politics on a plate.

well then. the crushing blow to my ego that was the marmalade cake fiasco, plus my vile mood over the last week (i'm probably getting hormonal, i can feel my levels of impatience with minor irritations rising drastically), resulted in something of a cooking block over the weekend. i spent most of it doing mundane tasks like reorganizing my wardrobe (world's biggest project, seriously) to try and keep myself out of the kitchen. my mind is it's own precariously balanced eco system; if you knock something minor out, the whole thing goes haywire for a few days. i'm getting better at understanding it however, and realized that in order to get myself back in the game, what i really needed to do was work solely within my comfort zone. and one of my biggest comfort zones is indian food, something i've been cooking on the regular since my second year of university after acquiring a brilliant book on it from my late stepdad that made me chase memories of seafood previously eaten in goa. obviously, things have changed, but my confidence in the area has not.

now, i'm not going to present myself as any kind of authority on the subject, not least because it would actually be pretty disgustingly imperialist of me, but what i will do is share the things i have learned and am still learning, with you, as i do with everything i discuss in my cooking. what is interesting about indian food to me, is its thousands of subcategories and parameters. the regional differences, the religious differences, the impacts of the old caste systems. at university i studied a unit called 'tropical gothic', which looked at the ways in which india and surrounding countries such as bangladesh, pakistan, and sri lanka have been misrepresented by imperialist chroniclers, using the critical lens of the gothic (things such as fear of the other, the uncanny, the return of the repressed). i guess a lot of people might think that we basically looked at 19th century texts, but a surprising number of them were contemporary. and i think it's one of the viewpoints that still persists today, whether it manifests in fear and unease, or starry eyed romanticism at the wild, seductive, mystical qualities of india as a country. needless to say, i do not like these viewpoints. i think they're patronizing at best, offensive and stemming from racial fear and lack of understanding and analysis at worst. demystification and analysis are necessary.

the one thing that interested me in terms of what i am about to talk to you about, is the fear of the food. the english as a nation have a culinary history of preferring a seperatist plate. divide and conquer is not just a technique you can apply to colonial rule's methodology, but an apt description of our national dishes; think of a sunday roast, or of fish and chips, and everything is visible and seperate. there is nothing served in anything else. the english colonialist public servants had 'native' cooks, and while this led to some interesting hybrids and created anglo-indian cuisine (kedgeree, anyone?), it also created a narrative tradition of poisoning horror stories, due to the 'concealing' properties attributed to indian cooking both visually and in terms of flavour. the english did not understand the ingredients and foods they were being served, and transferred their fear of tropical sickness onto the food and the cooks who prepared it. it was a similar process to american white slave owners misinterpreting their african slaves cooking and preserving methods as signs of witchcraft or voodoo. fear and misunderstanding born of the anxiety underlying christian senses of entitlement and superiority. very gothic, very awful.

i would love to say such attitudes have disappeared today (currently ed and i have been in fairly heavy debate about the british public's attitudes to food, and, actually quite surprisingly, i am the far more cynical about our supposed culinarily enlightenment; i guess i shouldn't underestimate my disappointed idealism's negative power), but i'm afraid they haven't. how many times have you heard people say things like 'curry was invented to disguise the taste of rotten meat'? i mean, that's untrue, and inappropriate on so many levels, and is a reinforcement of that previous colonialist gothic fear of tropical sickness, rehashed for a new and equally perception-blinkered century. if you ask me, the only antidote to the damaging beliefs and thinking about indian cuisine is, as i previously stated, demystification and analysis. reading and thinking are pretty much the cure to all forms of oppression, including that manifested in the culinary and attitudes to food. for indian food, as a starting place, i would heavily recommend camellia panjabi's 50 great curries of india. published in 1994, i still consider its information on the basic mechanisms of indian cookery completely invaluable and necessary.

the most important thing that panjabi writes about in this book, is the actually fairly limited flavouring set used in indian cookery. time and time again you see cumin, tumeric, cinnamon, chillies, garlic, onions, and so on, appear in recipes for indian dishes, and yet the dishes all taste remarkably different. one of the things most people are daunted or put off by in indian cookery is a lengthy ingredients list, but once you accustom yourself to the notion that these ingredients will usually be the same set, with a few regional variants, you remove that anxiety completely. it is how you treat the ingredients that creates the particular colour, aroma, body, and taste differences in the curry, and again, panjabi writes remarkably usefully on this. as you progress in indian cookery you begin to see the very distinct differences in regional style, religious impacts, colonialist intervention, and so on, and again, i cannot recommend panjabi's book enough in terms of guiding the beginner.

anyway, i have waffled enough, so i feel it's probably time i actually embarked on some of the deconstruction and explanation i mentioned as being so vital. what i cooked this weekend was:

Omelette curry, Cauliflower fried in shredded ginger, and toasted almond and coconut rice.

