Category Archives: Food

God’s Own Country Hates Soda

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I love that my roots are in Kerala. 😀 Via the Beeb:

The Indian state of Kerala has banned the production and sale of Coca Cola and Pepsi following a report that the drinks contain harmful pesticides.
It said it was taking the step because the drinks pose a health risk. Both soft drinks manufacturers have said their products are safe.

Though other states have decided to ban the soft drinks in schools, hospitals and the like, only a state which possesses that legendary literacy rate, enviable amounts of religious harmony and my marathon-runnin’ 80-year old Aunt could do something so hilarious draconian singular.

The move by the communist government in Kerala in southern India is the most severe reaction to a report released last week by an Indian non-government organisation, the Centre for Science and Environment.
It said tests carried on samples of the drinks across 12 Indian states revealed dangerously high levels of pesticides.

The Indian Soft Drinks Manufacturers Association is taking its sweet yindian standard time:

The Indian Soft Drinks Manufacturers Association issued a statement on Wednesday after the Kerala ban was announced.
“Our products manufactured in India are absolutely safe and meet every safety standard set by food health and regulatory bodies in India and all over the world,” it said.
It said it would only comment on the Kerala ban once it had been told about it by the authorities.

Three years ago, the Center for Science and Environment told the Indian parliament that Coke and Pepsi most certainly weren’t it, if by “it” we mean healthy and pesticide-free; they “recommended that India set purity standards for soft drinks”. Of course, the government is on IST for that, too.

In other news, three out of my 219 cousins have cancelled impending trips home, out of concern for a lack of mixers with which to garnish their Johnny Walker Black. Oh, Kerala…look what thou hast wrought! Continue reading →

Designer Desi Baby Food

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It’s hot outside. So hot, these days, you want to curl up next to a fan with a cup full of ice water and allow your brain to regress to an almost womb-like state of slushee-induced, heat-transcending peace. The local papers here in Philly have had nothing very exciting to say about the curent heat wave, but the BBC has an amusing article on the rest of the British media’s penchant for “climate porn” (the BBC, of course, only participates in the phenomenon by discussing how everyone else participates in it). Still, “climate porn”: you might want to rethink how much time you spend at work checking the weather. 02baby.2.190.jpg

Speaking of returning to the womb, or something close to it, did you hear about the new, designer desi-themed baby food?

HappyBaby, which sells colorful cubes of frozen vegetable and fruit purées through FreshDirect and Gourmet Garage, flavors puréed peas with fresh mint, and potatoes and red lentils with coriander and cinnamon in their savory dahl, an Indian staple.

“This is how my parents fed me,” said Shazi Visram, co-founder of HappyBaby, which began on Mother’s Day and is expanding its line this month. “Why shouldn’t babies, of all people, get to eat delicious things?”(link)

No more vanilla, canned Gerber for today’s stylish babies. At HappyBabyFood, you get organic Baby Dhal. It comes in frozen, baby-sized cubes, and is sold at health food places in the New York City area. (Because it’s frozen, they can avoid having to put in preservatives.)

Not everyone is thrilled with the masalafication trend:

But some parents remain skeptical. “Moms ask me, ‘Can babies really have that?’ ” said Anni Daulter, co-founder of Bohemian Baby, which delivers meals like Vegetable Korma, made with coconut milk, for 12-month-olds, and purées of fruits like pomegranates and figs for infants. “And I say, of course! What do you think they feed babies in India?” (link)

Wait, you mean they feed babies in India something other than American baby food?

For more frozen organic baby food porn, click on this image, from New York Magazine. And a bit more on HappyBaby Food co-founder Shazi Visram, who has an MBA from Columbia and has worked in real estate in Brooklyn, can be found here. Continue reading →

Indian Soft Drinks Not So Soft

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There’s quite a controversy brewing (thanks, Scott Carney) over the pesticide content in Indian soft drinks. The vast majority of these are owned by the multinational Coke and Pepsi companies, and are of course manufactured and bottled locally in India using all local ingredients. cse bar graphs.jpg

The controversy actually began three years ago, with a report from the Centre for Science and the Environment that alleged high concentrations of pesticides in soda samples. The government at the time attacked the findings aggressively, and questioned the credibility of the scientists who conducted it. But as a result of the study, strict standards for pesticide content were put in place for the water that is used in soft drinks, though standards for the sugar and other ingredients that go into the soda still haven’t been finalized.

