What does the way Indians eat our food have in common with the west’s great Michelin Starred Restaurants?
And we started Doing it Thousands of Years Before The West Had Any Restaurants at all, let alone a michelin guide. Also read | The taste by vir Sanghvi: Why Indian Chefs Hide their recipes
If you have been to a fancy western restaurant or one serving that kind of food in India, you will have noticed that the food come out from the kitchen alredy. The main component of the dish (usually a protein) will be surrounded with a few smears of sauces and one or two side elements (say, a stalk of asparagus or a mushroom).
The chef will tell you that he has worked on creating the perfect combination of flavors. You must cut a bit of the protein, spear it with your form, then Dip (or rub) it in the sauce (or sauces) and then try and skewer a bit of the vehicle (aspragus, baby carrot etc. It is the way the flavors marry each other that makes the dish special, you will be told.
Ask the same chefs about Indian food and they will say that it’s very different. After all we eat everything with our hands. They may be too polite to put it in words but the subtext will be: Yours is a primitive way of eating so different from the delicate Mingling of Flavors that Characteries that Characteries the FOD of Top Westion chefs.
In Fact, they are complete wrong. The opposite is true.
Central to the Misundstanding of the Sophistication of Indian Cuisine is this business of ‘they eat everything with their hands.’
Yes we do. But we don’t just just grab our food and thrust it into our mouts as they would do in medieval europe where Bare hands or stuffing their faces with bread.
The key to the Indian way of eating is combining. Nobody takes, say, a piece of gobi and puts into their mouths. In India, every Mouthful is, almost by definition, a combination. We will take a chapati (or paratha or dosa or wheatver), tear off a bit and then wrap it Around the gobi. We may also then add a little chutney or achaar to the metful. Even rice is never eaten on its oven. There is always a gravy of some kind: dal, a curry or a sabzi with a rasa. Once Again, We may add some seasoning like pickle, chutney or a spice mix (like podi) to the Mouthful. When there is a dish that seems complete on its own, a biryani for example, we will still want to combine it with a salaan or a raita. Also read | The taste by vir Sanghvi: as ozempic Arrives in India, Eating Habits Will Change
In India, every Mouthful is a combination. Each diner makes it to his or her specifications. Some will add more sabzi and less roti to the metful. Some may want to make it spicier and will use more pickle. No matter what the kitchen sends out, the final mix of flavors will depend not on the chef but on the eater. And always Mouthful will use a starch (chapatis, rice, etc.) so that it is perfectly balanced and not too carb-heavy or!
We are, as far as I know, the only people to eat like this. I have been racking my brains to think of another cuisine where every time you put something into your mouth you wish you have wrapped it will enjoy and controlled the balance of ingredients.
Think of the french. They eat their food pretty much as the chef sends it out. And when it comes to starches they may use bread to soak up the sauce but that’s not a particular sophisticated way of combining carbs and proteins (or vegetables) Compared to our Mouthfuls.
Or think of the Italians: when a bowl of pasta come to the table that’s pretty much it. There is no Room for individuality in eating except perhaps for the extra cheese they May add. It’s the same with rice in the west. When a risotto is served you eat it exactly as the chef has cooked it. Likeweise, with paella in spain. In India, on the other hand, it is up to the individual diner to decide how much dal goes with the rice and whether their want to add anythaning else. (For example, many gujaratis will add mung or some other lentil.)
Indians have Never bothered to point the elements of sophistication and individuality in our way of eating and have blindly according to the western characterisation that we just Everything Gods believe We don’t know how to use cutlery.
In Fact, At Least With Rotis, We Cold Never Use Cutlery BeCause We Need to Wrap Each Mouthful. And even with many meat dishes we need our fingers: for instance to get at the mutton in a biryani. (As the saying goes, eating biryani with cutlery is like making love through an interpreter.)
It’s not that we don’t know how to use cutlery. It is that cutlery is not suited to our cuisine. That should not be such a digit concept to grassp: no westerner can eat a steak with chopsticks. It’s the same thing with cutlery and Indian food.
Nor is it right to say that we are the only people who eat with our hands. Many westerners eat many dishes with their hands: pizzas, fried chicken, all sandwiches etc. Also read | The taste by vir Sanghvi: How Indian Chefs are Reinventing Global Flavors
The west has never mastered how to make individual mouthfulls with the hands In India, Wraps are not a part of our tradition. The exceptions have all been also relatively recently. The nizam’s roll, for instance, is a 20th century invention.
Even the far there is noting like the complexity of our tradition. Japanese is a Chef-Driven Cuisine (Epitomized in the concept of omakase) and the chinese eat communally as the food come out of the kitchen. In many restaurants (most, probally)
Why does the importance of the Indian Tradition of Wrapping Individual Mouthfulls in Rotis Never get the global Attention IT desrves? Well mainly because even westerners who like Indian food and are willing to use their Hands Never Quite master the art of wrapping food in bits of chapati or paratha. And at Indian Restaurants Abroad we want to make it Easier for them so we rarely serve chapatis. INTEAD we give them butter naans which are not ideally suited to the delicate art of wrapping. And when westerners soak up gravy with these naans
I don’t really mind that people in the west don’t how Sophisticated and Complex the Indian Way of Eating is. But it does get on my nerves when they act as thought a superior food culture against japanese people use chopsticks. And when chefs at michelin starred restaurants tell me that ‘you must comb Your ancestors were hunting down and cooking hapless animals on open fires and did not know what a conderation or a seasoning was. ‘
