I am quite sure many of you macacas have had some version of this experience, recounted by Mukta Tripathi of the Napa Valley Register:

During my first fall in the United States, someone asked me what Indians do for Thanksgiving.

Faced with this sort of inquiry, there are three basic approaches you can take.

1) A thorough, sensitive explanation that Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday unfamiliar to desis-from-desiland or any foreigners for that matter, augmented if you care to, by a description of meals consumed at holidays of the desi tradition of your choice, and if you need to, by a patient clarification that you are not one of those other Indians, you know, like that nice lady Pocahontas;

2) A petulant riposte that you are, by birth or longstanding residence, as American as the questioner, and how dare they suggest you would mark Thanksgiving any differently than they;

3) Simply invite the questioner to sit down with you and get your eat on.

My personal preference goes to option 3, as does Tripathi’s, who contributes in that spirit a menu of desified Thanksgiving delights:

I have put together a list of dishes using some traditional American Thanksgiving ingredients: green beans, pumpkin, turnips, potatoes and even cranberries. The sweet and sour pumpkin dish and the turnip, tomato and pea curry can be served with rice pilaf or rolled in a flour tortilla or flatbread as a wrap. I can guarantee that your vegetarian friends will be happy with these alternatives to turkey, and even the non-vegetarians may be inspired by these recipes.

They include Sweet and Sour Pumpkin with Indian Five Spices, Turnip Tomato and Peas Curry, Rice Pilaf; and Ginger and Cranberry Chutney with Five Spices.

You will have noticed that one key item is missing: the turkey. That’s fine if you’re vegetarian — you get to avoid the chore of preparing this fundamentally boring bird in a way that’s fit to eat — but if you or your guests are not, and unless you splurge for a partridge or goose, you need to deal with the problem. That’s where restaurateurs like Qudrat Syed of Chicago come in. He’ll desify your gobbler for a fee:

For $75, Syed took Motamen’s store-bought bird and gave him back a tandoori turkey with biryani, a vegetable-laden rice dish, and Motamen got to keep his own kitchen clean. “It was really different and really good,” said Motamen, who plans to do it again this year.

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Lately I’ve come across a number of recipes where desi “fusionification” occurs by just adding garam masala. Is this the culinary equivalent of a “princess costume” for Halloween?

For example, one of the regional finalists in the Build a Better Burger competition was Daljeet Singh from Coral Springs, FL. His entry was “Masala Burgers with Tangy Tamarind Sauce and Red Onion-Mint Relish” [Link]. You saw that one coming, didn’t you?

Unfortunately, he lost not because his burgers were too hot, but because his buns were too cold (who ever heard of a Punjabi with cold buns?).

The NYT coverage of the event makes it seem like Singh had some sort of unfair secret weapon, writing that the “overpoweringly spicy scent now wafting across the lawn from the Masala Burgers” [Link] did not distract the eventual winner. (?!?!)

Similarly, there are a number of versions of (ahem) Punjabi haggis out there, all of which involve garam masala. I love how this one group markets their version as healthier than either traditional haggis or traditional punjabi food:

By using an exotic blend of fresh tomatoes, green chilli and garam masala, the women of an Edinburgh community group believe their dish will appeal to Scots looking for a healthy alternative this Burns Night… They hit upon the idea of curried haggis while trying to come up with ways of making the traditionally high-fat Sikh diet healthier. [Link]

Both the women who invented the Punjabi haggis believe they have lost more than two stone since switching to a healthier diet less than a year ago. [Link]

For those of you who aren’t familiar with haggis:

Haggis is a blood pudding, stuffed with minced sheep’s organs, onions, oatmeal and suet (beef fat), then sewn in a sheep’s stomach and boiled or baked. The blood from the meat soaks into the oatmeal, mixes with the beef fat and turns the inside a dark brown, richly grainy colour. [Link]

Lamb offal is healthier than dal/roti/sabzi? Riiiiiight …. Continue reading →

I was happily watching The Princess Bride for about the 1000th time on Bravo (“That’s right. When I was your age, television was called books.”), and I saw the name “Padma Lakshmi” flash across the screen. A little Googling later, and it appears that Padma Lakshmi, model, occasional actress, cookbook author, and oh yeah, Mrs. Salman Rushdie, has a new gig — possibly her most high-profile one yet.

