Exploring India through Food
There is no single Indian cuisine. The more I travel through India in search of new recipes and ways of cooking (I’ve loved going on food trips for many years now), the more convinced I am that there is no other land as varied. India almost seems like it’s several countries in one.
If you’ve traveled to India, you know what I mean. The food of the North and the South (and I’m bunching vast land masses here) vary hugely and then there are countless more smaller regions to consider, too.
In this chapter, I take you on a journey through India so you can see what influ ences this diversity.
The Early Use of Spices
Records of excavations of early civilizations suggest that my ancestors were eating grains and spices from as far back as 3000 BCE. Medical texts estimated to be from the first and second centuries mention spices and herbs for healing purposes.
How spices traveled outside India
Early Europeans imported spices from India to use in food and incense. Around 2,500 years ago, the Arabs controlled the trade. Spices could change hands a dozen times between their source and Europe, soaring in value with each transaction, and the Arabs were the greatest of the middlemen. Eager to keep it that way, they did everything possible to confuse consumers about the origins, some stories claiming that spices grew on remote mountains in Arabia!
Pepper was prized and there was even a Guild of Pepperers in London, the records of which date back to 1180. They bought and sold spices and also controlled the quality. Things changed in the 15th century when the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovered the route to India by navigating around the Cape of Good Hope. Direct trade routes between Europe and the East opened, and spices such as cinnamon, pepper, and cloves became more commonplace in Western markets.
Later, when the British started the East India Company, its officers began sending Indian recipes in letters back home. Slowly, suburban English housewives began to cook curries in their homes. There was of course, a lack of authentic ingredients and cookware: Tender green mangoes were replaced with tart English apples, and curries that were traditionally thickened with onion paste began to be made with a roux of flour and butter. Basically, they started to make a curry and ended up with apple pie.
To compensate for the lack of all the necessary spices, a convenient mix was cre ated and became known as curry powder. Even today, curry powder is a generic blend that doesn’t even hint at the complexity and variety of India’s cooking
No self-respecting Indian cook uses curry powder. Instead, there are subtle regional spices blends in every part of the country that make each cuisine distinct.
Soon small Indian restaurants began to be seen in London, and in the last century, Indian sailors who had fled British ships due to terrible working conditions opened Indian takeout restaurants in the East End. Catering mainly to late pub-goers, they created a simplistic curry menu based on pungency. A fiery hot curry was vindaloo (actually a Goan–Portuguese curry), a Madras was medium (you can’t f ind a Madras curry in India, let alone an area called Madras), and a korma was mild (a chile korma can be super spicy in India). Along the way, the popular curry known as chicken tikka masala was invented and caught the fancy of the British public; today it’s one of the highest-selling ready meals
Menus based on heat levels have thrived until present day, and people who have only eaten restaurant food believe it to be the real thing. In this book, I hope to show you how diverse Indian cooking really is and that heat is just one of the things to consider when creating your meal.
The influences that make Indian cooking so diverse
With so many regions, it’s easy to be perplexed by the variety in Indian cooking. If I tell you that India is a vast country, you may reply that there are many other vast countries in the world. That’s completely true, but none has a cuisine that changes every few miles. Here are the reasons Indian cooking is so diverse:
» Climate: You may think that all of India is a hot country because it’s in a tropical part of the world, but there are many places in the country that are cold enough to experience snowfall. When we’re in a hot place, we want to eat cooling foods, like ice cream. But it’s India, so we’ll talk about spices. Chilies contain a compound called capsaicin in their membranes; capsaicin is what makes them hot, but when we eat them, capsaicin also makes our blood vessels dilate and makes us sweat. Have you seen some people mopping their foreheads when eating a hot curry? Sweating helps us cool down, and that’s why in hotter parts of India such as the South, which is nearer the equator, recipes have lots of chilies. You’ll find milder curries spiced with pepper in the colder regions.
» Geography: In such a big country, eating local food and not paying for transport costs is definitely cheaper. Local recipes make the most of ingredi ents that grow close by, so you’ll find coconut-based curries in the South and wheat breads in the North. The desert state of Rajasthan uses few fresh vegetables. The ones that do grow are dried and cooked with fiery spices to combat the searingly hot and dry climate. The availability of water is a big contributor to food diversity. In fertile regions that are fed by rivers and seas, more crops can grow. Similarly, there are a variety of soil conditions all over India — the rich black soil of Western India supports the growth of millet, whereas the alluvial soil of Punjab in the North is good for wheat.
