christian, and Muslim cooking
Kerala, which means “land of coconuts,” is one of the best places to visit if you love Indian food but want more than the usual tikka and korma. A small state with the hilly Western Ghats on one side and the azure Arabian Sea on the other, its cuisine is inspired by its 560 miles of backwaters. On the banks of these intricate waterways grow coconuts, bananas, and spices such as pepper and cardamom. The backwaters also provide Kerala’s best delicacy, a silvery-black fish called karimeen or pearlspot, which is cooked with hot spices in a banana leaf. Coconut is used in some form (oil, milk, or flesh; grated, roasted, or powdered) in almost every recipe.
Foreign influences are apparent in its cuisine here, too. Judaism and Christianity both came to Kerala many centuries ago, and modern Syrian Christians (the majority Christian population in this state) believe that the Apostle Thomas came here and baptized their ancestors. Later, the Portuguese arrived and continued the conversions, this time to Catholicism.
Early spice routes were controlled by the Arabs. Kerala being the region of India where so many were grown, it’s easy to understand how Islam was introduced to this region around the seventh century.
Today, the Kerala Christian table is laden with beef and pork stews, the Muslim one with biryanis and breads such as parottas, and the Hindu kitchen is fragrant with coconut and vegetable or fish curries.
Tamil Nadu temples and their fragrant cuisines
Hindus follow practices that appeal to them from Hinduism’s various philosophies and beliefs and build a relationship with a favorite deity chosen from the vast pantheon of gods. One such practice is the offering of special foods to the gods. These foods are cooked in a special way that is considered pure; so, the cook will enter the kitchen only after a cleansing bath, use “allowed” ingredients (disallowed ingredients include foods such as meat, fish, onions, and garlic), and cook with love and devotion. Most Hindu temples of worship have a kitchen attached, and the blessed foods cooked here are distributed to devotees who come from far and wide, free of cost.
Temple foods always seem to taste good and, because they serve the community, their availability means that needy people who live in the vicinity never go hungry. They’re available to everyone, so if you do get an opportunity to visit, it’s a good idea to sample this truly divine food.
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