Now the CSE has done another study, and published the findings in its magazine, Down to Earth. The actual numbers, and notes on methodology, are available on this PDF. (I haven’t found a more formal, “science journal” style article indicating the methodology of the study in detail anywhere.) The CSE says it is testing the soft drinks using methodology developed by the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

There are stories floating around of farmers using Coke and Pepsi drinks as low-budget pesticides, which would be a rather grim confirmation of this finding if substantiated. Of course, it’s unlikely that the amount of pesticide in these drinks is actually killing any bugs (the study finds pesticides in the drinks in the range of 11 parts per billion); it might well be the citric acid or the phosphoric acid (on the other hand, wouldn’t bugs be attracted to the sugar?). As a commentor on Scott Carney’s blog points out, it’s not clear whether this is a widespread practice, or a bit of an ‘urban legend’. Continue reading →

Humanitarian crisis looms

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I’m sure we are all praying right now that humanitarian supplies including food and medicine are able to reach the civilian Lebanese population. Not to take away at all from that situation but since it is being thoroughly discussed elsewhere in the news and on the web, I thought I would divert the attention of SM readers for just a few minutes by speaking out about the looming crisis here in America and among other Diasporic desi communities. Folks, we have a daal shortage that hasn’t received nearly enough attention and it’s not going to be pretty when it all plays out. India West reports:

Soon to be more precious than gold?

Faced with an unexpected crunch in supply of dal and lentils, the staple item of the Indian meal, that’s the advice hapless store owners are giving to worried customers after an Indian ban on exports of lentils (I-W, June 30) has sent prices soaring and supplies dwindling. The Indian government has banned the export of dals and lentils until March 2007 to curb rising commodity prices.

“We advise customers to concentrate more on the vegetable than the dal,” Dinesh Kumar of India Cash and Carry, a busy Indian grocery store in Sunnyvale, Calif., told India-West.

No Indian meal is complete without dal, and it is a critical source of protein for vegetarians. Over the weekend, customers have been flocking to the aisle that stores dal, Kumar said. [Link]

The advice they are giving us is to “concentrate more on the vegetable than the dal?” That’s like asking someone to concentrate more on their job than on love, or to concentrate more on a blogger instead of the doctor or the finance guy. It just isn’t going to happen. As the article points out, daal is a CRITICAL source of protein for vegetarians. Is this some sort of bad karma for when all the vegetarians poked fun at the beef eaters for their mad-cow friendly ways? Now the chief protein source of vegetarian desis has come under threat.

“People are in a little panic for dals right now, even though we are requesting them to not take too many packets,” said Kumar, whose store has set a limit of a four-pound pack per household. People were cooperating, he said.

Prices have shot up. Toor dal, which retailed for less than a dollar a pound a couple of weeks ago, has shot up to almost two dollars a pound. [Link]

When I went to the Indian grocery store on my block last weekend I saw a little boy get trampled by three aunties who all reached for the same package of daal on the shelf. As the paramedics loaded him onto the ambulance he kept crying, “why Bhagwan, why?”

“Demands have gone up way high. Everybody is looking for dal and there is not enough in the market,” Parmar told India-West. “We have to supply each and every store; we have limited quantity to supply…” [Link]

Because of my blogging duties I knew about this looming crisis before most in the media and public. I have been steadily stocking up on daal by filling up one of the storage rooms here in our North Dakota bunker. Even my co-bloggers have remained in the dark about my grand designs. My power and influence in the blogosphere and the world in general will no doubt rise as knowledge of my new wealth spreads.

It’s hard to tell how this would play out, he said. “As of now, the market is in a period of uncertainty,” Soni said. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen in the course of the next month…” [Link]

In a post-apocalyptic world where daal is scarce I will have my choice of a beautiful desi bride in search of protein…or perhaps several brides.

Continue reading →

Anar (is the) Key

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Perhaps Uncle “all things desi are good for your health” was right. Turmeric may prevent Alzheimer’s. Mangosteens may combat bird flu. Ice in your soda may be bad for you. And now it turns out that pomegranate juice may reduce the risk of heart disease and even fight off prostate cancer.

Seeds of life?

Although Persephone’s consumption of pomegranate may have consigned her to the land of the dead, it looks like the fruit may have the opposite effect on us:

Scientists in Israel have shown that drinking a daily glass of the fruit’s juice can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Pomegranate juice contains the highest antioxidant capacity compared to other juices, red wine and green tea,” said Professor Michael Aviram, who led the team. [Link]

Drinking a daily eight ounce glass of pomegranate juice can significantly slow the progress of prostate cancer, a study suggests. Researchers say the effect may be so large that it may help older men outlive the disease. Pomegranates contain a cocktail of chemicals which minimise cell damage, and potentially kill off cancer cells. [Link]

No word on whether cooking with anardana has a similar effect. Of course, you know where the best anardana in the world comes from, don’t you?

