Chicago Blues

This blog is an online repertoire of my columns that run in the Indian Express, North American edition. Here I rave and rant about life, mostly as seen from the large vistas of my little world.

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Location: Chicago, United States

Thursday, September 14, 2006

When you’re an Indian, and a foodie, living in these shores, chances are you’re familiar with most Mexican spices and foods, simply because they satiate your appetite like no other non-Indian cuisine possibly can. Well, in retrospect, it doesn’t really matter if it’s Mexican, Chinese, Mediterranean, or even American. Because you know how to put an Indian spin on all these cuisines.

At first, you try to evaluate a snack, and then you liken it to an Indian one that comes closest to it in terms of the look, aroma, texture and taste. This way, you’ll know what to call it, what to substitute it with, or what to spice it up with. Of course, you ask for ‘peppered okra,’ at a Chinese place, but when it arrives at the table, and if you’re among desi friends, you’d refer to it as ‘bhindi pakoras.’ And if it’s ‘Jalapeno fritters,’ you’re munching on at a Mexican place, it’s still ‘chili bonda,’ to you, just like ‘falafels’ are ’dal vadas,’ ‘onion rings,’ are ‘onion bajjis,’ and so forth.

I have an interesting theory about Indian palate and spice. Of course, primarily, they go hand-in-hand and nothing can ever undo that. That said, it is in varying degrees of hot, sour, bitter and sweetish-savoriness that the Indian palate can be classified, which in turn can be used in multifarious ways to define different personae, and which part of the world they would best thrive in if they had to. Well, it’s not as simple as calling a sweet-toothed guy from Bengal, ‘sweet fellow,’ but involves meticulous analysis of the person’s food habits. Let’s say a person from Karnataka eats his rice or rotis with a red-chili-garlic chutney. Now, you have to figure out where those chilis were grown in the first place, to know what this guy is actually made of. If it’s Assam, then Mexico’s probably where he’d fit best in, because the Red Savina Habanero chilis of Mexico are on par with Tezpur chilis, the hottest chilis in the world. Like this, a Kannadiga may well be an Assamese, or a Mexican, at heart.

I was at a party a few weeks ago, and the hosts, being Indian, said they had a half-store-bought, half-home-made surprise appetizer that would knock me out. It turned out to be an Indianized version of tortilla-wrap: store-bought tortillas stuffed with homemade rajma (in the place of beans), a tomato-onion-cilantro-yoghurt mix (a take on Mexican salsa), and crumbly, melted shreds of paneer (instead of cheese). It was indeed a ripper of a dish and I have since come up with my own stuffing assortments to modify this recipe.

Like this, there are scores of other incidents that come to mind, which depict the diversity of desis trying to Indianize other cuisines. I remember recommending to my husband’s Tamilian colleague, who happens to be a food lover, an exquisite Ethiopian restaurant we used to frequent. It turned out he’d already been there himself, and the concept of sharing and eating out of a single plate, and being able to relish the food minus the nuisance of forks and knives, had really appealed to him. I was happy to hear that, but he was quick to add that the ‘injeras’ hadn’t been fermented enough, to match the taste of his mother’s dosas. He even joked that he may as well have eaten them with ‘molagapudi’ (a South Indian condiment made with a blend of fried chili, lentils and curry leaves) and yoghurt.

Then there was an incident right at home, where my mother-in-law fussed over our Black & Decker blender that wouldn’t grind ‘shorshe’ (mustard) to a fine paste like her Sumeet heavy-duty mixer-grinder did back at home. And then she discovered America’s own miracle mustard. One weekend when she had invited some friends over for a luncheon, she had used the paste generously in an eggplant curry that instantly became a hit with everyone. Everyone knew it had a magic ingredient, that special something, which they couldn’t lay a finger on. Of course, she wouldn’t reveal the secret, until one day I accidentally caught her squeezing Woeber’s sweet-and-sour mustard right into a pan of eggplants simmering in seasoned low-cholesterol vegetable oil.

Being a epicure of sorts, God knows I’ve Indianized a few exotic dishes myself. I’ve seasoned up my fries with MTR chaat masala, smeared tamarind ‘thokku’ on my pizzas, glazed my ‘burritos’ with curry powder, and jazzed up my broccoli with ginger-garlic paste and red chili powder. And of course, to wash it all down, I’ve drizzled jeera-ajwain powder into my Diet Coke for extra zing.

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