The Penguin food guide to India

376 Pages·2013·2.2 MB·English

by  O'Brien

CHARMAINE
O’BRIEN

THE PENGUIN
FOOD GUIDE to INDIA
Contents
About the Author
Introduction: My Journey into Indian Food
North India
1. Punjab and Haryana
Fields of Gold
2. Jammu and Kashmir
The Vale of Earthly Delights
3. Himachal Pradesh
Hills of Plenty
4. Uttarakhand
Celestial Dining
5. Delhi
Capital Fare
Central India
6. Uttar Pradesh
Plains Fare
7. Madhya Pradesh
Nectar from the Forests
8. Chhattisgarh
All Things Rice
9. Bihar
Food from the Heart
10. Jharkhand
Jungle Bounty
Eastern India
11. West Bengal
The Sweet Life
12. Odisha
Feeding the Divine
North-Eastern India
An Introduction to the North-East
13. Assam
Eating Green
14. Meghalaya
The Ginger Hills
15. Nagaland
Wild Food
16. Arunachal Pradesh
The Far East
17. Manipur
Fair-Trade Fish
18. Mizoram
Bamboo and Bai
19. Tripura
Fish-Fuelled Flavour
20. Sikkim
Simple Pleasures
Western India
21. Rajasthan
Desert Cooks
22. Gujarat
Trade Fare
South-Western India
23. Goa
Coconut, Cashews and Bakeries
24. Mumbai
Metro Feeds
25. Maharashtra
Soul Curry
South India
26. Andhra Pradesh
Eating the Heat
27. Karnataka
Tiffin Time
28. Tamil Nadu
All That Tastes Nice
29. Kerala
God’s Own Kitchen
Selected Reading
Broad Ingredient Categories
Illustrations
Footnotes
Introduction: My Journey into Indian Food
1. Punjab and Haryana: Fields of Gold
2. Jammu and Kashmir: The Vale of Earthly Delights
4. Uttarakhand: Celestial Dining
6. Uttar Pradesh: Plains Fare
8. Chhattisgarh: All Things Rice
9. Bihar: Food from the Heart
11. West Bengal: The Sweet Life
12. Odisha: Feeding the Divine
24. Mumbai: Metro Feeds
29. Kerala: God’s Own Kitchen
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright
Penguin Books
THE PENGUIN FOOD GUIDE TO INDIA
Charmaine o’Brien is an independent culinary writer, historian and educator. She
is the author of Flavours of Delhi: A Food Lover’s Guide, Recipes from an
Urban Village: A Cookbook from Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin and Flavours of
Melbourne: A Culinary Biography. She also teaches Indian cookery; designs and
caters special-occasion meals; works with individuals to reconnect them to
psychosocial and physical wellness through eating and cookery practices; and
writes the blog www.eatingindia.com.
She writes to unravel the world and put it all back together so that all roads
lead to food. it is her way of channelling her constant thought of ‘what shall I eat
next’ into something more interesting than excess kilos.
Charmaine is currently working on a book about food in colonial Australia.
Introduction
My Journey into Indian Food
It seems unbelievable to me now but when I first visited India, back in 1995, I
expected that the food I would find here would be exactly the same as I had
eaten in Indian restaurants in Australia. After all, each one of those I had dined
in had served the same dishes and these tasted much the same in each place—
surely this was evidence of the existence of a national Indian cuisine. When I
arrived on the subcontinent, I was confident that I was in the land of curry and
tandoori chicken; in fact, my initial experiences proved me right. The eateries
that a popular guidebook recommended to me, in places such as Delhi, Agra,
Jaipur, Jodhpur and Varanasi, served up much the same dishes I had eaten in
Indian restaurants back home—only, these were tastier and freshly baked naan
cost a pittance compared to what is charged for it outside India.
It was only in the final weeks of this trip that I began to eat from street stalls
and eateries not included in my guidebook. I recall entering a restaurant in
Hospet (Karnataka) where the signage and menu were in the local language. I
had been attracted to it by the sight of its crowded dining room although I had no
particular insight into what these patrons might have been eating. I took a seat
and almost immediately a plate of rice was placed in front of me, along with
bowls of what I took as assorted sauces. I looked around for cutlery; there was
none. I observed the people around me and saw that they poured small amounts
of the ‘sauces’ over the rice, mashed it a little with their right hand, rolled it into
balls and deftly flicked these into their mouths: I followed suit. I was nowhere
near as elegant as the locals but I got the knack and felt quite pleased with
myself. Not only was I chuffed with my tangible cultural achievement, the food
was a revelation. I had no idea what most of it was yet I had never tasted
anything as zingy, as complex, as zesty.
anything as zingy, as complex, as zesty.
As I traversed India by train—from north to south and back again—I noticed
that whenever we pulled into a major station, the food items sold on the platform
or hawked by vendors through the train carriages would be quite different from