» Religious beliefs: India is home to many major religious groups. Growing up in cosmopolitan Bombay (as Mumbai was then called), I had Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist friends, and we all celebrated each other’s festivals and foods. We knew that some Hindu friends would be vegetarian, whereas others would eat meat but never beef. Our Muslim friends didn’t eat pork. The Jains didn’t eat root vegetables (their way of life is based on nonviolence, so killing of life forms by uprooting vegetables is prohibited). The cuisine of each community is based on these religious beliefs and meant that I was eating vastly diverse foods from when I was quite little
» Trade, migration, and conquest: I don’t like to use the word authentic when speaking about Indian cooking. Although the cuisine is ancient, there are so many foreign influences that make it what it is today. (I explain more about this concept in the sections that follow.) At the heart of the cuisine is the world’s need for India’s spices and what each of the foreign powers brought with them in exchange. Pepper, the spice that started it all, is said to have changed the history of the world
The North: Of Conquest, Kings, and Empire
If you travel through North India, you’ll be struck by the beautiful Islamic and British architecture in many cities. Over many centuries, parts of this vast region of India have been ruled by the Greeks, the Mughals, and the British. The food you’ll eat here is a result of these conquests, and perhaps Mughal cooking was the one that changed the culinary scene the most.
Delhi: The Mughals and Islamic influences
New Delhi is the modern capital of India. It has a cosmopolitan population of poli ticians, diplomats, and business officials, and the cuisine reflects the diversity of its past history. The streets are lined with stalls selling tandoor cooked foods, crisp samosas, and rich biryanis. As evening turns to dusk, the city’s rich and famous dress up in their best silks to attend countless cocktail and dinner parties where tables creak with the best of Mughlai food.
This is a legacy left by the Mughal rulers who reigned over a large part of India from their capital Delhi from 1526, before the British took over. The cuisine was influenced by Persian and Turkish cooking as the rulers had ties with these cul tures (the official language of the Mughal rulers was Persian). Today’s korma, biryani, kofta, and kebab are a Mughal legacy and have become mainstream North Indian dishes. Traces of Mughlai cooking can be seen in some southern cities such as Hyderabad, where the Mughal Empire extended to
Because of the Islamic origins of this style of cooking, and in reverence to the many Hindu courtiers that advised the kings, pork and beef dishes were not included. Indian restaurants offering Mughlai food today serve it up as a mild, delicious cuisine based on creamy or nut-based curries laced with dried fruits and rich spices, such as saffron and cardamom. Desserts are flavored with rose water and pistachios, and the recipes are typically richer than those found in other parts of India. This is an indulgent cuisine; in India, it’s seen as a treat
The foothills of the Himalayas: Basmati rice
Although India grows many different varieties of rice, basmati is the best known outside its country of origin. This beautiful, aromatic (the name basmati means “fragrant”), long-grained rice finds the climatic and soil conditions at the bases of the Himalayan mountain range ideal.
In India, basmati rice is considered special and is more expensive than other rice varieties. This is because it’s a uniquely slender grain that cooks up fluffy, a trait that’s valued in Indian cooking. To enhance this quality of cooking into separate grains, it’s aged in warehouses where conditions such as light, air, temperature, and humidity are highly controlled. This results in each grain drying and forming a light skin, which can effectively seal the grain and help lock in the starch. The aging process can take anywhere from a year and a half to two years, the longer period yielding a more expensive rice.
When the British divided India at the time of independence in 1947, a part of this basmati-growing territory fell in the newly formed country of Pakistan. The cui sines of both countries celebrate this superlative grain in dishes such as biryani and pulao.
Punjab and the Partition of India
A number of Indians who live outside of India are Punjabi in origin. Around the time of Partition, when the state of Punjab got divided, Hindus living in the newly formed country of Pakistan and Muslims living in the Indian part of Punjab crossed borders, giving rise to one of the world’s largest human migrations. The chaos, genocide, and displacement meant that some people fled to postwar Britain where jobs were available along with the opportunity to begin life anew.
