The laws of cooking

• First law - The first one always sticks to the pan. Don't get depressed.
• Second law - Hunger levels of the cook and consistency of dosa diameter are inversely proportional.
• Third law - If you are really hungry, dosas of any shape taste equally nice.

The perils of being Sir

My work as an organizational consultant often puts me in front of people as a trainer. I have been conducting developmental workshops for the field sales managers of my client for some time. For the participants there, I am 'Sir' who has come all the way from Head Office to impart them with some knowledge. In spite of all the informality that I try to bring inside and outside the class, I still remain 'Sir' for them.

It is all satisfying to the ego and all that, but it has a downside to it. I often want to eat the local food, no matter if it is at a roadside joint. But these guys insist that Sir should eat at a nice place, preferably in the comfort of the hotel room itself.
Finally, yesterday night in Lucknow, I managed to convince one of them that I was perfectly OK eating at a 'Sir-but-it-is-not-a-nice-place' kind of eatery. So well past midnight, he took me to Charbagh area (near Lucknow station) and voila! The place was teeming with people as if it was evening and not 1 in the night.
The joint was not what you would call exactly 'hygienic', food was being cooked in a gigantic tandoor and two equally gigantic kadhais right outside on the footpath, waiters wiped the tables with an effortless swipe of a cloth that had seen better days, the source of 'Mineral Water' was definitely suspect, but hey, what the heck - the kheema and paratha tasted absolutely superb!

After I had licked my fingers clean and even procured myself a paan to my liking, my benefactor was convinced that I was not a stickler for sanitized nutrition. Then it became a matter of pride for him, and he promised to take me to eat some 'really good mughlai food' the next day. His argument was, "Sir (yes, that doesn't go away) this was OK, but Ameenabad is the best place to eat." Today late afternoon, after the workshop was over, I was glad that I had some hours at hand before catching the flight. So Sir was escorted to Ameenabad to - where else, but the ORIGINAL Tunday kabab place.

Once again, all matter of hygiene were put at rest the moment I put the first morsel of Galouti Kabab in my mouth and feel it simply melt.

Delicious stuff. This was followed by some equally nice kulfi falooda at another place snd then we headed to the airport (not before I had punched a big hole in my pocket by waiting at a shop selling the famous Lucknow Chikan material). As I was walking out of Tunday, I saw the portrait of the original Tunday Kababi, and the inscription below proudly proclaimed "suppliers to the Royal family of Avadh since 1791."

I may be getting the date wrong, but it was something more than two centuries old. Brilliant. I have always wondered at how proudly the suppliers of the Western world keep a track of their heritage and proclaim the same. Scotch Whisky, Cigars, Pipe tobacco, everything. And how no Indian supplier maintained such records and spoke about it. I am happy to be proved wrong by the Tundays. Long live Tunday Kababs! After Diwali, Sir will again be traveling to South India, then to East, then to Central. I hope Sir has sent the right message and gets to eat more of the local stuff.
Some months back, I had written about Tunday kabab and Lucknow food. Then, I had eaten at a more posh, upmarket outlet of Tunday (in Sahara mall at Hazratganj.) That was good, no doubt. But the rustic old world ambience of Ameenabad made the difference today.

Gastronomic marathon

There are many things for which I consider myself extremely fortunate. There is an equally plausible statement about some other things that make me feel I was born at the wrong time and place but then - I am feeling far too optimistic in life currently to dwell upon that.
One of these things that make me smile from ear to ear (I don't do that literally actually. Some of my friends say that I hardly smile !!!) is the work that I do. Within that, there are some sub-topics. Foremost of course is the myriad people that I get to meet - they enrich my life continually. I travel a lot and that brings a collateral benefit. FOOD. Yes, I get to eat a startling variety of food. I am sure that it all puts my digestive system in a disarray trying to figure out the forever-varying inputs. Now why do I say this about the variety of food that I get to eat? I have a very good reason for this claim. Now, how many people get to eat the following - ALL within ten days?

In Lucknow -
Tunday Kabab
Murg Shanno Kabab
I forgot their name but they were melting-in-the-mouth-type-paneer-kababs.

In Kolkata
Kakra Chingri (for those who are un-initiated into Bangla cuisine, this is crab and prawn, with lots of mustard oil of course, cooked in a banana leaf)
Chingri Aloo Poshto
Hilish Maachh
A gigantic fish that goes by the name Betaki

In Kolkata - specifically at Flury's
Almond Pretzels
Almond and Honey Horseshoe
Cheese Croissant
Cheery Bun

In Chennai
Idlis at Murugan (TN Chetty Road, where else?)
Dosas at Saravana Bhavan
Filter Kaapi - South Style, of course

Statutory Warning - there is a dish called 'Seven Taste Uttapam' available in Sarvana. Its a fraud. Its just seven tiny little Uttapams with different toppings. And one of them, hold your breath, is actually Mixed Fruit Jam! Just in case you think I am joking, there is another one with ketchup too.

So - that's how I am fortunate, barring the odd mis-adventure of Uttapam Seven Taste. And the list does not stop there. I am going to be in Hyderabad on the day after. And its Ramazan time. Yummmmmm...

