Purely Pedestrian: food talk

Mumbai is truly the melting pot of many cultures and languages. When Mumbaites speak Hindi, it may not necessarily be understood in Hindi-speaking states. That’s because Mumbai’s Hindi has borrowed quite heavily from Marathi and Gujarati languages. For instance, onion is known as pyaaz in Hindi but in Mumbaiyya Hindi it is known as kaanda which is actually a Marathi word. Similarly, aloo is called as batata and matar is called as wataana. Last year, when checking out vegetables in preparation for Onam, I was at pains to explain the vegetables I needed for aviyal and erisseri to the colony vegetable seller. Eventually, I went to INA Market, the haunt of Mallu nurses from the neighboring AIIMS and Safdarjung hospitals, for all those “odd & different” vegetables we use in our curries. Now, a visit to a South Indian store - Rama Stores and the INA Market is a much needed feature just before Onam and Vishu for that essential stock up.

We seem to be the only un-Northernized South Indian family in our area. A week after I first checked with the vegetable vendor, he turned up at my door with a bunch of plantains (not nendrakaaya) saying that he knew that we “Madrasis” use this vegetable. The minute the door closed, my husband and I couldn’t help laughing aloud. We were sure this vendor was thinking – what kind of people we were who never bought anything that he was selling, but who asked for stuff he never carried. We used to ask him for raw plantains, white gourd, pumpkin, drumsticks, and most of all - curry leaves. Getting curry leaves, an absolute staple of south Indian cooking, was a trying experience in Delhi. It took us a few months to settle down on a strategy to source curry leaves. Some of our neighbors had the curry leaf plant in their houses - I wonder why because they never used it in their cooking. We used to ask our maids to stealthily flick a few shoots of curry leaves for us, especially when it was dark. Our vegetable seller too did that for us a few times. That these could get caught in the stealing act made us anxious. Neither of us could muster the courage of doing it ourselves. Realizing the stress building on us, we decided to make it a last resort kind of option; we opted to get our dear curry leaves from Bangalore and Mumbai. So, whenever my husband travelled to Bangalore, he would get a bunch from Thoms Bakery, right opposite to his company guest house in Frazer town. Often it used to get scrutinized at the airport security check. From Mumbai, my mother carefully broke off sprigs from the plant in the society garden, packaged it nicely like a bouquet, and packed it into my husband's bag. I then wiped it with a dry cloth and packed it tightly in a plastic bag and stored in the refrigerator and it lasted weeks together till the next trip came up.

Over the period we discovered that some of these vegetables that we yearned for was available seasonally at some places. These vegetables fell in between the two extremes- the staple Northie vegetables (like aloo, matar, gobhi, gajar, mooli, etc.) on one end and specialty vegetables (like mushrooms, broccoli, baby corn, red & yellow bell peppers, spring onions, etc.) at the other end. The former was available everywhere, the latter was available at all upscale markets, but the middle was the problem. In business terms, it neither had the popularity nor the business potential in an area like ours. Discovering some of these vegetables gave us serendipitous joy; buying them was an educative experience. These vegetables were called by names we had never heard of and the word we had defiantly assumed to be the Hindi names were so different here. Like eggplant and brinjal or okra and lady fingers.

To transfer the learning and for fun, I thought of putting together this glossary of vegetable names across four languages.

English	Hindi	Mumbaiyya	Malayalam
Onion	Pyaaz	Kaanda	Savalla ulli
Potato	Aloo	Batata	Urllakizhangu
Yam / Elephant’s Foot	Jimikhand	Suran	Chenna
Red Pumpkin	Sitaphal	Bhopla	Mathanga
Ash Gourd / White Pumpkin	Petha	Safed Bhopla	Kumbalanga
Drumstick	I continue pointing to it than ask the name	Shengha	Muringakaay
Ivy Gourd	Tindora / Kundru	Tendli	Kovakai
Snake Gourd	Chichingaa	Padval	Padvalanga
Sweet Potato	Shakkarkand	Ratallu	Mathirakizhangu
Long Yard Beans	Lobia	Chawli	Payar / Achingya
Bottle Gourd	Lauki / Ghia	Dudhi	Churaka
Beetroot	Chhakundar / Beet	Beet
Black eyed peas	Lobia	Chawli	Vellutha payar
Sugar	Cheeni	Shakkar	Panjasaara / Pansaara

Life is a learning process and so is this list, I will keep updating it as I know more and better.

As long as we stayed in Mumbai, we just did not realize how the hot humid weather there helped us. No, I don't love the balmy sweaty weather for all its physical discomforts. But as they say, there are two sides to a coin. In this case, I just discovered the other side of coin.

In the hot and humid weather, it is so easy to ferment foods. For a South Indian, fermentation is an important step in cooking. And not being able to do it is very frustrating. I did not have to give a second thought about batters not fermenting, curds not setting, etc. Instead, sometimes I would have to worry about the batter not just fermenting rather souring. Then we moved to the US and we still did not have to consider these things because we were based in the South-West where it was warm. And from there we moved to the North-East and with that came a lot planning for these kinds of foods.

I learnt through experience that my dosa and idli batters don't ferment and curds don't set in the cold because temperatures don't cooperate. During winters, I learnt that, the batter rises if put into an oven overnight with the bulb left on. First, I would switch the oven on at minimum temperature for about 5 minutes then switch it off leaving only the bulb on. Then I would put the vessel (steel vessel) with batter in the oven and would check it only in the morning. So the minute I entered the kitchen I would check the batter and if it needed a little more rising I would switch it on for about 5 minutes again. This way the batter had some more time to rise till we were ready for breakfast.

The other way was to keep the batter near a heater vent. With each blast of heat from the vent the batter was on its way to a good bubbly rise. At my sister's place, the vent in the dining area was on the floor and we would place the vessel conveniently on it and the batter would rise beautifully in about 4 to 5 hours time.

The same process can be adopted for setting yogurt or curd, again do remember to use a metal container and not a plastic one. I am speaking from experience - my plastic container melted and additionally, I had to clean all that spilt split milk. My over zealousness made me raise the oven temperature and right then I got distracted and forgot all about it. And I came back to a half melted container with white liquid dripping through the wire rack and collecting at the bottom of the oven.

Sprouting pulses is also not easy if the temperatures are low. