“Tasty curry might have a fringe benefit,” headlines USA Today… today. The article is more specifically about the reported health benefits of turmeric. It’s not exactly a scoop, as a scientific paper on the topic was published two years ago and picked up by Manish in this January 1, 2005 post. Still, given the attention span of the typical USA Today reader (and who is that reader, anyway, other than the nameless masses of khaki-panted, cellphone belt-clipped, laptop warriors waking up each morning in the Marriotts of the land?), I suppose it’s information worth recycling from time to time. Plus we get a heart warming story to go with it:
Then Jayne took an Indian cooking class that emphasized fresh vegetables and curry spices.
She began to whip up an Indian dinner once or twice a week — and soon she noticed she wasn’t always looking for a late-night snack. And the curry in the food offered her a bonus: It seemed to ease the pain and swelling in her joints.
“I have arthritis,” says Jayne, 55. “But I’m moving better now.”
Preliminary research suggests Jayne may be right. A study in the November issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism suggests turmeric, one component of curry spice, almost completely prevented joint swelling in rats with arthritis. Other studies have suggested that the spice could protect against diseases such as heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s…
Tipster Adi points us to the article as picked up on the news aggregator site RedOrbit.com, where we get the benefit of reader comments. Made-up Indian names, comparisons of desi food to the excrement of various animals, and discussions of desi body odor and penis size are all on the menu. I won’t reprint any of it here but those of you who think racism against desis is no big deal might find it instructive to take a look.
Meantime, pass the lime pickle.
I have a well developed theory about this. I don’t think the “curry smell” is your body actually exuding the aroma from your pores. I think it’s the poor ventilation in American homes which are not designed for airconditioning and have sealed orifices everywhere. It’s not like when you get off the plane in India, you are assaulted by the smell of Indian food. There is an “India smell”, just like there’s an “America smell” (open a suitcase from either country in the other and you’ll see what I mean) but neither one is a food smell. I can’t describe the India smell, but sniff a piece of block printed fabric that hasn’t been washed yet and there it is. The America smell is sort of a mixture of soap and lotion, but it’s the same regardless of what soaps and lotions the owner of the suitcase uses. Anyway, so I think the curry smell in the US is because of all the molecules floating around your poorly ventilated house that land on your hair and clothes. I have no proof to back it up, but that’s what I think. Every time I opened up my suitcase in college after a break at my parents home in the US, the “curry smell” wafted through my dorm room.
When I was in high school, my guidance counselor called me into his office. I had just moved from India a few months before. He proceeded to tell me that one of my teachers had asked him to pass along that I “smelt funny”. He reported that she thought it must have been something I was eating. I went to a high school in a very cosmopolitan part of America with lots of international students from literally all over the world. I was completely flabbergasted by the conversation. In a rare moment of self-defense for me at the time, I told him exactly what I thought, which was that it was a completely inappropriate personal attack under the guise of guidance. He was actually a really great guy and immediately apologized and said that he personally didn’t think I smelled but had felt obligated to pass along the information. Anyway, despite my stand in support of my body odor, I surmised that the “funny smell” might have been the Vicco Turmeric Ayurvedic Cream that I had been using (but washing my face afterwards) and I never used it again.
Desishiksa, that is just absolutely shocking! I am completely flabbergasted that this comment would be made in high school of all places where they surely must be aware of how fragile teen self esteem is. It sounds like you are a strong person and therefore were not scarred by the incident. Good for you. I still can’t use indian hair oil I have to say (#45) so I especially admire you.
This thread has made me very aware of my aroma – I made some delicious lamb kofta last night. I have showered and washed my hair this morning as I do every morning before coming into the office and my work clothes never see the inside of my kitchen but now I’m wondering if everyone can smell lamb kofta. And if they can, are they enjoying it? Maybe I’m making my co-workers feel hungry.
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dear god…i was thinking the same thing.
hahahahahahahaha I’m going to try that.
Oh, don’t. It would have been admirable if I had continued to use the Turmeric Cream but I gave it up 🙂
Maybe my theory of smell is flawed, since my dog just smells like dog, not like curry, when I take him out of the house. So maybe you do have to eat it to truly smell of it. I wonder if the leftover-sambar-and-rice eating dogs in Chennai smell like sambar.