Paan - The Great Indian Tradition

Some years ago I was attending a symposium on 'Indian Identity'. My good friend Atul Sapre (who always loves a argument – any topic – that doesn't matter) argued that there is no such thing as an 'Indian' identity. As I was thinking of things that are uniquely Indian, eating paan was one thing that sprang to my mind. Yes, I agree that it is not confined to the political boundaries of India. It is popular all over the Indian subcontinent as well as in parts of the Far East. Nevertheless, I shall let Atul bask in his dismissal of the Indian Identity and focus on the various aspects of paan.

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the beginnings of paan. But there is no doubt that it is sufficiently ancient to have deserved a place of mention in Ayurved – the school of ancient Indian medicine. Today its place in medicine has got overshadowed by its unique place the Indian food habits. Actually, it not just a part of food. Its not even just an after-meal mouth freshener. It is actually an institution by itself and each humble paanwallah at every nook and corner of an Indian street from Muzaffarpur to Mumbai is a carrier of this traditional institution.

Wikipedia defines paan as “Betel Leaf, pan (in many Indic languages, Hindi : पान ), or beeda (in Tamil) is a type of Indian digestive, which consists of fillings wrapped in a triangular package using leaves of the Betel pepper (Piper betle) and held together with a toothpick or a clove.
Ouch, that actually doesn't tell you anything about paan at all.
Paan is an experience that actually cannot be defined, leave alone described. It goes beyond 'fillings wrapped in a triangular package'. It has to start with the leisurely stroll (or a drive these days) every evening to the paanwallah. It has to be followed by the mandatory greetings - jai raam ji ki, or at least a namashkar. (Please note – the pure version of namaSkar does not work well with the paanwallah – it has to be namaSHkar bhaiyyaji....)
This absolutely must be followed by the desultory talk of how the day has been, weather, the fluctuating fortunes of our cricket as well as Bollywood heroes. Anyone in a hurry will be treated with disdain at the paan shop. Paanwallahs also have their own way of ignoring someone who is in a big hurry. Remember that paan is not fast food, nor can it be picked up off a rack in a shopping mall. So ideally one must visit the paan shop along with like-minded paan addicts. So you can catch up on the daily gossip around the block as the paanwalah carefully attends to your paan. That's the beauty – just like Bertie Wooster can go to his daily pub and wait for 'the usual', you really don't have to order your paan. That is, only if you have built a relationship over time with the paanwaallah. While you wait at the shop for your daily fare to arrive, several eager beavers will lean over your shoulder to buy 'ek chhota gold flake' but dont mind. Let them be. The Lord (paanwaallah, that is) shall not be distracted from your paan as he casually leans over his shoulder and picks a cigarette off the bin and hands it over to Mr. Quick-Gun Murugun. His mind is still engaged in your paan. Not a milligram of chuna (lime paste) less or more. No guesswork about which supari to be put and in what quantity. As long as he has the bond with you, the paan will turn out to be perfect.

This picture is from the paan stall at Hotel Raviraj in Pune, where I have been religiously going for the past 18 or so years. Jagannath bhai and his fellows are a wonderful lot. He even came for my wedding. His gift to both of us was not a surprise – a paan each, of course.

My friend Subodh Jagdale, an Ayurved practitioner updated me about what Ayurved has to say about paan

Asyaa: p~M pUgaflaaidsaihtM Aasya vaOYaVaqa--ma\ Baxato
It says that paan eaten with supari (areca nut) has a cleansing and astringent effect on the mouth. Further Charaka (the father of ancient Indian medicine) also suggests the ideal composition of paan in his sutrasthaan, Chapter 5, Verse 77 as follows -

jaatI kTukpUgaanaama\ lavaMgasya flaaina ca
kMkaolasya flaM p~M taMbaUlasya XauBaM tqaa
tqaa kp--U-rinayaa------saa: saUxmaOlaayaaha flaaina ca
“Jayphal (nutmeg – Myristica fragrans), bitter supari (Areca catechu), clove (Syzigium aromaticum) and kankol (Java Pepper - Piper cubeba) will make a paan nice. Additionally, you should also include camphor and small cardamom in it.”
Its interesting to note that there is no mention of chuna (lime paste), kattha (catechu paste) or tobacco in Ayurved. Today most paan eaters will not be able to imagine a paan without these three ingredients. But this is not surprising at all, simply because tobacco has got introduced to India only in the last 400 years from the West.
Today many Westerners would find the habit of paan eating (chewing is the right word, actually) deplorable. Thats mainly because of two reasons. One - the habit that follows chewing. The spitting, that is. You can find walls and roads in India plastered with the red stains. Two – a large majority of westerners will feel as if they have put a burning ember in their mouth instead of a paan. Thats just because of the lime. Poor souls – its a pity they cannot handle the power of a paan !
Dont get me wrong – I am not in favour of spitting all over the place. Some daring individuals even have the gumption of doing it out of the window of a moving vehicle. If that spoils the carefully washed and ironed shirt of a someone who unfortunately happens to be in the line of fire, thats too bad, pal. It happens, it happens only in India.
The red stains were even given a playful romantic twist in the lovely nautanki song from 'Teesri kasam', where Waheeda Rehman is par excellence. Paan khaye sainyaa hamaar, malmal ke kurte pe chheent laal laal, haay.....(my lover eats a paan, and oh dear – just look at those stains on his lovely kurta!)
So by all means, cultivate the great habit of a daily paan, but if you have to spit, please do so in the spittoon kept outside every paan shop these days.