Pomegranate seeds are sometimes used as a spice, known as anardana … The seeds of the wild pomegranate daru from the Himalayas is considered the highest quality source for this spice. [Link]

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Paanchdrunk

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Yet another in the everything comes from India (etymology) series. Have you ever noticed how desi college students all congregate around the punch bowl in the corner? It’s not because they’re alcoholics too cheap to buy their own brew and too goody-goody to get a fake ID (well, maybe it is), it’s really because punch comes from India. In fact, it’s not really punch, it’s paanch [Thanks Sameer]:

Originally, the word punch was a loanword from Hindi. The original drink was made from five different ingredients, namely arrack, sugar, lemon, water, and tea. Because of this it was named panch which is the Hindi for five. This name was adopted by the sailors of the British East India Company and brought back to England, from where it was introduced into other European countries. [Link]

In Germany, they call it ‘Punsch‘ and it (of course) includes wine or liquor. And in Scandanavia the meaning has morphed yet further, losing the other ingredients to the point where it is just an arrack based booze. Surprisingly enough, the custom used to be to drink it with (what else?) daal:

The first ready-made punsch was sold in 1845 and initially the custom was to serve it warm, often together with yellow pea soup. [Link]

If the drink “punch” is an Indic loanword, then what about the action “punch”? Shouldn’t that be desi too? After all, it takes five fingers to make a fist in order to punch, and desis tend to throw punches after drinking too much of the same. And of course a “paunch” is what you get from drinking punch. Step aside, Noah Webster! We’re Indian givers and we want our loanwords back!

Continue reading →

Not the official sponsor of the Mutiny

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“Yo Dad” informs me that the local free paper in the D.C. suburb where he lives has been advertising a new beverage called Café Sepia.

Experience the finest in coffee with ITO EN’s new CAF&Eacute SEPIA (TM). Each ready-to-drink coffee delivers an artful balance of aroma, body and flavor. Our beans are specially selected for their unmistakable character…to create a truly exceptional coffee encounter. [Link]

I wish we had thought of this first. It would have solved our funding problems. My mom says we should sue them. The question is, “is it any good?” I hate the taste of coffee so I am going to rely on the blog Air Massive to give us a review:

We’re sad to report that Caf&eacute Sepia tasted weak. It was too watery and diluted than we like. In fact, it lacked the coffee punch of even most established major brands of Japanese can coffee. (Personally, the Boss brand is our gold standard in this East Asian drinks sub-genre.) Caf&eacute Sepia didn’t taste “bad,” mind you. It was actually pleasant to the tongue. But we expect more — much more — from anything that a drinks maker dares call coffee. [Link]
Continue reading →

War of the vores

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Many decades ago, in my grandfather’s generation, a branch of the family moved to Ahmedabad, Gujarat. My “grand-uncle” had a hard time getting a place for the family to stay because they were (correctly) presumed to be omnivores. Ahmedabad was Gandhi’s town, and nobody wanted meat eaters around. When the family ate chicken, they did so in secret, with my grand-uncle secreting out the bones in the newspaper to dispose elsewhere during his morning walk. If a carcass had been found in the trash, they would have been summarily ejected from their dwelling, with no bones made about it.

Fast forward to today, where in secular Sodom-and-Gomorrah Bombay the one thing you can’t do is eat meat:

Never mind pets, smokers or loud music at 2 a.m. House hunters in Bombay increasingly are being asked: “Do you eat meat?” If yes, the deal is off…

In constitutionally secular India, there’s no bar to forming a housing society and making an apartment block exclusively Catholic or Muslim, Hindu or Zoroastrian. Vegetarians say they too need segregation.

Rejected home-seekers have mounted a slew of court challenges to the power of housing societies to discriminate, but last year India’s highest tribunal ruled the practice legal. [Link]

I’m having trouble reconciling this news with the fact that 70%-80% of Hindus in India are non-veg (thanks Ponniyin) and even the streets of Ahmedabad are full of little three wheeled trucks that sell chicken in Ahmedabad there is a line of 10 or so three wheeled lunch trucks selling chicken outside of the IIM campus.

Maybe it’s because I’m an omnivore, but I honestly I don’t understand the deep emotional resonance of this issue. While I recognize the ethical implications of various diets, I’ve never tried to define my personal identity according to what I eat.