There’ve also been examples cited (don’t ask me for sample size/methodology details) that Indians (at least in desh) have far lower rates of colon cancer than Westerners, and a possible theory was turmeric. Google to your hearts’ content.
I wonder if the same is true for soymilk. I put Silk creamer in my tea. It’s the best!
I loved that place in SF and while we were sitting in there we didn’t realize how strong that smell is. We all got in the car after dinner and everyone was quiet. About 5 minutes into the ride one person finally broke the silence with “Woah do you smell that?” We all started laughing. We were all reeking. That stuff felt like it was in the fibers of our clothes.
Haha, by the time I got through the bread and garlic thing, appetizers and my entree, I was so garlicked out that I thought the garlic ice-cream was refreshing. 😉
the smell? please! like deepa said:
the only problem from haldi, if any, is the color staining everything yellow.
ha! it takes real long to get the yellow out doesn’t it? and it’s always mom’s fault, too. go through the list of comments and you’ll notice how most of us have a story with dear mammi.
This may be the topic of a whole new blog, but why doesn’t the food network ever do any ethnic cooking shows (by which I mean other than italian)? As much as I used to enjoy the channel it has now become a source of TV Prozac. Warm fuzzy comfort cooking for Those Who Will Not Cook. Indian cooks – we need to start the crusade with the media and we need to start now!
Sorry just a beef of mine.
Haldi cures everything.
And the only time you don’t put haldi in your food is during a wake. Or at least, that’s how it is where I’m from. (You also don’t put onions or garlic in your food during a wake.)
As for having yellow extremities, most desi people I’ve seen have yellow undertones, and I’ve always attributed that to the haldi. Maybe if I ate more beets I’d have red undertones.
I didn’t grow up around enough Indians to know if we all smell like curry or whatever. What I do know is that I lowe it when we do (hella better than smelling like bolonga!!! And besides, most of my friends are a bunch of central coast hippies who smell like something far more fierce than curry). Yesterday, when I finished moving into my new apartment, I discovered that I have a young desi family for neighbors. How did I find out? I smelled the food, of course 🙂 It stopped me dead in my tracks and made me forget that my arms were about to fall off from carrying that huge box of heavy books. I think I stood outside their window for a good 30 seconds, like a creepy stalker or something. Now I have to figure out how to get invited to dinner 🙂
I agree with Kavita about the “meat smell” on most Americans. It’s more subtle, but when they start to sweat… :-/ And if that were bbq ribs or pork that I had smelled coming from my neighbors, I’d have run into my apartment and taken a shower. I wouldn’t have thought “Ew, white/black/Latino people are so gross!” It’s just their food, and it’s different, and that’s ok. I just don’t want the smell of burning animal parts in my hair, is all. (Yes, I know desis eat meat too!)
On desishika’s point, in addition to having good ventilation, eating fibrous food, fresh (uncooked) fruits and vegetables, drinking lots of water will help you cleanse your body of whatever you’ve got in there, smell and all. WATER I think is most important. And fasting once in a while. Drinking lots of water during a fast is a good cleanse.
Another theory involves Indian toilets.
I don’t know…why be so paranoid about smelling like your food? “Making sure” to shower after cooking/eating it…ventilating to get all trace of it out of the house…while of course it’s good not to have a house that smells like years of old food, are we not buying into the shame inflicted by ignorant people about how our food smells/how “all desis” smell?
have never been to the stinking rose, but a dream of mine is to go to gilroy for their garlic festival… 🙂
Why?? what was wrong with “Pour some haldi on me?? ” That was a good title..
but a dream of mine is to go to gilroy for their garlic festival… 🙂
Lets go Chickie nothing goes with hummus like garlic 🙂
BTW since this is a fact of life that when we make Indian foods our homes smell we may as well learn to deal with it. And I don’t come from the “this is how my house smells” school of thought because I don’t want to be surrounded by Indian food smell all the time.
There are some great odor neutralizing candles out there. Just leave them on before, thru and after cooking. Fresh Wave as well as Vermont Soy Candles has some good options.
My grandmother used to throw in several sticks of cinnamon (dalchini), several cloves (lavang) and several cardamoms (elichi) into a pot of hot water and let it boil and simmer on the back burner thru her cooking especially if she made fish or lamb. It works like wonders in neutralizing the odor.
done. might even be this summer!
and as for smelling like ‘curry’ (i hate the word as well), my friend who cooks up a storm got complaints from her neighbors in the apartment complex she and her husband lived in…evenutally they moved out with crazy restrictions they implemented… it was pretty sad..
long live the stinking rose… and onions….and masala…
It’s fun! As is the stinking rose, but I like the garlic festival more.
