“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.
mmmmm… paneeeer.. hey – i wont mind learning the steps for paneeeeeer myself.. please to post.
coach – what kind of milk do you use. i think the indian paneer ismade from raw buffalo milk. i’ve also heard one is supposed to soak or moisten the pressed cheese regularly to keep it spongy.
mmmm… paneeer…
I dont know exactly how to make paneer, but the ones that you get from indo-grocery stores are nice and firm 😉
yes.. the desi stores here have a nanak paneer and i am pleased with that product – but it is still not commonly found. i think this is a BC based dairy. it is cute seeing desi brand names in the mainstream chain stores tho – ‘suraj’ and ‘patak’ have done a great job building a brand presence; then we have the local ‘tiranga’ and ‘mughlai’ pitas; and i’ve seen chevdo mix in with the beer nuts as well. food is food man. i’m glad the ‘exotic’ patina has worn thin and the products are marketed largely on their gastronomic contributions. hopefully within the next ten years it will be as commonplace to look for paneer in grocery stores as it is to go pick out nachos or challah or lavash.
The reason the commercial paneer is firmer is because they have machines to press out the last drop of moisture and also paneer doesn’t come out great when made with homogenized milk which is pretty much all you can get here in the US. The best you can do is hang it up over the sink in a muslin and then put it on a rack with a very heavy weight on it for a few hours. I like it a bit crumbly actually. The bought stuff can be a bit rubbery.
Hairy_D I’ve been using whole milk from the groceria. I can get goat’s milk from my neighbors though. D’ya think that’d make a difference? I ain’t trying to wrestle wit a damn wily buffalo …
Place an entire vat full of water on your paneer-in-cheesecloth. And deep-fry before cooking to prevent crumbling :).
I decided that I would try to get him admitted into a good, English-medium school, and I’d pay for the tuition, uniforms, books, etc. until he finished 12th grade.
That is very kind/ noble of you.
I know about English medium schools and their…….
However, try get him admitted to one of the Kendriya Vidayas (Government schools but some of them (not all) are very good depending on the local staffing, I am sure Mumbai probably has some), and that will set him for better future.
I second Pooja’s suggestion, minus the deep-frying. My mom always mixes 2% milk with buttermilk when she makes her paneer, and it’s always placed between a stone slab in her sink (in a cloth, of course) with a huge 8-10 qt. pot of water on top of it.
Another option is to use marinated tofu 😀
Also, it’s not 90%, but a good majority of South Indians are lactose intolerant (link here), and northies also run an intolerancy level of something like 30%. In my [northie] family, a good number of us run a dairy allergy as well. As one of those people, yeah it’s hard to get your calcium, but I really think dairy is overrated. As my allergist explained, “Cow milk is made for an animal with 3 digestive stomachs and you just have one. What did you expect?” Maybe I also think it’s overrated b/c I’m in the Bay, where there are a number of awesome (finally) soy substitutes for milk products and an abundance of supplements and veggies.
And finally, the meat/eggs thing is totally overrated. There are so many ways to get your protein and not be malnourished, and many of those things already happen in India through protein substitutes. There are also a lot of really good resources for how to balance your nutrition, esp. if you’re vegetarian/veggie.
You’re right about Food Network becoming like Prozac… I could be hypnotized by it daily if I let myself.
I know she’s actually on Bravo, but maybe someone could get Padma Lakshmi to whip up some Indian food on screen someday. Or maybe she could just give those snotnosed Top Chef contestants a challenge that includes paneer and hing one of these days….
People w/ meat meat manifesto. Roman gladiators were fat vegetarians
coach_d sez
dont know about the goat, coach. but i like my feta to be goat or sheep rather than cow. it has a different (not unpleasant) odor. i’d be curious how your paneer turns out. do let us know. btw – you live in an interesting neighborhood! where is it?
Coach are you using whole milk? Sheep and Goat milk doesn’t have enough fat in it to create the curd that is required for paneer. Whole cow milk is the best. Try adding in some heavy cream and kefir in the mix and just use lemon juice to break the milk. Let it boil a long time till the curd is completely seperated and the water looks almost greenish clear. Use cheesecloth and hang it. I love crumbled fresh paneer by the way so I prefer it to the fried store kind.
JOAT you are simply amazing. By the way, a while back on another thread (when Siddhartha asked where to find Indian shirts and kurtas, etc) you mentioned some great areas in NYC…I actually got some great shirts from the places you mentioned in Soho. Thanks! Keep the tips coming.
Not that I plan to ever make paneer!
…are we not buying into the shame inflicted by ignorant people about how our food smells/how “all desis” smell?
Exactly. I don’t see why people are so ultra defensive about the whole thing based on comments from ignorant idiots who cannot appreciate anything beyond burgers and so-called pizza. It is a bit rich for Americans to comment on Indian cuisine. Yes, Indians may not be the healthiest people in the world, but let’s not even begin to talk about the obesity situation in the US.
Hairy_D I’ve made feta with both goats milk and cows and it’s by far the easiest cheese to make.I’ve even gotten a good tofu imitation feta.