She’s hosting the second season of Bravo’s Top Chef, a cooking reality show:

Known as the first Indian supermodel, actress and award-winning writer Padma Lakshmi joins the second season as host of “Top Chef,” introducing the challenges to the contestants and sitting at the judges’ table each week. Lakshmi is currently working on her second cookbook for Miramax Books due in Spring 2007, a culinary endeavor of over 150 recipes from around the world and intriguing personal memoirs. This is a follow up to her successful first cookbook, “Easy Exotic,” for which she won the International Versailles Event for best cookbook by a first time writer. Lakshmi hosted “Padma’s Passport” on The Food Network, cooking diverse and low-fat cuisine based on her best selling book, “Easy Exotic.” Lakshmi also hosted the documentary series “Planet Food” for The Food Network and worldwide Discovery Channel, in which she journeyed the world for exotic cuisine. (link)

Ok, she’s not really the first Indian supermodel — though maybe she’s the best-known in the American TV landscape. (But who was the “first” Indian supermodel?) I suppose one could make a comment about the phrase, “easy exotic,” but we’ll try and rise above that. Between “Planet Food” and “Padma’s Passport,” I prefer the latter title, though I think what she really needs to do is start her own video podcast: the Podmacast. Continue reading →

I can’t begin a food post without sharing an experience from a few nights ago. A group of us had dinner at Indus Valley, a reasonably well-regarded desi restaurant at 100th and Broadway in New York. At some point the composer Philip Glass walked in, and one of our group, a big fan, went into a state of beatific darshan that threatened to destabilize our meal. It got worse when Glass and his companion sat at the table next to ours. My fellow diner was finally able to compose himself, give Glass props, and return to getting our eat on.

Suddenly another of my companions let out a piercing yell and pushed back from the table with great speed. Yes, there was a big old cockroach crawling up the tablecloth — not the short dark ones you often see in NYC kitchens, but a tropical-quality beast, two or three inches long (though not the flying kind). A minor tamasha ensued, during which Philip Glass turned to me and said, with an air of wisdom, “Don’t worry, they have very small appetites.”

Cockroaches happen; celebrity sightings happen too. But what was truly shocking was that the macacas brothers running the restaurant did not comp us even a round of drinks or dessert, let alone a meal, in recognition of the disgusting insect experience. I guess it shouldn’t have surprised us, seeing that they were already trying to seat a couple at a nearby two-top while the cockroach hunt was still on, but come on, what the hell kind of restaurant management is that? So, folks, if you go to Indus Valley at 100th and Broadway, watch out for big-ass cockroaches and don’t expect a discount.

Which brings me to the subject at hand. Perhaps in response to a desi dining landscape that, except in a few fortunate neighborhoods and towns, consists of the same old slop doled out from the same buffets, plus a few “nice” places that look fancy but aren’t necessarily up to snuff in the hygiene department, the idea of desi fast food — cheap, standardized and franchised — becomes a more and more compelling alternative.

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It’s not the Sepia Mutiny model to just post news items without comment, but sometimes the material doesn’t leave us with much to add. With that said, here are the latest developments in Bombay dining:

NAVI MUMBAI: A new restaurant at Kharghar has actually been named as Hitler’s Cross and it was inaugurated by the who’s who of Navi Mumbai on Friday evening.

A huge poster of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was put at the inauguration function of the restaurant in sector 4 of Kharghar, much to the surprise of the invitees.

Actor Murli Sharma, who has featured in films like Apharan and Teesri Ankh, was one of the guests present at the inauguration. “I found the huge posters of Hitler at the restaurant amusing. That’s all I can say,” he told TOI over phone.

When asked if he felt disturbed by the name of the restaurant, Sharma said: “I am not really agitated as I have not read much about the man (Hitler). However, from what I know about Hitler, I find this name rather amusing.”

Important dignitaries such as Navi Mumbai mayor Manisha Bhoir and former mayor Sanjeev Naik were also invited as chief guests to the restaurant by one Sablok Builders group, who are reportedly behind the management of Hitlers Cross.

A Reuters report picked up by DNA has more:

“We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in people’s minds,” owner Punit Shablok said.

“We are not promoting Hitler. But we want to tell people we are different in the way he was different.“…

“This place is not about wars or crimes, but where people come to relax and enjoy a meal,” said restaurant manager Fatima Kabani, adding that they were planning to turn the eatery’s name into a brand with more branches in Mumbai.”

Someone in Mumbai is going to have to do the investigating on this. A field report from Manish, perhaps?

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