I don’t know, growing up our house didn’t smell like “curry spices” or whatnot, but my mom was a big believer in ventilating and sealing food as soon as it was cooked. I feel like our house more often than not smelled like lachi (cardamom), lavendar, or sandalwood incense.
I went to a comedy club with my boxing team a couple months ago and the comedian, Jeff Dunham, used puppets in his act that he would broing into conversations with the audience. One such puppet was “Phil, The Dead Terrorist.” I’m guessing that the turban was supposed to make him part of the Taliban or something.
Wiki says: “Phil is a skeleton-looking character with eyebrows, who apparently martyred himself in the course of a suicide bombing, but lives on as a skeleton with facial hair. He has problems keeping his feet on the stand and keeps shouting “Foot! Foot! Foot!” to Jeff to keep his feet up. He has a white bandana (turban) that he says was made from boxers. He also shouts “I’ll kill you” or “Silence!” to people who make fun of him.”
Jeff started a question and ansewer session between Phil and the audience after they had some back and forth banter, inviting us to ask Phil anything. It was sorta cute until one drunk woman yells out in this nasty drawl “Why do you stink?” A lot of people were looking at her booing for being such a downer. The puppet looked at her, repeated, “Why do I stink?” and then looked at Jeff and said, “That’s not me, it’s HIM!”
I have febreeze handy whenever i go to my rents house
I don’t know if that was in reference to what I said, but just in case it was, I should mention that I’m not paranoid about it. I love the smell of desi food, even if it’s on desi people 🙂 Ventilation in your house and circulation in your body is good for health reasons. And I wouldn’t automatically consider someone who didn’t like the “curry smell” to be racist. They might be racist, like the people who commented on RedOrbit.com, but it might just be that they don’t dig the food, like I don’t dig bolonga. I try to assume the better case.
Festival might be fun, but you do NOT want to end up in Gilroy on any other day (which you almost invariably will, if you get lost trying to find your way up to San Francisco from LA).
And if you eat something heavy in cinnamon, cloves and cardamom, you’d neutralize the odor in your body too (if you wanted to, of course :). You’d actually smell sweet and pleasant. Cinnamon is the best.
Ack, sorry, I’ve been spelling “bologna” wrong.
Hi Shruti, it wasn’t in reference to what you said specifically. I just felt, reading, that there was a tone emerging on the thread that “of course” we should work frantically to eliminate every trace of Indian food smell from our bodies and houses. While I of course agree that houses should be well-ventilated and bodies cleaned, as I in fact had stated in that same comment, I felt that over several comments it was starting to sound like it is necessary to make sure no one suspects that one ever eats Indian food. People don’t have to dig the food, or the smell, but when they turn it into “you smell bad/your food is smelly/Indians smell bad” that is crossing a line.
And if such an extreme attitude exists among some of us (again not that we shouldn’t ventilate but that we must eradicate all trace) then might it not come from comments complaining about how we/our food smells? And those kinds of comments come from ignorant people (I never used the word racist, although some would be) who, among other things, don’t realize that they and their houses have a smell too.
driving by – thot i’d stop and chime in with random thots
does haldi really add anything to a dish other than the color – heck ive stopped cooking with it because it even colors tupperware yellow – and not noticed any diff.
and i tried joat’s recipe for haldi-milk once – at the behest of a friend-no-more, whose herbalist dad had passed it to him. i was belching these sour bubbles all evening and wanted to scrape clean my insides with a crampon it felt like that. ymmv.
hey! ditch grammy’s homeishtyle cooking – you can cater to your desi palates wivout drenching oneself in veird odors – maybe it’s because i have a rather huge nose – like a camel – but stale oil smells are rather disruptive. one doesnt need to cook with a cup of oil and handful of chilis forthe same effect. experiment! think of it as creative you rather than dowdy you and maybe it’ll be more palatable for you, ubersexual you’s.
a couple of tips – i actually got this when i was studying sambhar preparation is that the masala can be prepared well in advance and kept inthe freezer for freshness – and that takes care of the daily pungentitude. The same goes with fried onions or stuff one uses to add as the flavoring ingredient to dal. summary – make all your pungent stuff separately and in bulk and store in freezer until time to use.
be cool. emus rule.