They brought with them the unique food of the North — so much so that, today, in many parts of the world, when someone talks of Indian cooking, it’s Punjabi food that they’re referring to. Rich onion- and tomato-flavored curries, aloo gobi, saag paneer, or the delicious tandoori foods (cooked slowly in a clay oven called the tandoor), even the naans and parathas, all came from Punjab.
Ingredients that you would commonly find in a Punjabi kitchen are beans such as chickpeas and red kidney beans; black lentils; vegetables such as cauliflower, potatoes, peas, and turnips; and whole-wheat flour to make many kinds of breads. Punjab grows a lot of wheat and was once known as the granary of India.
There are many stories about how tandoori cooking came to be associated with India. It was already being used in undivided Punjab and, after Partition, found its way to the Indian side of the state. Because a tandoor is quite large and needs to be brought to the right temperature over some time (as you do with a barbecue), it was impractical for every Punjabi home to fire one up every evening. Communal tandoors were set up, with each village having one. People prepared their dough at home and took it to the village tandoor to have their rotis cooked. Eventually, commercial tandoori shops offered cooked breads to take away, and the commu nal tandoor became less of a ritual; today, only a few villages have one
Kashmir and its saffron fields
Kashmir is one of the most beautiful states of India, resplendent with green val leys, flowing waterfalls, pine forests, and fruit-filled orchards. Due to its proxim ity to the Himalayas, Kashmir was the natural passage to India for many invaders. Its cuisine is, therefore, a mix of Indian, Persian, and Afghan styles
The cooking of Kashmir is best showcased in the Wazawan or traditional Kashmiri feast. Even today, the master chefs of Kashmir are hailed as the descendants of the traditional chefs from Samarkand, the Wazas who came to India with the ruler Timur when he entered India in the 15th century. The royal Wazawan, comprising 36 courses, is a feast that few can get through. The meal begins with the ritual of washing the hands. Then the tramis (dishes filled with food) begin to arrive. The entrees are eaten with a sticky, dense variety of rice, which is prized. Much of the Wazawan is meat-based because this is a sign of affluence, but vegetarian dishes with lotus root or potatoes are also served
Two distinct groups of people live in Kashmir — the Muslims and the Hindus — and their cuisines are also distinct. Spices such as dried ginger, ground fennel, and saffron, which grow in Kashmir, are used. This state is known for its quality saf fron. The bright red stigma of the saffron crocus flower produces the spice, which is considered the most expensive one in the world. The cost is due to the labor- intensive harvesting process where around 200,000 stigmas need to be collected to make up a pound of saffron!
The East: Tea Plantations, Tempting Sweets, and Treasures of the Sea
The food of East India is also influenced by trade and colonization. Parts of this region share a border with neighboring China and Myanmar, so those influences are evident; you’ll find ingredients such as pork, bamboo shoots, and soya beans. Don’t be fooled into thinking that all the food here is gentle and mild — this region is also home to one of the world’s most fiery chilies, the bhut jolokia, or ghost chile, which is so hot that one little taste and you yourself will become a ghost
Tea and the British
Have you heard that India is one of the world’s largest producers of tea? Much of it is drunk in house, so we have a nation of tea lovers. The industry as we know it today was introduced to India by the British. The Dutch had brought tea back to Europe from the 17th century, and the British considered it to be both a medicinal and a refreshing drink.
China was the only country growing tea at the time, and the British wanted to top ple China’s monopoly. So, they smuggled opium into China with the aim of exchanging it for tea and even got Bengali farmers to grow opium for them instead of staple crops needed to feed the masses. This did not impress the Chinese.
Early tea plantations were set up in the hilly regions of Assam from 1837. Soon after, tea estates mushroomed in Darjeeling. Both these eastern areas had perfect growing conditions, and even today, driving through the beautiful mountain roads, you can only admire the step plantations carved into every hillside.
In India, everything needs to be spiced with masala, so it isn’t surprising that the brew was enhanced with ginger, cardamom, and fennel seeds to make Masala Chai (Spiced Tea; see Chapter 21). The Indian word for tea is chai, and I’ve heard it comes from the Chinese word cha. This delicious brew has caught the world’s fancy (although strangely called chai tea, which translates as “tea tea,” in the West) and seems to be a much-loved flavor in lattes and ice creams
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