CUISINE
Reality cooking
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`My wife and I experimented with several recipes but, by and large, these books are about aesthetic food... '
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FOOD, in both of these books, is more than just about eating. They complement each other — the first one being concerned with Pan-Asian vegetarian gourmet food, the second a manifesto of sorts for a neo-Indian haute cuisine. My wife and I experimented with several recipes but, by and large, these books are about aesthetic food: the beautiful colour photos invite you to keep them on your coffee table instead of on your messy kitchen counter.
But let us move from our kitchen to 500 BC. Buddha compared the human body to a string, which if stretched too tight by asceticism may break, according to Pushpesh Pant who has studied the Buddhist heritage (among his earlier books are titles on Buddhism as well as on Ajanta and Ellora). If, on the other hand, that string is allowed to hang loose it cannot create music. At least not harmonious music, I think to myself as I tuck my paunch under the apron and dig in the fridge for some karela and tofu.
Practical problems
Buddhist food in Pant's avatar offers the eater a way to a healthier body without forced abstinence. Food prepared and imbibed with a sense of purpose and compassion results in samadhi-like ecstasy, writes Pant.
This is all fine, but unfortunately books like these by default contain ingredients that I cannot find in my pantry however deep I look: shiitake mushrooms, galangal, seaweed flavoured Japanese stock, all of which probably do not exist outside New Delhi's Khan Market. In addition, the book on Indian gourmet cooking poses unexpected twists — you suddenly need to figure out what "brunoise" means or "Créme de Casis [sic]". These aren't cookbooks of the Sanjeev Kapoor-type with helpful glossaries.
Comparing the two books, one could say that the Buddhist peace recipes — once you track down the ingredients — are not hard to cook: the emphasis is on simplicity. The author gives very specific instructions, down to exactly how many seconds a certain stage is expected to take, though he sadly omits giving background information and nutritional details regarding what exactly makes each dish "Buddhist".
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When it comes to chef Saraswat's book, it's a somewhat different story. Although Indian cooking is a massively complex full-time job for many housewives, The Gourmet Indian Cookbook, with its influences of French and Californian nouvelle techniques (which in turn are influenced by Japanese cuisine), makes it into something like le Mission-Impossiblé — and to attempt it at home without a Larousse Gastronomique is a bit like going kamikaze.
Actually, what is Indian gourmet cooking? It is a bit like a visit to the Bombay Talkies. There are all the expected ingredients: it is spicy and sweet, pungent and crisp-fried and tandooried and covered in tangy masala. You get it all on one platter much the same way that a good movie contains excitement, romance, music, humour, colours. Yet much of it will remain a fantasy unless you have a fully staffed 5-star kitchen at your disposal. (In which case you wouldn't need a cookbook, would you?)
You are what you eat
In his preface, the legendary foodie Jiggs Kalra notes that Arvind Saraswat — chef and head of F&B at the Taj-chain — has never been corrupted by "fusion". To create a Chinese menu, Saraswat travelled to Ch'eng-tu to learn Sichuan cooking and to Kuangchou for authentic Cantonese recipes. Thus, in his project to create a modern Indian gourmet tradition, the flavours remain desi — save for the odd oven-dried tomato — and it is the presentation that has assimilated the "phoren" influences. The portions, to begin with, are typically small. From the instructive photographs we learn how, in lieu of salad, to arrange a few elegantly cut vegetables on one side of the plate. From there the tomato rosettes and carrot flowers gaze at a spoonful of pulao in the mid-distance, which in turn contemplates the long way it has to go for a dip into the microscopic gravy on the other side. Yet in this very stark artistic image, the heritage of the thali, the wazwan or the banana leaf meal is unmistakable. In the teaming up of the side dishes, it is clear that flavours and textures support each other.
Furthermore, this is the fuel for a modern lifestyle: good-looking food for a generation which prefers California-sized servings to hearty morsels of starchy rice and oil-soaked veggies that leave a consumer pot-bellied by the age of 35. It's a reconfirmation of the Ayurvedic truth: You are what you eat.
Or perhaps: You will look no better than your last meal.
Unnecessary complications
Unfortunately, rather than demystifying secrets Saraswat complicates matters unnecessarily. There's the issue of nomenclature to begin with: if you can't julienne your veggies or arrange them as a quenelle without looking it up in the encyclopaedia, the book is going to make you feel as if it has been cavorting in the mixie with some untranslated French poetry. Many of the fascinating recipes are better read than tried, such as the date-and-raisin-stuffed banana kebab in a pastry spiral. This sounds heavenly, but when I reach the stage where I am meant to wrap the pastry dough in strips around a "pipe" before baking it and I am about to chop up the broom handle, my wife says that this won't do.
Frequently, during our momentous battle in the kitchen, she notices crucial flaws in the book — which has been written in a highly confusing and compressed style. For chickpea biryani, one is instructed to use half of the ginger and green chillies, after which the other half is never mentioned again. In the recipe for a spinach dish, you are told to "add seasoning", but never told which seasoning to add.
Keep some salt ready
Maybe that is what gourmet cooking is all about, I try to console my wife. Maybe you just can't expect to get it all logically explained to you.
But he should at least be clear about if and when to add salt, she protests.
Other recipes suddenly introduce the need for a sorbet maker or some other Deus ex Machina, which cuts the cooking short for ordinary home-chefs like the undersigned. The irreverent cook can, of course, substitute the tandoor with an electric oven, and the oven with a covered saucepan, and so on.
To use The Gourmet Indian Cookbook, then, one must be kitchen-smart enough to guess one's way through the recipes wherever editorial lapses have resulted in misleading or incomplete instructions. The statement on the dust jacket that it is suitable for "amateur housewives [sic]" must be taken with a pinch of salt, however: you need to be a professional housewife to figure out the intricacies of Indian-ishtyle haute cuisine.
ZAC O'YEAH
Buddhist Peace Recipes, Pushpesh Pant, Roli Books/ Lustre Press, p.96, price not stated.
The Gourmet Indian Cookbook, Chef Arvind Saraswat, Roli Books/ Lustre Press, p.128, price not stated.
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