The Heavenly Taste of Temple Food

Das Sreedharan IE: 16th Feb2014 06:00 AM

Stop! A loud voice was heard as we approached the big gathering on the left of the temple. The Pal Payasam caravan was on the march into the shrine from the auspicious kitchen, thousands of litres of boiling rice pudding making its way from the gigantic vessel into the God’s Altar for the sermon before getting blessed and distributed to the crowd.

In the heart of a chanting crowd, praying for many things in front of God, I was left ascertaining the white vapours of boiling milk and fragrance of sweet rice pudding, this’s the ultimate destination for the finest payasam in the world.

I began a journey with my friend Unni to this beautiful Krishna temple to offer a surprise visit to my father on his birthday. The historic shrine of Guruvayoor in Kerala has infinite stories connected with Lord Krishna, his miraculous power and favourite elephants. Devotees endow their faith in the Godly presence and unconditional love for this place. It’s a dream pilgrimage for many like my father on their birthday to savour the sweet stories of Krishna and surrender to the command of God.

You will find children and women of all ages clad in traditional Kerala attire of auspicious cream with vibrant golden borders. We grew up learning about young Krishna’s playfulness and stories of beautiful young girls following him everywhere, obviously girls believe in falling in love with Krishna even before dreaming of their own future husbands, so unsurprisingly you will find more happy girls in the vicinity.

When I looked towards the eastern part of the temple near the elephant’s corner, my inquisitiveness rocketed knowing the presence of the tantric chief priest and the whole clan of Namboothiri commune. Just like the Krishna stories these guys also have enormous influence in what goes on here, all rituals to preparing many offerings to God. So their cooking flair and gift of making food taste divine is known for generations. This will be the first hunting place for me, if I am looking for a vegetarian cook.

Apparently the senior priest doesn’t come everyday for the pooja other than for annual festivals, his assistants are hired on a monthly basis in a draw from hundreds of applicants and when chosen they will spend a month with in the shrine from 3am until late night.

I had long waited for this occasion to taste payasam here and I made most of it by having almost a litre by myself! Since then I have been contemplating everyday about that unbelievable taste and magic which came out of just three ingredients—rice, milk and sugar. I couldn’t forget my passionate dream 20 years ago about this payasam and attempted making it in the middle of the night without even knowing how to do it.

We stepped forward following a savoury scent from the other kitchen where they cook the well-known prasadam lunch for devotees. Folks generally sponsor these meals as their offering to Lord Krishna.  Originally this temple food was meant for Brahmin families in the area but in 1982 they opened the gates to the public.

During the annual festival, breakfast and lunch are cooked for up to 15,000 people. Unni reminded me that locals don’t cook anything at home during this period, and literally live in the temple compound. Unfortunately, it was too early for me to taste that divine meal on the day (since we had to leave early), however that aroma of the atmosphere still stay within and it’s a big reason to go back to this special place in Kerala.

I strolled towards the car with my smiling father after he recited his favourite poems to many in the temple. Looking at his face I could feel his happiness as he blessed me by putting his hand on my head.  I felt more zeal and serenity, the surprise really worked and maybe we need to repeat this farther in life for our loved ones.

The author is a London-based restaurateur who owns the Rasa chain

Discussing Idli-sambar, Chaat Papri at......... Karachi Luncheon

By Shilpa Raina | IANS - KARACHI:: 22nd Feb 2014 01:09 PM

Aamir Jaloti couldn't remember the name of a dish his friend had specially cooked for him when he visited Mumbai. Pinning all his hopes on me, he politely asked if I could tell him what it was he had that was like a soup with soft bread in it and sprinkled with "nimko".

Before this visiting IANS journalist could think of a name, she was stuck with the word "nimko".

Sitting in the conference room of Pakistan's iconic drama channel Hum TV, foreign delegates and employees of the channel were having lunch in what resembled a cultural roundtable conference.

