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GOURMET FILES

Kumaoni colour

Photo: Vasundhara Chauhan

On a recent trip to Kumaon, I had dozens of meals. I’d been looking forward to the opportunity of trying the local food but several attempts later I can say that it’s not easy to find. The fun started at Gajraula, usually a couple of hour s out of Delhi. But there was trouble on the highway and, thanks to an enforced detour on a dirt road, it was getting on to lunch time by the time we reached it. We usually stop at highway dhabas but this was not a route we frequented, so PD, who often did the Delhi-Jolikot drive, had been consulted and he had recommended exactly where we should go in Gajraula. So we started looking out for the Meriton, which turned out to be an imposing hotel with a white façade, two gates, a semicircular drive and a wide parking area with shops selling essentials: Kumaoni popular music cassettes and pan masala. Inside, we spent 10 minutes searching for a restaurant where we would be served lunch, and were turned away, one after another, from several “banquet halls” that were reserved for other, luckier people. When we were eventually allowed in, the décor should have warned us. Painted plaster statues, sentimental paintings, red plastic roses in bud-vases, bow-tied waiters... I decided that alu-poori was safest, given that we were in the heart of U.P, but my husband asked for a stuffed tandoori paratha. Served him right for ordering absent-mindedly, thinking of dhabas in Punjab, because the paratha was dry, empty and mostly white, with a few burnt patches. So one mouthful and he asked for alu-poori too. We were served three in each thaali, accompanied by slightly too thick potatoes in gravy and some salad. This was okay, but the rest of the menu was a delight of Indian-Mughlai-Chinese-Continental. It was improbably vast and though I can imagine how the lauki kofta must have been interchangeable with the Veg Manchurian, some names needed decoding. Raj Bhough was easy, but I wrote down one that wasn’t: “Smolinder Sizler (Conti Food)”. The parenthesised bit didn’t throw any light and neither could the waiter, who was new. Smouldering?

Back on the road, restaurant names and pushcarts advertised what must be popular local cuisine: kaju shake, chow meen, kaju shake, pinki chowmin, jonty-monty-maggi, badam shake, chines chaumin, kaju shake. Then we reached Bhimtal and our hotel, the Monolith. The property was beautifully designed, the stone and timber not only local but merging into the surroundings. If only the food had been as unpretentious and local. What they served was north Indian food at its worst: smooth red gravies, sweet with packaged tomato purée and muddy with readymade powdered masala. We had to ask which dish was which, because each looked the same. Even the chief ingredients were indistinguishable: odd-shaped lumps, hard to cut, of indeterminate texture. So the chicken and the dum alu could have been each other. The dal looked like dal, but tasted the same. What was more than passable, though, was the poori-alu served at breakfast. There were eggs and toast, but we were on vacation and these golden-yet-soft puffs were hard to resist and the potatoes tasted different from the sweet mealy ones that you get in summer in Delhi. These were silky smooth, in a bright yellow gravy flecked with the green of freshly chopped chillies.

Dinner that night was “continental”: vegetable soup, beige, corn flour based. Followed by bright red pasta, so we asked a trick question: had tomato ketchup been added? The waiter smiled with quiet pride: Yes, of course! Then a huge ring of rice with some brown thing in the middle arrived. Chicken Stroganoff. It was just about edible, thanks to the sliced mushrooms mixed with the chicken. But I could have done without the strong flavour of too much ginger — they must have added a cupful of ginger juice. After that a series of dishes arrived: baked vegetables in a thick white sauce which looked as if a helping could, if put on a plate, resist gravity and stand forever (didn’t touch them), steamed vegetables (to make up for avoiding the baked ones. Boring), stuffed, grilled potatoes and tomatoes (nothing to write home about), and the best bit: grilled cheese toast. I think they’d spread a thin layer of mashed potatoes and garlic first on sliced white bread, then covered it with cheese and grilled till golden and bubbling. It had lovely brown blisters here and there and was so hot you had to wait or else get little blisters of your own. So the best part of the meal had been cheese toast, because dessert was packaged ice cream.

The fruit shops around were spilling peaches and apricots and tiny plums the likes of which I’d never before come across. They were sweet without any hint of tartness, not even near the stone or skin. If only the hotel had done something with fruit, or just served it straight, in a bowl, untouched. But simplicity, it appears, is to be avoided. If middleclass restaurants and hotels were to stick to local ingredients and to what they know best, then they would do a fine job with Haldwani potatoes and local fruit. But maybe the clientèle demands it, so serve sizzlers, “Chinese” and Kashmiri wazwan they must.

We bought crates of peaches and plums on our way out, ate most of it and preserved the rest.

Vasundhara Chauhan i s based in Delhi and works with Pratham’s ASER (Annual Status of Education Report).

Makes 1 cup

500g ripe plums

1 cup sugar

Wash and chop plums roughly. Place in heavy bottomed pan, including stones and skin. Turn on high heat and stir in sugar. When mixture starts boiling, reduce heat, cover and let simmer for 10-15 minutes. Strain in a fine meshed sieve, pressing fruit with a round-bottomed ladle, till clean pulp is strained out. Discard stones and skin remaining in sieve. Cool plum purée and refrigerate in a closed jar for up to a week. Serve as sauce for ice cream or plain yoghurt or dilute with chilled water for a sherbet.

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