I think the smell in desi homes and on desi bodies has to do with the amount of spices, chili and oil used in their cooking rather than the spices, chili and oil themselves. I know alot of desi and non desi vegetarians who all cook Indian food to one degree or another. Now, the desis that cook only or primarily Indian food tend to use way more chili, spices and pungent oils like mustard (especially in they are Bengali) than the non-desi vegetarian Indian food lovers. Desi and non-desis alike who mix up their diet with other types of cuisine than just exclusively Indian, tend to not have that heavy distinct “desi” or “curry” aroma in their homes. I cook alot of Indian food, but I go light on the spices and chilis and I don’t use mustard or other bad oils like “canola” (whats a canola anyway?). I use olive oil or ghee – sparingly. On top of that I do alot of “raw” or “bland” foods also, as well as other international cuisines. I have a desi friend on the other hand who uses one stick of butter whenever he makes a subji, and fries alot of chilies in it! This is his daily fare. His house, car, clothes and body smell just like the smoke that furiously fumes through his kitchen whenever he cooks.
Moderation would be the key.
Me too. So what if you might smell like sambar or spices(not curry) or mustard seeds! That’s a lovely scent…hey, I was told by my good Jamaican friend that white people smell like wet chicken! I’d rather smell like cardamom, cinnamon, mustard seeds fried in ghee than to smell like a wet chicken.
…
Then Jamaicans must smell like hot jerk chicken, coz that’s their specialty.
My S.O. says the female genitals taste like chicken – even if they are vegetarians. Unfortunately he loves chicken. Or would that be fortunately?
But yeah, cinnamon and cardomon smell nice. I think the offending smell is chillies fried in carcenogenic oil, and maybe hing, which is pretty intense (I used to store it in the garage until I got used to it. Now I can’t even smell it and it’s my favorite spice. I use too much for most people’s tastes.)
Speaking of hing.
Non-garlic Garlic Bread;
Spread olive oil and hing on a slices of fresh bread and put them under the grill for a few minutes. Yummy!
Haldi mos def has it’s own flavor, and if you put too much into whatever you’re making, you’ll ruin it because the flavor is so overpowering.
What you call the “stale oil smells” is actually rancid oil. If you heat your oil beyond it’s smoking point, it becomes rancid. And it doesn’t just smell bad, it’s also carcinogenic. So olive oil is good for you, but you can’t fry in it because it has a smoking point of only 375-400 degrees. Saffalower oil has one of the higest smoking points, so that’s better for frying.
…um, nooooooooo! I like to have my dinner made from the freshest possible ingredients (local organic is ideal), prepared from scratch on the day of specifically for that dinner, and cooked just minutes before I eat it. sigh hairy_d, just come over to my place for dinner, ok?
Some people burn the spices, which leads to a more pungent smell (and makes me caugh and sneeze, but I am way atopic and everything irritates my nasal passages), but not in my opinion, a better flavor. We had this conversation a few years ago on SM in the comment sections – the consensus was: don’t burn, open windows, run fan and change clothes frequently. That is if it bothers you. If not, that’s between you and the guy you sit next to on the subway…..and frankly, given the sheer and utter disgustingness and embarrasment that is the subway in my city (note, I don’t name it based on bans in the past when it comes to dissing said city), some spicy smell would be refreshing.
Oh, and Shruti’s comment about rancid oil is right on. Change oil too! It’s good for you!
But Shruti you don’t make the actual masala you use in cooking from scratch each time do you? I make my sauce and all the other stuff from scratch but masala has to be stored in mass quantities. No way I’d make it fresh everyday, no time.
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Other than health benefits it’s mostly used for color in foods. It does offer storage benefits in pickled product. It’s a root related to Ginger, even looks like it and I think majority of the turmeric in the world comes from Maharashtra, I forget which village. But yes it’s brutal on tupperwear not to mention french manicure 🙂
Why use oil? Ghee gives a more traditional, healthy and authentic Indian taste. And it is zero cholesterol.
Refined and processed oils are total crap.
Growing up in Iowa, I never had anyone make any comments about the ‘curry smell’, but Mom was vigilant about running the fan and she hates, hates, hates the taste of ‘burned’ spices.