And me being the only one from India, the talk invariably steered towards delicate relationship between the two countries - and the hassles of getting a visa. Delegates from the West were mere spectators!

All was fine, till "nimko" came into the picture.

"How to explain 'nimko' to her," said Jaloti from Dubai, almost giving up on explaining the word to me.

"It is like 'papri' of your chaat-papri," said a gentleman from the channel who has been to multiple Indian cities.

"It is crispy, namkeen (salty) and tasty," he added, telling Jaloti probably he had chaat-papri.

Nyet, said I.

"Chaat-papri has yogurt in it and it is no soup," I declared in an authoritative tone.

"Oh! Then it must be sambar. It too is like a soup," a journalist from Lahore said.

"The soft bread he is talking about must be idli. It is made of rice. It has to be idli-sambar. People in south India eat it every day," he added.

Interrupting his Indian food fantasy, I curiously asked about "nimko".

"Oh yes! Then probably he must have had bhelpuri (a popular Indian snack). It is pretty popular in Mumbai," said another young man who was from a trade organisation and had been to Mumbai several times.

"But bhelpuri doesn't have any soup," I retorted.

They all agreed. And Jaloti, hugely embarrassed by now, sheepishly said: "Probably she made something specially for me."

Not giving up on the subject so easily, I asked: "Was it sweet or sour?"

"It was sour," he said.

Thast was it! It couldn't be either idli-sambar or chaat-papri.

Was it panipuri or golgappa then, I asked, explaining what these popular Indian street foods looked like.

"No, it had soft bread in its centre," a disappointed Jaloti said firmly.

I too gave up, as my imagination couldn't think of anything.

So, as a minority sitting there, I asked them all: "Now please explain 'nimko' to me."

And then began round two of the food conference.

The hidden irony of this conversation is perhaps we all would have discussed the intricacies of Continental, Italian, Chinese or Japanese food but we were struggling to discuss cuisine of our neighbouring countries, which were once one nation.

This cultural ignorance will continue to grow and there will be a bigger chasm in future if the two nations at loggerhead stubbornly refuse to make peace or encourage cultural exchanges.

சமையலறை சமாளிப்புகள்

மகளிர் மணி

இட்லி மாவில் உளுந்து போதாமல், மாவு கெட்டியாயிருந்தால் பச்சை அப்பளங்களைத் தண்ணீரில் நனைத்து மிக்ஸியில் போட்டு ஒரு நிமிடம் ஓடவிட்டு மாவில் கலந்து விடுங்கள். இட்லி மிருதுவாகவும் மென்மையாகவும் இருக்கும்.

சமைக்கும்போது உருளைக்கிழங்குகளை மிக அதிகமாக வேகவிட்டு விடுவது உண்டு. இம்மாதிரி சமயங்களில் உருளைக்கிழங்குகள் மாவுபோல ஆகிவிடாமல் தடுக்க, பால் பவுடர் தூளைக் கொஞ்சம் கிழங்குகள்மேல் தூவி விடுங்கள் - சிறிது நேரத்தில் கிழங்குகள் கெட்டிப்பட்டுவிடும்.

"சொத சொத'வென்று சப்பாத்தி மாவு ஆகிவிட்டதா? கவலையே வேண்டாம். ஃப்ரீசரில் ஓர் அரைமணி நேரம் வைத்த பின் எடுத்து உருட்டி சப்பாத்திகளாக இடுங்கள். மாவு இறுகி விடுவதால் சுலபமாக இட வரும்.

கோதுமை, மைதா போன்ற மாவுகளைப் பயன்படுத்திப் பூரி, சப்பாத்தி செய்யும்போது, மாவு தேவையான அளவு இல்லை என்று தெரிந்தால், உருளைக்கிழங்கை வேக வைத்து தோல் அகற்றிப் பிசைந்து அதை கோதுமை அல்லது மைதாவுடன் சேர்த்துப் பிசைந்து பூரி, சப்பாத்தி செய்யலாம்.

