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Give the pride of place to traditional cooking. But do modify it to suit life on the fast lane, pleads Karen Anand
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Karen Anand: `The West still doesn't know of Indian home food.'- Photos: K. Gopinathan
SHE HATES being called a chef. She's against Americanisation of fast foods. And she abhors pressure cookers and Coke. That's lean cuisine crusader, food consultant, writer, taster, label-food maker Karen Anand. With another TV show coming up and a book in the offing targeted at the urban male with simple "situational recipes" for occasions such as I don't have money to take my girlfriend out or My mom-in-law is coming for dinner, Karen makes it look like her passion for food will never simmer down. Her fav food phrase: keep it simple. "I detest tasting at restaurants regularly. I don't want complicated food. I want simple food," says the kitchen wizard who was in Bangalore to teach young aspirants the nuances of tofu, wine, and chocolate.
Excerpts from the interview:
Indians are turning more than ever to convenience and fast food. In the process, are we losing out on the taste of traditional Indian food that believes in slow cooking where the spices are stewed and soaked up?
Personally, I'm a great believer in what's called slow cooking or traditional cooking, whether it's Western or Indian. Unfortunately, traditional cooking in India is very slow. In the West there are many traditional things that have been adapted to fast cooking methods. OK, I'm not talking of three-hour stews you soak in wine and let marinate.
In the Mediterranean region, where I grew up, there are dishes that can be done relatively quickly and still preserve the tradition because of the ingredients used. In Europe, people are using exemplary ingredients and go to any length to get the right tomatoes, salt, and herbs. If the ingredients are right, the cooking method can be very quick. I think we have to come up with a similar solution.
People don't have time any more for slow cooking. We have to simplify our ingredients and change method of cooking to suit our lifestyle. We can adapt and simplify traditional Indian ghar ka khana. You don't have to have in every meal what in Gujarati is called daal, bhaat, roti, shaak (veggies). It's excessive.
Is convenience food prompting more men to move into the kitchen? Has it also helped women happily get away from the kitchen?
Yeah, I think so. I think a number of women don't like to cook, which is fair enough. They are forced into the role of cooking because they have to. More and more women are working so there's very little time to cook. I also find that a number of men like cooking and are passionate about it. Of course, most of the chefs are male, but they cook because they get paid for it. Very few are passionate.
Also, our methods of shopping haven't been very user-friendly. It's only in the last five years that supermarkets, where people can shop easily, have come in a big way. Not everybody enjoys going to dirty wet markets.
Do you think some people have an inborn talent to cook or has it got to be learnt? Or is it all a do-it-yourself thing?
Oh no, it has to be learnt. I learnt it. It's creative, but it's also tactile. So you can be a good cook, but not a creative one, by just learning. Your technique matters. You have to learn your basic cooking. It takes skill, but it doesn't take great brilliance to learn cook reasonably well.
Of course, the difference between a good cook and a great cook is someone who has the hand. And I think less is more. And that's the thing we don't know in India. We tend to think that more butter, more ghee, more oil or spices makes things taste better. But I think it just masks flavours. All this is part of experimenting, and listening, going to classes and reading books. You have to get involved.
You have travelled much as a foodie. Is the Western perception of Indian food still of mulligatawny, chutneys, and tandoori chicken?
No, that's very Anglo-Indian. U.K.'s idea of Indian food is very different. There's the chicken tikka masala, or CTM as they call it. So you can go to a sandwich bar in the U.K. and ask for a CTM.
But there's no such thing here — we only have chicken tikka in some gravy. It's something they've discovered. But it's still very much a lot of tandoori and biryani; there are speciality restaurants too. I don't know the U.S. market too well.
But it's a hot market there too. I guess people are looking for global flavours. But in European markets, you have to concentrate on flavour. The spicy curry and biryani restaurants are not really upmarket. But the West still doesn't know of Indian home food.
With food coming out of tetra packs readymade, with MTR even bringing out readymade dosas, is there a fast-growing danger of India's culinary tradition and grandma's recipes being buried?
If someone doesn't write them down, yes. But at least MTR is making a dosa that has more value than a white bread sandwich. Not many people write down recipes in India. They don't do it in restaurants either. We are not used to standardisation and writing down as a culture. We have to change that. That's important. But to me it's not just the cooking. It needs to be presented well. You need to sit down with your family. There's more to a meal than just food.
Your own label of products has been doing well in the market. Any plans for expansion?
Right now I have a range of preserves, marmalades, salad dressings, and sauces. The annual turnover is about a crore. But right now I have no plans to expand because we are manufacturing for ITC. We are doing a whole lot of preserves (with higher fruit content than jams) with Indian spices — such as apple with cinnamon, pineapple with Kerala green pepper, and fig with ginger.
You've played a number of roles in the food industry — food consultant, writer, taster, restaurateur, and teacher. What's been the most exciting?
A lot of these roles just came to me. By profession I'm a writer. I got into writing about food because there weren't many people doing it then. And I love writing. It's a passion. But writing does not feed me and satisfy other urges. I love teaching. I love taking gourmet classes. It's really hard work but I do enjoy it.
I enjoy the corporate work too because there's much professionalism. But I'm on the other side of 40 and I get tired of doing all of it. So I delegate more.
BHUMIKA K.
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