I did thing my neighbors houses smelled like diet Pepsi and cleaning solutions…….
Does someone want to talk to Mistress of raw spices about the ghee thing ?
Whats the ghee thing?
I thought it was healthy.
zero cholesterol, 100% fat, right? Desi cardiologists may now commence commenting: come on, I know you are out there! I am not familiar with the literature well enough to know which is healthier, but there are some papers suggesting ghee may not be that good for you. That uses up my meager knowledge. Back to people who know better…..
Is Ghee healthy ?
Thanks for that link. I’ll pass it on to my desi and non-desi ghee enthusiasts. I rarely use it.
I use raw olive, hemp and flax oils (cannot be heated), to get my EFAs – omegas 3, 6 and 9.
So what would you all recommend as a healthy cooking oil? Is there any such thing?
I do as much as I can. I buy the spices in their fresh and original form in small quantities (cardamom in the pods, whole turmeric root, whole ginger root, cinnamon sticks, coriander in the seed form, etc). I know it would be impractical for you, living in NY, but it’s not impractical for me because I live on the central coast of California (where this stuff is readily avaliable year-round, for relatively cheap). Also, I buy from a food cooperative that offers the spices in bulk form, meaning you can buy as much or as little as you want. Instead of buying a newly packaged, bulk-sized bottle of spices every two months, I take my old (small) containers back to the store, get the tare weight, and just refill it with a freshly arrived batch of that spice. When I get home, I have a mortar and pestle and a coffee grinder to grind however much I need for the meal that I’m making. It makes it easier to experiment that way too. (It also tastes better that way, and benefits the independent farmers that supply that kind of demand.)
Oh! that’s quite a learning. I use olive oil for everything – i didnt know extra virgin goes skanky crone in a flash – actually i’m very fond of grilled vegetables – but i’ve used olive oil for this even when the oven is turned up to 450. will try safflower.
🙂 sure thing!! hey i like cooking with fresh stuff myself and really because i dont see the need for short cuts; i find cooking therapeutic.
i’m really touched by your kind offer. if you’re ever in TO, i’ll make you my famous stew with lentils, barley and oyster mushrooms. very good with dark pump. btw – vere’re you at? SF?
Mistress of Raw Spices: sorry for being crytptic. I’m glad someone provided a link.
Shruti: truly one of the joys of living in California is the availability of such fresh ingredients…my one year in Northern California was a culinary delight because of the produce, healthy cooking, and the desi couple in my apartment building who invited me over all the time. I was trying to avoid animal products at the time and went into SF when I wanted vegan chocolate cake. The couple made the best food I have ever tasted. Mumbai couple, transplanted to Northern California, one Christian, one Muslim, neither converted and maintained a household of two faiths.
Really, the wife (with help from the husband) was the best cook ever!
Any vegetable oils (they are all the same despite perception…Corn, Vegetable, Sunflower, Canola) are good to cook with. Their heating points are different but in terms of poly, mono and saturated fat they are all the same. Olive oil has lower polyunsaturated and higher monosaturated oils which is what gives it the “light” label.
However fat is fat is fat with the average person.
What is a canola?
And isnt’ olive oil supposed to not reach high heating temps?
It’s a vegetable oil made from rapeseed and contains the lowest polyunsaturated fat as compared to other vegetable oils.
I just found this http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/canola.htm regarding canola oil.
I stay away from all the in-organic processed and refined oils sold in grocery stores.
I have heard that pure organic coconut oil as found in healthfood stores, as well as GRAPEseed oil, is good. Or other nut oils like almond or sesame, provided they are organic.
Shruti: Me and Hairy_D at your house tomorrow. I bring chilis from garden. Hokay?
Damn…wrong coast again!:)
oh strike me yellow. that guy who told me to drink that haldi milk was from maharashtra as well.. “Aargh!! you snake Iago! i do detect in the thee, a shade of haldee. I should have shunned that concoction vile, rather than throw up all night my stinky bile”.
I was in the habit of using haldi everyday in my cooking and my teeth became really yellow too. I love it but don’t use it daily anymore.
Oye vye detestable to one ambrosial to another in some cultures haldi is supposed to make you lusty!
Hot milk at night is sometimes given to a newly-wed bridegroom.