சாம்பாரில் உப்பு கூடினால் ஒரு முள்ளங்கியை தோல் சீவி நறுக்கி சாம்பாரில் போட்டு 5 நிமிடம் கொதிக்க விடுங்கள். அதிகமாக உள்ள உப்பின் சுவை குறைந்துவிடும்.

வத்தக் குழம்பு மற்றும் காரக் குழம்பில் காரம் அதிகமாகிவிட்டால் கவலை வேண்டாம். சிறிது தேங்காய்ப்பால் விட்டு இறக்குங்கள். காரம் குறைவதுடன் சுவையும், மணமும் பிரமாதமாக இருக்கும்.

தக்காளி சூப் நீர்த்து இருந்தால், மாவு கரைத்துவிடுவதற்குப் பதில் அதில் ஒரு வெந்த உருளைக்கிழங்கை மசித்து சேர்க்கவும். சத்தும், ருசியும் அதிகரிக்கும்.

தோசை வார்க்கும்போது தோசை ரொட்டி போல் வந்தால், சாதம் வடித்த கஞ்சியைச் சிறிதளவு தோசை மாவில் கலந்து தோசை வார்த்துப் பாருங்கள். தோசை பூப்போல் மிருதுவாய் இருக்கும்.

Rise of the home chefs

Diners at the restuarant Photo: K.V. Srinivasan


Shonali Muthalaly :TH 2 Feb 2014

Ten talented home cooks, many diners, one long candle-lit table… 
Sandy’s hosted a memorable eating experience serving the best of traditional food

The best pop-ups tell a story. Chennai’s first pop up restaurant told twelve.

Temporary restaurants that spring up for a reason, and disappear soon after, pop-ups thrive on drama. They come in various guises. Some are seasonal restaurants; some exist for one night only. Whether they’re run by professional chefs or amateur cooks, their main aim is to create memorable eating experiences. Dinner, after all, is never just about the food.

Grandly titled ‘Kitchen Chronicles: Rise of the Home Chefs,’ this culinary event staged at Sandys (R.A. Puram) intelligently played on Chennai’s strengths. Hosted by restaurateur Sandesh Reddy and founder of the Home Chef’s Guild, K.P. Balakumar, the dinner showcased the specialities of 10 talented home cooks offering traditional South Indian food set in a slick big-city framework.

“Its food from home,” says Balakumar, in an attempt to explain why the dinner struck such a chord with the diners. (Limited to 40 seats, they sold out even before they had a chance to officially announce the event.) “When we started the Home Baker’s Guild, we found people who did a lot more than baking commenting on the forum. So 6 months later, we began a separate forum for them,” he says. While there are fewer home cooks than bakers, judging by the quality of the food at the pop up, their cooking is uniformly excellent. But that’s only to be expected: no short cuts, no cheats and lots of practice.

“We curated the event by simply picking people whose food we know and love. And each of them made the dish they are famous for,” says Reddy. As a special takeaway, the organisers have also put together all the recipes, and stories, and will be e-mailing them to each of the guests. “Perhaps that was one of the nicest things about this dinner,” says Balakumar, “Unlike many cooks who are secretive about recipes, all 10 of these women were happy to share their recipes.”

Although the food was homemade, with all the characteristic big, bold, straight forward flavours we associate with the cooking of our mothers and grandmothers, dinner was determinedly chic. In the spirit of big family dinners (and because it’s so much fun to be ‘ironic’ these days), this trendy ‘curated’ meal was served in the garden on one long candle-lit table, forcing bonhomie between strangers. It worked out rather well, despite the politely strained silence in the beginning. By the time the spicy fish curry arrived everyone was swapping stories. Pardon the cliché — but food clearly does bring people together.