Omelette curry

for the omelette:

3 eggs,

1 small onion, finely chopped,

2 green chillies, finely chopped

1 teaspoon chopped coriander leaves

salt, black pepper, and oil for frying.

for the curry:

2 tablespoons grated coconut

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

2 teaspoons coriander powder

1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

1/2 teaspoon garam masala powder

2 tablespoons oil

3 small onions, finely sliced

2-3 green chillies, chopped

2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped

1 teaspoon cider vinegar

1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves.

put the coconut, cumin, and fennel seeds, coriander, red chilli, turmeric and garam masala powders into a blender with 2 tablespoons water and grind to a paste. set aside.

to make the omelette, whisk the eggs. add the onion, green chillies, coriander leaves, pepper and salt to taste, and mix well. heat the oil in a large pan and add the egg mixture. flip the omelette when the underside is cooked, and when it is done, remove it from the heat and cut it first in half, then into 1 inch strips in the other direction. leave aside.

to make the curry, heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the sliced onions over a moderate heat for ten minutes. add the spice paste and fry for 3-4 minutes. add a little more oil if it starts to stick, but do not skimp on this frying time.

add the chopped chillies and tomatoes and saute for 5 minutes. then add the vinegar, 750ml water, and salt to taste. simmer for 10 minutes before adding the coriander leaves and omelette strips and cooking for three minutes over a low heat before serving.

okay, so i know i went straight out there on my first post on the subject by cooking something that the traditional english palate might find slightly unorthodox. this is a muslim dish from the malabar coast in northern kerala (somewhere i eventually plan to visit when i return to india, because despite e.m. forster's best efforts to put everyone off in a passage to india, i really want to see the malabar caves). this curry was spicy, rich, and sweet, so using eggs as the protein component adds a lightness. coconut is included as palms grow prolifically in this region, and the comparatively short frying time on the spices keeps them light and clean tasting. the tomatoes add sourness and create the body of the sauce along with the onions, and the vinegar is actually a portugese catholic colonialist influence. i would definitely recommend trying this dish at least once, especially if as a vegetarian you're pissed off with being fobbed off with the same generic 'potato and cauliflower curry' recipe all the time (as a heads up it is awesome on toast the next day, like scrambled eggs on toast with balls). anyway, on to the next, taken again from panjabi's book:

cauliflower with shredded ginger

500g cauliflower

3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds

3 tablespoons oil

1-2 tablespoons grated ginger

a pinch of red chilli powder

1/4 teaspoon cumin powder

salt

a pinch of garam masala.

cut the cauliflower into florets. pound the cumin seeds lightly.

heat the oil in a wide pan and fry the ginger. after 30 seconds add cumin seeds, chilli, and cumin powder. then add the salt, and, stirring, the cauliflower.

sprinkle with the garam masala and stir well. cover with a lid and cook over a low heat until the cauliflower is as tender as you would like it. it is now ready to serve.

okay. it's really as simple as that. i took a leap here as this is actually a dish from the punjab, but it is one of my favourites and i knew its smoky flavours would compliment the sweetness of the omelette curry i was making. it might seem a bit counterintuitive to cook cauliflower with such little moisture, but the lid helps it to steam, and the spices catching and blackening slightly in the pan crisp parts of the florets, creating big texture and a really interesting, nutty smoky flavour. this is so quick and easy i'd honestly espouse it's virtues to anybody. i could probably eat a bowlful of it solo, it is that good.

which brings me onto my rice. i usually wing my rice according to what i've paired (i so often cook indian food in twos or threes as i enjoy the colours and textures in combination) and this is exactly what i did this time, toasting a handful of dried coconut and some flaked almonds until they were the colour of a latte, before adding my rice to toast fleetingly and then adding water to boil. i added a clove or two and a cinnamon stick and ended up with a sweetly perfumed rice that cooled the ardor of the chilli involved in the dishes. i'm onto something of an indian cooking groove now, so expect more of my food overanalysis in the near future.