However, for others, this goes far beyond a lifestyle choice. I know atheists for whom this is a dogma, something that encapsulates who they are and where they stand in the world more than any other set of beliefs they hold.

Furthermore, not only do people care passionately about what they eat, they also feel strongly about what others eat as evidenced above. This is something I especially don’t understand. I’m missing something here, something about what meat eating means both personally and socially. What is it about food that leads people to be offended by the lifestyle choices of others?

For those of you who feel your food choices strongly – what does your diet mean to you? How do you feel about the diet of others? If we are what we eat, how does that matter?

Selected related posts: Food for Ogling, er, I mean, Thought, Ravi Chand, melon eater, That Silver Isn’t Vegetarian, Meat without murder?, Holy Cow: Yet another school textbook controversy

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DC Restaurant Review: Tandoori Nights

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Oy, I almost don’t want to write this– but I took so many pages of notes during my disastrous dinner at Tandoori Nights in Clarendon, that all that information deserves to be used. I know you’ll appreciate reading some of it, since our threads on dining, fine or otherwise are consistently popular. So let’s get this over with.

I’ve recently become an addict of EMS. I know, I’m the only one who has ever entered the store in stiletto heels, but what can I say? You can only spend so much time underground with Abhi before he begins to influence you. While I work up my nerve to (gulp) actually go camping for the first time, I’m going to keep frequenting EMS; for some reason, it makes urban-me want to be outside. Powerfully magical, I know. So between my forays to gear mecca and the container store (and yet– my apartment is still disorganized), I noticed that a potentially brown restaurant had opened on the second floor of the ritzy Market Common at Clarendon, just outside of D.C.

Yesterday, I decided to give it a shot, even though I was a little put off by the restaurant’s font. Yup, I’m that kind of dork. Why wouldn’t I be? If words are my life, the shapes of the letters which create them matter, too. I looked down at my outfit, which I had worn earlier to the amazing lecture Sajit blogged about at the Smithsonian. It was casual, but to me, so was the font. So imagine my shock when I tentatively walked through the front doors and saw a lounge sleek enough to impress, a distinguished man in a well-cut suit who looked like the manager and a mural of brown women on the ceiling which made me want to faint because I spent so much time craning my neck back to memorize it. “WOW,” I thought to myself, “it’s GORGEOUS.”

I simultaneously regretted my clothes while planning a meetup or party that just had to take place in this space. Much like it jinxes the shit out of my crushes on boys to imagine my first name with their surname, all of my moony swooning, my counting parties before they were hatched…well, it virtually guaranteed doom. 🙁

My friend and I were seated in a beautiful, semi-private room and were asked if we wanted still or sparkling. I opted for the first and the busboy blurted out, “it’s bottled”. Um, okay. I wasn’t sure what to do with that so I asked him what brand. He didnÂ’t know. When he came back, he said “Voss” and my pretentious-meter went off so hard it broke. How very glam. And everything on the menu was spelled properly! Well played. Continue reading →

Yes, We Have No Bananas

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In what can only be described as poetic injustice, the most priapic fruit in the world may go extinct within five to ten years for lack of sex. I feel for you, brutha. India’s glorious, 12″ long banana fruit has been neutered by the cruel, cruel world (thanks, tipster):

The world’s most popular fruit… is in deep trouble. Its genetic base, the wild bananas and traditional varieties cultivated in India, has collapsed…

The main hope for survival of the Cavendish [variety] lies in developing new hybrids resistant to the [black sigatoka] fungus, but… the seedless modern fruit does not reproduce sexually and has to be bred from cuttings.

… wild banana species are rapidly going extinct as Indian forests are destroyed… In fact many of the genes that could save the Cavendish may already have been lost… One variety that contains genes that resist black sigatoka survives as a single plant in the botanical gardens of Calcutta… [Link]

The banana’s problem is that it is the seedless, infertile mutant cousin of a wild herb. The absence of seeds makes its fruit edible, but also genetically vulnerable… They have survived only because for some 10,000 years banana-lovers have propagated the fruit by taking shoots from the base of the plants…

The most widespread banana disease currently is a leaf fungus called black Sigatoka. It cuts yields by 50 percent or more on hundreds of millions of small farms across the tropics. Commercial banana plantations keep up production with weekly applications of fungicides – the most intensive application of chemicals on any major food crop. But now a new strain of an old disease, Panama disease, threatens to make even fungicides useless…

“In the 1970s we controlled Black Sigatoka by spraying 10 to 12 times a year…” That frequency has jumped to almost weekly… [Link]

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