It helped that most of the cooks were seated at the table too, and happy to chat about their food. As with all popular recipes, each of the dishes served came with a back-story. Aarthi Rajagopal reportedly netted her husband with her Andhra Chicken Fry, which began the meal. Shanti Balakrishnan (incidentally Balakumar’s mother) talked about how making fish cutlets always reminded her of packing school lunches for her kids. Nannu Bedi’s warm gajar halwa, which ended the dinner, was the first thing she learnt from her mother-in-law, a talented home cook, who always insisted on finding the freshest Delhi carrots for the dish.

Given the success of this event, the duo plan more pop ups through the year. “I have all these ideas that can’t be turned into full-blown restaurant — with a pop up you can give people an experience, even if it is for one night only,” says Reddy. “Next time maybe we’ll do a five course meal with professional chefs. Or something region specific… Or perhaps we can explore a less accessible, less popular cuisine.”

All money raised goes towards charity: “To feed the hungry and the homeless… Since the event is all about food, we decided to use the money to either feed children, or sponsor meals at an old age home,” says Balakumar.

Foodpreneurship has finally arrived in India

 

Come from a family of scientists and educationists. The word 'catering college' in my scholarly home elicited uninspiring visions of a cook labouring away behind some stove or a waiter taking orders. My father, Late Dr Snehamoy Chatterjee, was an Emeritus Scientist of Epitomology at the Indian Centre of Agriculture. He had high hopes from me, destined to flourish in physiology and zoology. So, my decision to switch to the nearest hospitality and catering institute nearly gave him a heart attack. 

We have come a long way since then. Today being known as a chef or a restaurateur is a social compliment. The world looks up to the two occupations as something between a wizard or some practitioner of magic with secret ingredients and recipes, and a suave person of the world who can patronise the food connoisseurs. Welcome to the world of food entrepreneurship. 

Food has gone through a quiet revolution. As the family became smaller and smaller, it began to go out for dinners more often. That meant more restaurants. And to cater to the steadily rising need for competent and trained hospitality personnel, catering institutes mushroomed everywhere. 

Throughout the world, kitchens gradually transformed into the industrial battleground they are today—where careers and reputations of brands and professionals get made or cooked. Authentic cuisines. Specialised cuisines. Multi cuisines. Fast food chains. Fine dining chains. Food courts... Food has suddenly become one of the hottest and most competitive industries with many formats, categories, brands, etc. 

More than just catering to the need of the nuclear family looking for a friendly place for dining out, today's food industry leads the evolution of the palate. I saw my job cut out for me when we started the first Mainland China. We have served five-star experience and authentic cuisines at non five-star prices. And have done our bit to add to the growing transformation of the Indian palate. Today people seek more authentic flavours and exotic culinary arts from all parts of the world in their own city. 

Culinary adventurism goes hand in hand with a larger, all encompassing experience of the food—from the ambience, service and location to the format, branding and everything in between. I see the food entrepreneur as a creative person, full of ideas about how to serve an exciting balance of all of them. It is a tricky business because food and taste is such a personal experience and yet has to be served in regularised and consistent ways. 

So today, while, food entrepreneurship is going more and more personal with customised privilege services to guests and making them feel special, like at Mainland China, we do have franchisees taking the cause forward, from top metros to second metros and beyond. The revolution is spreading. 

The tier II towns are also waking up to the flavour of food entrpreneurship. There is a McDonald's in Nanded and a Mainland China in Nashik. Why not! From the branded vada paav to the five-star restaurant, food entrepreneurship has truly arrived in India. You can feel it on your taste-buds everywhere. 


(The author is a leading Indain food entrepreneur.)

A toast to the South

Shonali muthalaly : TH  January 26, 2014

The appreciation for the lightly spiced, simple and seasonal vegetarian food of South India has been growing the world over. Shonali Muthalaly details the role of local cookbook writers in fuelling this interest

“We didn’t even try to find a publisher,” shrugs Mallika Badrinath. “Who wanted a book from South India on vegetarian food?” So, in 1988, when she wrote her first book Vegetarian Gravies, her husband suggested they print it themselves to distribute to friends and family. “Within three months we had sold 1,000 books,” she says. “And this is without stocking it in any shop.” It was initially priced at Rs. 12, the cost price. Today, after numerous re-prints, that book alone has sold one million copies. It’s also found its way all over the world.

