Indian food

My cooking is eclectic -- defying a routine or a preference. I grew up in Madras in a Tamil home, but my mother never cooked idlis or dosais for breakfast or a three-course meal with sambhar, rasam and yogurt for lunch or dinner. Her repertoire of dishes cooked was different from her mother's. My maternal grandmother cooked like our ancestors cooked in Kanchipuram and its nearby villages -- vegetarian peasant foods using brinjals, pumpkins, groundnuts, black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes and different varieties of greens. While still living in their village, my grandmother and her siblings cultivated paddy, harvested groundnuts and raised enough cows to luxuriously enjoy frothy milk and thick curds three meals a day. But my mother didn't appreciate my grandmother's subtle cooking when she was growing up and never got around to learning cooking from her until much older.

At 18 she was given in marriage to my father who came from Nagercoil where the cusiine is very similar to Kerala's cuisine. Lots of coconut and good fish! But being vegetarian, she embraced the habit of adding coconut in every form -- shredded, milked or thinly sliced -- to every possible dish while ignoring the fresh fish. And so she learnt how to cook some dishes -- theeyal, avial, eruseri -- from my paternal grandmother in her brief stay (couple of months) in my paternal grandparents' home. After which she learned to cook Punjabi, some Gujarati and what is generically known as "North Indian" food while living in Roorkee for a year.

My point is that I grew up in my mother's eclectic kitchen even before I muddied my cooking even further. I am no great cook but I try to cook whatever catches my fancy. Trouble is, I rarely follow a recipe to the T, which irks my kids, and I take plenty of short cuts. If they enjoy a dish they are pretty sure I won't be able to recreate it another time. If a dish didn't turn out well, they know this is because of my inability to follow a recipe, any recipe. And I am sheepish but never bother to learn from my mistakes. This is our perpetual story -- I am happy taking my chances most times I cook. So imagine my surprise that for the first time in my life I made the perfect idlis -- soft as folower petals and fluffy as clouds -- merely by using the regular stone grinder instead of a mixie. I own one of those electric stone grinders to make batter for idlis and vadais and dosais but I was too reluctant to use it. I assumed a mixie would do the job equally well. Plus, a mixie is easier to store and wash after every use. But now that I finally gave a stone grinder a try, I cannot understand what kept me from using it in the first place! You live and learn.


My kids on what one Indian dish they like and one they don't like. There seems to be a theme running through their preferences:

There is nothing better than sitting down in the evening after a long, tiring day and eating a bowl of plain yogurt, rice, and Indian pickle (usually mango or fish). Yogurt rice is such a simple yet satisfying meal that I call my comfort food. For my other favorite foods, I usually get tired of their taste by the time dinner is over. But this isn’t the case with me for yogurt rice. When eaten with pickle, this Indian staple is very flavorful and spicy, yet is still healthy.

Upma is a food that I do not crave and have mixed feelings about. Its flavor isn’t very striking and it does not contain the rich carbs and butter that parathas or naans have. Yet, upma is very healthy; it’s loaded with protein, fiber, and vitamins if cooked with vegetables. Upma is a breakfast food so when I eat it in the morning, I feel good about myself because it seems to me that I have started off my day well. So the takeaway that I have learned here is simple: food doesn’t have to taste good in order to make you feel good.

-- Lekha Durai, June 2020

I have mixed feelings on Indian food. Some things I like, some things I don’t like. Some Indian foods that I really enjoy are samosas, naan and chicken 65. Some foods that I don’t like are pacora and daal. Samosas are so delectable!! The pastry part of it is unbelievably delicious. And It’s so crispy on the outside, but soft on the inside! The filling is so flavorful and who doesn’t like potatoes? Naans are so heavenly. The texture is so soft and perfect! It tastes amazing with any kind of curry or even on its own! The flavor of chicken 65 is unmatched, I can’t even describe it. That’s all I’m going to say about it. Okay, onto Indian foods that I hate with a passion. Pacora is too much. Why would you ever fry something and add vegetables to it? If it’s going to be unhealthy, just let it be unhealthy. Also, the flavor is just bad. I don’t know what’s put into them to make the flavor taste like that, but it’s just bad. Now, onto daal. Daal is just 🤮. My mom always makes it in HUGE quantities and then force feeds it down my throat. It’s so gross in ways that I can’t even describe. The End.

-- Divya Durai, June 2020

Once upon a time, Americans weren’t aware of eastern cuisines. Many immigrant kids, especially Indian immigrant kids, felt left out because no peers understood their culture. That is not really the case today, at least for my experiences. Now, eating “ethnic” foods is suddenly a trend, probably because elite white people are trying to not feel guilty about their privilege, but whatever. Oftentimes, someone might ask me, “Are you Indian?”. When I respond, “Yes,” they get ecstatic and exclaim, “I LOVE Indian food!” Then they might talk about all of the Indian restaurants they’ve been to. But the truth is, the food that Indian restaurants serve is not really the food I eat in my family. Restaurants serve dishes that appeal to consumers, especially upper classes. But in my house, my parents often make traditional Tamil food.

The most memorable Tamil food that my mom makes is one that I have come to despise: dal. Dal is a brown, soup-like dish of lentils and vegetable, usually served with rice—what other cultures call lentil soup. There really isn’t that much wrong with its taste if it is cooked with lots of ghee (melted butter) and less vegetables. But in my house, my mom makes it healthy and thus boring—putting in squash, carrots, and tomatoes, and making it really thick. She also often makes it in large quantities, so my family usually has to eat it for a few days in a row. I don’t hate dal, it’s just that my taste buds have come to consider it boring. Anyway, I don’t really have a choice; I probably will be eating dal for as long as I eat my mom’s food.