those available at the previous halt. This intrigued me. Added to my other
experiences, such as the one in Hospet, this inspired me to want to know more
and thus began my exploration into Indian food history, culture and practice. I
can still recall what I thought ‘Indian food’ tasted like before 1995: a singular
flavour shared by almost all dishes—no matter what flashy name was given to
them—served in a typical Indian restaurant in Australia. It is my memory of this,
and of my complicity in accepting it, that made me determined to encourage
others to explore India’s culinary bounty and use their palates to discover this
ancient, complex, multifaceted, fascinating—and sometimes frustrating—land.
To the unknowing, such as my younger self, the homogeneity of menus in
Indian restaurants around the world does suggest the existence of a
homogeneous ‘Indian’ cuisine. Such a thing does not exist, however: what does
is a culinary landscape so expansive and so finely nuanced that to capture it
properly would require an encyclopaedic work. This book is a rather more
humble offering.
If we take the time to examine food in a broader context, it can connect us to
history, to culture, to the material world. What people eat and how they cook can
be a code to a society. Each chapter of this book begins with a condensed history
of a particular state and historical detail is interwoven throughout. When I write
of regional cuisine, I am concerned with the traditional food of a distinct area,
and the history of that area is important because it will have significantly
affected the development of that region’s cuisine. I have learnt so much about
India’s history, culture, politics and social idiosyncrasies through my study of
Indian food. I have also gained an education in global history as India has long
been connected to much of the rest of the world, including my native Australia
to which it was physically conjoined many millions of years ago, and to which it
became socially reconnected in the eighteenth century as part of the British
Empire.
My aim in writing this book was to create a historical and cultural guide to
India’s regional cuisine, and to recommend places where you—domestic tourist
or international visitor—can find distinct regional food and season your travel
experiences with some genuine local flavour. In doing so, I hope to inspire you
to think more about the food you see and taste because it offers an easily
navigated route into a more profound understanding of the diverse cultures that
make up India. If you are an armchair traveller or a scholar with an interest in
Indian culture and food, you will find this book equally rewarding as it is
densely packed with stories and information: I hope that reading it might
encourage you to take a trip to taste India.
How to Use This Book
To research this book I visited every state of India (with the exception of
Tripura, Manipur and Mizoram). It was not possible, though, for me to visit
every part of each state or to uncover and visit every place that might have been
suitable for inclusion in this book. I wanted to create a work that would inspire
you to plan your own unique gastronomic explorations. By guiding you through
the flavours and foods peculiar to a particular region, I am arming you with the
practical tools to become your own culinary archaeologist. I want to encourage
you to look around, to ask questions, to taste new foods, to sample dishes you
have never heard of and to gather gustatory memories that might just render the
culinary clichés of what I call Menu indicus typicus unpalatable to you ever
after. (As a remedy to this, I have provided a list of regional cookbooks that you
could cook from. You can also visit my website at www.eatingindia.com for
recipes for many of the dishes mentioned in this book.)
I have eaten at most of the restaurants, cafes, dhabas, guest houses, hotels,
etc., which I have recommended in this book but I have also included a handful
of recommendations for places that were advocated to me by knowledgeable
people, which I could not get to. I do not expect that you will be limited to my
recommendations though and will make your own discoveries inspired by what
you learn here.
My basic criterion for recommending a place to you was that it served good
regional food. There are referrals to exclusive hotels as well as the simplest of
eateries, and some of the best regional food can be enjoyed at street stalls. Not
all of you will feel comfortable eating from these rudimentary open-air kitchens
and will exercise your own discretion in choosing street eats but here are a few
points in their favour. The street vendor does not have the option of storing food;
he—or she, although street stalls are largely run by men—buys only the food