A global market for local cooking? Admittedly, it took a while. For years, savvy cookbook writers targeted an audience that wanted a pan-Indian ‘restaurant-style’ melange of recipes: dal makhani, chicken 65 and fish pies. Or they aimed at full-blown Indian exotica — curries, biriyanis and kebabs — tailored for a curious semi-interested Western market. However, over the last decade, local writers have been discovering a large dormant global market that’s been ignored simply because no one knew it existed. They are housewives, young professionals and students. Bloggers, experimental cooks and open-minded chefs. Vegetarians and non-vegetarians. The only thing they all have in common is a growing appreciation for the lightly spiced, simple and seasonal vegetarian food of South India. Some of them use the books to recreate the food of their grandmothers. Some use them to navigate an unfamiliar, but unexpectedly captivating new cuisine. The triumph of the thogayals? You have to admit it has a nice ring to it.

Perhaps it was Mallika’s clever marketing strategy that set the ball rolling. “We asked supermarkets to stock the book near their cash counter because we knew the people who will buy are people who don’t go to book stores.” Today, she has 27 cook books in English, all of which have been translated into Tamil. Additionally, seven have been translated into Telugu, 11 into Kannada and one into Hindi (that’s a total of 3,500 recipes by the way, if you like number-crunching). When she wrote on microwave cooking, manufacturers told her sales for microwaves went up. However, despite this responsive market, it didn’t get any easier for writers to find publishers.

Then Chandra Padmanabhan hosted the chairman of HarperCollins for dinner, impressing him so much with her cooking that he asked her to write a book. Dakshin: Vegetarian Cuisine From South Indiacame out in 1992, and sold almost 5,000 copies in three months. “In 1994, Australian HarperCollins published it for the world market, and it did very well,” says Chandra, adding that the sales encouraged her to write three more books over the years, all on the same genre of cuisine. “Maybe they sell because there’s a huge Tamil population all over the world. Maybe it’s because despite the interest in going vegetarian, many people have no idea how to cook this food. While you can get almost any recipe on the Internet, I feel cook books are more authentic.”

However, it was only in 2006, when Jigyasa Giri and Pratibha Jain won a slew of awards for their glossy hardback Cooking At Home With Pedatha: Vegetarian Recipes From A Traditional Andhra Kitchen, that people sat up and noticed this quiet veggie revolution. Determined to produce their first book without compromising on content, the duo launched Pritya, a self-publishing house, to record the recipes of Subhadra Rau Parigi, the eldest daughter of India’s former President V.V. Giri. At the Gourmand Awards, popularly called the Oscars for cookbooks, in Beijing, the book won in six categories, including design, photography and ‘local food’. Their next book Sukham Ayu — Cooking At Home With Ayurvedic Insights came second in the ‘Best Health and Nutrition Cookbook’ at the Gourmand ceremony in Paris a few years later. It was official. Upma, dosais and butter milk were finally on a world stage. The awards started rolling in. Viji Varadarajan, another talented home cook who decided to self-publish her recipes, took the movement one step further by demonstrating how local vegetables can be used in myriad ways. “Earlier, everyone grew vegetables in their own backyards. They had to be creative, so they would find 20 to 30 different ways to present a single vegetable,” she says, explaining how it’s easy to eat “local, seasonal and traditional”. Her recipes, which shun supermarket stars to embrace backyard produce such as ash gourd, banana stems and long beans, exult in tradition. Her six cookbooks, two of which have been translated into Tamil and French, have won Gourmand Awards in seven different categories. Her latest book Vegetarian Delicacies Of South India has won ‘The Best Vegetarian Cookbook’ for 2014.

