Eating in India – The Spice Trade
Saying you like Indian food is the same as saying you like European food. Within Europe, you have French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch, and Scandinavian cuisines. Within India, the range of cuisines is enormous and includes, but is not limited to, the foods of Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Assam, Bengal, and Goa. On top of that, religions in India dictate what’s served. If you’re a Jain, you can’t eat onions, garlic, scallions, chives, leeks, mushrooms, honey, eggs, vinegar, or any kind of meat, poultry, or fish. Muslim? No pork. Hindu? No beef. Hindu Brahmin? No chicken. Are you Sikh? No meat from an animal that has been slaughtered in ritual fashion, such as kosher or halal.
On a recent trip to India, informed prior about the rigid customs of regions, religions, and castes, I expected to eat chiefly vegetarian food. I didn’t want to offend anyone. However, within each group of customs, as long as I was patient and pleasant, I discovered some amazing old and new dining experiences. Let me preface this by saying that, broadly, the food in India, when you find good places, is nothing like what we get here in 99% of so-called Indian restaurants. Here, the food is usually culled from all of India. The menus are expansive so as to be homogenized, lacking in authenticity, and without the terroir or regionalism that defines the best cuisines. It’s as if a restaurant opened up and called itself, “The Paris Club,” and went on to serve Polish kielbasa, spaghetti Bolognese, Matjas herring, paella, and roast beef. The next time you walk into a place called, “The Bombay Club,” look at the menu and see if the dishes don’t come from the entire subcontinent.
It’s just plain silly.
The other problem with food that’s served in most Indian restaurants in the U.S. is that the protein i.e. lamb, chicken, and fish is usually boiled and then dipped in thick, unctuous sauces that were prepared hours or days prior. There is no subtlety and no freshness. No matter where you go in India, the best restaurants emphasize dishes cooked to order. Indians are notoriously prolix and extremely well-informed about how things should taste. With the competition enormous in the cities, at hotels, and within homes that hire cooks, the people preparing meals have to get it right.
My favorite restaurant in Delhi, and one of my favorite restaurants in the world, is Bukhara. Located inside the ITC Maurya Sheraton Hotel, it’s an upscale place that’s small and dark, with an open tandoor oven, cold beer, great martinis, and by far the best lamb dishes in the city. The food is informed by traditions that developed in the northwest of India, now bordering Pakistan, and is hearty and flavorful with spices that toy with the lamb rather than overwhelm it. The breads are simply amazing. I ended up eating here three nights in a row, it was that good. The Sikandari Raan (roast leg of lamb) is stunning. The saag paneer (spinach and cheese), is deeply satisfying. A landmark restaurant in the city is Kareem’s, located in funky, old Delhi, within the Muslim Quarter, just a short distance by motorized rickshaw from Jama Masjid, the magnificent mosque built in the mid-seventeenth century. Kareem’s is filled with locals and foreigners and the northern Muslim dishes are the real thing. Lamb stew and the kebabs are mouth watering: cumin, garlic, coriander, turmeric. The spices weave into the food and accent its essence.
The latest craze in the country is South Indian cuisine. You see signs for it everywhere. This food is typically all vegetarian and, in contrast to northern dishes, it packs a wallop with a range of heat, from a manageable rise in mouth temperature to making you sweat and cry. All the top hotels are serving versions of South Indian classics, like dosas (something like crepes) served with potatoes and idli (sort of a rice cake). I had these at breakfast. Tip: If you get the dosas with the potatoes on the side, the “crepe” is crispier. A great South Indian restaurant that can be found in several places in Delhi and India, thanks to the owner’s entrepreneurship, is Sagar. I ate at the outpost in Delhi’s Defence Colony Market and then way up north in Shimla. We’re talking very reasonable here: A huge array of 100% vegetarian dishes, flavorful, intense, and extremely delicious, with a meal for four coming in at about $30.
Heading up north, I stayed three nights as a guest of Wildfower Hall, an Oberoi resort, located in the Himalayas. I’d read about this famous hotel for years. Situated on the site where Lord Kitchener once resided, it has a good restaurant where the chef and his many cooks are working on a menu that ambitiously embraces several regions of the country. Among the kitchen’s top dishes? Gosht roganjosh ( Kashimiri baby lamb) and Gobhi aur chane ka palda (Himachali style cauliflower and chickpeas). Dining at the hotel made me feel as if I was on the movie set of “The Jewel in the Crown.” Best of all though, I rented a house, Violet Hill, just below Wildflower Hall and spent three weeks there enjoying Indian lunches and dinners each day. The rental price of the property included a cook. Fellow by the name of Ramesh, who prepared beautiful food inspired by Punjab, which is where he had spent all his life. I asked Ramesh if he would let me watch him cook and take notes while he worked. My goal? To learn ten dishes I could duplicate back home. Among the things he taught me how to make: dal (lentils), “ladyfingers” (fried okra), pakora (crispy vegetables), a first-rate lamb curry, and really delicious saag paneer.
I returned home weighing about five pounds more than when I’d left, but happy, informed, and hungry for more. My first day back I stopped at an Indian grocer in town and stocked up: black cardamom, sesame seeds, cumin, coriander, cinnamon bark, anise seeds, turmeric. I’d rediscovered the spice trade. The only downside? In the weeks since returning, everything I eat that’s not Indian seems bland.
www.shrinkinthekitchen.com
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If You Go:
Bukhara– Diplomatic Enclave, Sardar Patel Marg, Chanakyapuri New Delhi 26112233
Kareem’s– Old Delhi
Sagar- Several locations 18, Defence Colony Market New Delhi 24333110
Wildflower Hall – Chharabra Shimla 171 012 Himachal Pradesh Telephone: (91-177) 264 8585
To rent our cottage, you can contact:
Anita Gurnani, Format Travel, www.formattravel.com Or: Mr. Prabdip Singh: 011-91-09815442233.
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