I live in Richmond, VA, in an area populated with folks from the West Indies, 4th and 5th generation European-Americans that are plumbers, painters and construction folk,1st gen. latinos, and many folks from North Africa/Middle East (Mauritania, Tunisia, Iraq and Syria). We spent last Eid with family friends from Iraq and Iran. (No, I’m not a muslim. I get invited to a lot of parties for Eid.:)
Seeing goats and chickens in urban backyards is somewhat common in this area. So are backyard fires, rabbit raising, gardening and sewing/knitting for profit. The underground economy is alive and flourishing here. If you’re the renovation type, a house in need of repair can be had for under 100K.
Enough of my threadjack. Back to the finer points of turmeric and hing!
No wo/man is an island onto his/herself.
Why was deoderant invented? So as not to offend others. How to win friends and influence people…
Even I sometimes feel “offended” when a person who has access to baths/showers, soaps, deoderant (can get all- natural/non-toxic ones at health food stores for those of you against harsh chemicals), and powder, do not care enough about us other people on the planet enough to do something about their horrible B.O.
I’m not into artificial beauty products but even I manage to not smell bad when going out in public because I don’t want to offend others.
Again, it’s not the spices, but the way in which spices (primarily chillie) is cooked in high heated and sometimes rancid oils that smoke up the entire kitchen. You eat that daily and you will smell like that. You cook like that daily and your house will smell like that. What your house smells like is your business (until you invite guests over, then it becomes their business as well), but what YOU smell like when in a public place becomes everyone’s business.
There was a man at work guilty of this and the entire staff that worked with him was practically tortured by his odor. It made the work place almost unbearable. Finally it got to be too much and we all got together and requested another staff worker who was friendly with him to advise him. He made some adjustments and the smell was toned down.
Unless you are a totally eccentric, anti-social, starving artist or mad poet, or living on an island out in the middle of nowhere – IT MATTERS!
Even sexy comedian Aron Kader agrees with me on this one
Um, sure (duh) but just as you are talking about excessive disregard of the smell I am talking about paranoia about having a tiny bit of smell.
There is a middle ground (or perhaps you don’t believe that, since after clarification by me previously you are still talking about being PRISTINE (me? eat Indian food ever?) vs STINKOZOID).
Sorry, I was confused about some old data I had read. Its more than 90% of Asian Americans (not South Indians) who have lactose intolerance. Here’s an NIH link. with the following words
Just looked up the figures for Indians on PubMed. It’s 27% in Delhi and 66% in Trivandrum and Pondicherry. There’s a paper offering the Aryan ancestry of Northies as an explanation.
I have to agree that most homes and buildings in America are not properly ventilated. I’ve lived here for almost my whole life. When you and visit India, most of the cooking smoke goes out of your window. There is no prevalent “curry odor.” I think that in general there is a more rascist attitude towards Indian people. How come when African-Americans cook pork 24/7 no one complains or turns up their nose? That makes the whole floor of an apartment building smell like burnt hair. Is that healthy? You can’t eat pork all day, every day and expect to be healthy. What about Asians who have a thing about cooking cod in pork oil every day? Every race has particular foods they like to cook. Everything is pungent except for bland White Anglo Saxon foods like (ugh!)bologna with olive bits and other dull foods. With so many cooking shows on today, they hardly show Indian foods being cooked. You have to go to an Indian family’s house to taste the spectrum of foods we eat. I deal with rascism every day, even after living most of my life here. America is not a true democracy. It is still ruled by rich white men. After all, it is Britain’s whory daughter. Having said that, I still do like America. Racism will continue. Turmeric is good in your food. It fights germs. I’ve never had acne battles in my life. I get compliments on my skin color and condition.
As some reasonable people have pointed out here, people smell like the food that they eat…noticing it is hardly a crime. If you mistreat someone due to their particular smell, that’s different. However, it CAN be kinda hard to cope with someone’s smell that you’re unnacustomed to. An Indian man worked out at the gym I used to belong to, and I’d have to make a wide circuit of him because his spicy body odor was almost suffocating. I’ve also smelled white folk who reeked of various things, and I had to keep my distance from them too. Same thing with people of every race, like the Chinese lady at a restaurant I love who blasts garlic from yards away. I do indeed have a sensitive nose(like a dog, apparently…smirk). I’m a white girl, but when I eat Indian food, I smell powerfully of the spices just like Indians do…the food is so excellent that I consider it well worth it, but I have to factor in that I’ll be walking in a cloud of spicy fumes thereafter. If I eat dairy products, I have a different, rather yucky smell to contend with. If I eat at my favorite Mexican restaurant, I smell like onions and cumin. If I eat too much meat, I smell like a big ol’ side of beef. So…if you notice a stench or a peculiar scent wafting off white people, do you auto-slam yourself as a racist? I kinda doubt it… The Japanese used to be disgusted by the smell of Europeans, and called them “butter-eaters” as a term of contempt. Guess what? We all kinda stink, of something or other. And there’s nothing strange about noticing, even being put off by a foreign smell…we ALL are prone to that. But I do agree that people don’t have to be so mean about it…