A savvy marketer, she’s also selling on Kindle. “Online publishing is such an advantage for authors. Most of my readers don’t visit bookshops. They order off Flipkart or download from Amazon.” She has, however, sold about 20,000 physical copies of her first book Samayal. “A lot of my readers are in America. Japan’s an expanding market too,” she says. “These are people fascinated with how simple and healthy our cooking is.”

Pure Vegetarian by Prema Srinivasan, which was released last August, added a scholarly backbone to this still-evolving genre. The hefty book, with a Spartan cover, earnestly investigates what moulded the recipes of today — from temple kitchens to spice routes. Meticulously researched, it targets a whole new market of professional chefs and academically inclined cooks, although home cooks can also pick up ideas from the informative collection of recipes and menus.

Not surprisingly, the next wave is cookbooks that specialise in specific facets of this genre of food. Such as Why Onions Cry: Peek Into An Iyengar Kitchen, which won a Gourmand award when it was still in manuscript stage in 2012! Writers Vijee Krishnan and Nandini Sivakumar struggled to find a publisher — clearly some things haven’t changed — and finally managed to bring out the book last month. A glossy hardback, it contains 60 recipes that use no onions, drumsticks, radish or garlic. “That’s how we came up with the name,” smiles Vijee. “We usually cry when we cut onions. But in this case, they cry because we don’t use them in our wonderful cuisine.”

The recipes are authentic, offering variations of many dishes to demonstrate the inventiveness of the traditional kitchen. “We have given you recipes for every item you need on a full banana leaf,” says Nandini, discussing how the market has expanded far beyond Chennai, and in fact, India. “Just as I want to know how to make a ‘proper’ green curry, there are people all over the world who want to learn how to make a ‘proper’ sambar today.”

Food for thought on the family meal

Philip joshua TH 26 Jan 2014

These days, the idea of gathering the family together in the same place at the same time may seem impossible, but it can be done. Having a meal together as a family may not look like Sunday dinners of a generation ago. However, the goal can still be the same. Family mealtime provides an opportunity to spend time with family members and talk. Eating together can help families feel closer and provide better nutrition — two ingredients for happy, healthy families.

Family members today often have varied schedules which can make it challenging to eat dinner together.

Have you ever felt that the communication in your family consists of “hello,” “goodbye”, and notes left to one another? This happens a great deal in families today with busy work and activity schedules. Family mealtime can provide an opportunity for all family members to be together and share what is happening. Use family mealtime as a chance to have pleasant conversations. Save those tough conversations for another time. Have a rule that if disagreements start during a family meal, the family members will set aside another time to deal with the issue.

Every family develops patterns of how they operate as a group. These patterns are passed down from generation to generation. They are based on our culture and what we value. Knowing about our heritage helps us understand our family. Our cultural and ethnic background contributes to the uniqueness of our family. Mealtime can provide a setting to teach your children about their heritage.

Parents are the first teachers. Children learn a great deal from their parents about social manners, how to communicate, and healthy eating habits. Family mealtime can be an opportunity for parents to model appropriate table manners, healthy food choices and listening skills. Children get the opportunity to practise these skills, which will be important throughout their lives.

If schedules do not coincide for an evening meal, maybe the family would enjoy gathering for dessert or a bedtime snack. Compare schedules, and then pick a night at a specific time. Make it clear you expect everyone to keep his or her schedule clear for at least an hour that night. Turn off the TV. (May not be possible as “serial killers” rule the roost from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.)

Although the dinner hour once represented a calm oasis from the day’s storm, experts say today it’s often anything but relaxing. With blaring TVs, ringing cell phones and e-mail alerts chiming in the background, in some homes, the dinner hour is every bit as stressful as the rest of the day.

Families that eat together more often probably also communicate more often. Family mealtimes are a way to increase the time you spend talking and it is the best time to de-stress.