Some people stereotype South Indian food to be boring and not as civilized (they might use the word “exotic” to be polite). If anyone thinks this, all I can say is that they have not eaten dosa (pronounced “dough-say”). Many describe it as a “savory crepe”. To make dosa, you first need to make a thick rice batter that can include some vegetables and spices. Then, you make dosas on an oiled pan like you would pancakes. Dosas can be eaten with literally anything: sambar, chutney, podi, dal, and—my favorite—by itself. Not only are dosas crispy and amazing, but it’s also fun to make them! One of my favorite childhood memories with my mother is helping her put drops of oil on the pan, pouring the batter, and flipping the dosa.

India is a large country, with so many different cuisines. My family eats Indian food that wouldn’t typically be found in an Indian-American restaurant. Some of these foods I love, some not so much. But, they are my heritage, and they will always be a part of me.

-- Rahul Durai, June 2020

Anticipation

My family and I have fallen into this routine of going nowhere outside of work, running chores or carrying out errands, but that doesn't make boredom any easier or avoid feelings of restlessness. Unlike most people we know, we have not traveled much in our lives as a family. I was planning to change some of that status quo this summer. I wanted to go on a couple of road trips before my daughter heads off to college in fall. That plan has gone nowhere, thanks to SARS-COV2. So, to fight off the listlessness we were feeling one weekend, I asked each of the kids to write about anticipating something in the future or their memory of anticipating something in the past.


Here are each of their offerings:

I have heard too many different versions of college life: extremely intense classes that have to be prepared for seemingly 24/7 without the comfort of sleep; easy, enjoyable classes that help develop passion and a wider outlook of the world. The chance to make so many new friends from all sorts of places. The chance to be overwhelmed by being one out of 8,000 freshmen. Roommates who become your best friends. Roommates who will become your worst enemies. Which of these features of college life will hold true for me? And of course COVID-19 will be a factor that will change my college life in so many new ways. I had been looking forward to making plenty of new friends and spending time with them in the dining halls and in my residence hall, which is the newest hall and has many amenities for people to study and hang out together. Now, even though the rules have been released, I am not sure how to picture what free evenings will be like. Whatever happens, good or bad, it will still be an experience, a memory, that I will look back on and be able to write about. Come what may, my freshman year will be special to me.

-- Lekha Durai, July 1, 2020

I’m really excited to work at Subway this summer. I start my first day of training tomorrow! I really wanted to get a job this summer. Coronavirus had cancelled literally every fun thing that was planned for this summer. I didn’t want to lie in bed all summer, doing nothing productive. So as soon as quarantine started, I began applying for jobs. I applied to Starbucks, Chipotle, Qdoba, Red Mango, Noodles & Company, Panera Bread, Jimmy John’s and Freshii. I heard back from none of them. Well actually, Chipotle and Qdoba emailed me back and said that they weren’t interested. Anyway, I was losing hope. I thought that there was no point in applying for more jobs because nobody would hire anyone with no job experience. A few days later, I was talking to one of my friends. She said that she was working at Subway this summer and told me to apply because they were still hiring. I thought that there was no harm in applying, but I was doubtful that I’d hear back from them. A few days later, I received a text from the manager at my local Subway. She asked me to come in for an interview! I was ecstatic. All of those hours I thought I had wasted applying for jobs had really paid off! I went to the interview and then to the orientation. I had gotten the job! Also, I’m also so grateful that the Subway I’m working at is a five minute walk from my house! So convenient. Even better, I found out yesterday that one of my friends is working there with me and another one of my friends is working at a different Subway in my town (you can cover shifts at different locations, so we can work together)! This job couldn’t be more perfect for me.

-- Divya Durai, June 23, 2020

It was a Saturday morning, yet the cold, bland air of the high school hallway made me shiver as I kept wetting the reed of my saxophone with my mouth. All the other students were loudly practicing their solos, but my nervousness distracted me. My dad kept looking around and at his watch, and I frantically walked around, holding my saxophone and looking at my music sheet. I was at Harrison High School in February, waiting to audition in ISMAA. ISMAA is a music contest in Indiana that we are required to participate in for school. Basically, we play a piece of music in front of a judge, and they give us feedback and a score. I played, “Largo and Allegro” which was in Group I, the hardest category. If you get a gold in Group I, you get to go to the state-level contest.

When the judge came back from her lunch break, she welcomed me inside the classroom used for judging. She seemed very warm and kind, not at all intimidating. I smiled when she invited me to warm up, and I practiced a couple of full-range scales. Then, when the judge had her papers organized and told me to start whenever I was ready, I took a deep, strong breath and started.

The piece started as a sad ballad, entered a dramatic part, and finished with the sad melody again. I decided that in order to get a good score, I had to be confident, and to be confident, I had to play with my heart without being conscious of every single note. So, even though some notes came out weak and some of my articulations were poor, I played the entire piece with my heart, and thus it probably sounded strong.

After I finished playing the piece, the judge took a few moments to finish grading me. Then, she looked up at me and said, “There are a few things you should keep in mind for when you go to state.” Even though my face was calm, my mind went ecstatic! “YES!,” I thought, “I got gold!!!” After she told me a few pieces of advice, I went with my dad to retrieve the gold medal, and then we went home.

The next Monday at band class, around 10 AM, my band teacher, Mr. Pettit, announced the names of those who got gold. When he got to my name, he said, “This is unicorn! Rahul was in Group I AND got a perfect score!” I was in disbelief. I had made some mistakes in my audition, so I couldn’t believe that I got a perfect! But when I looked at the grading sheet Mr. Pettit then gave me, I saw that it was true. The judge had gone easy on me, and had given me a perfect score of 9 (9 was the perfect score in ISMAA). Looking back, I think that it was not only the practice that helped me win this; it was my determination to enjoy the piece and truly play with my heart.

-- Rahul Durai, July 6, 2020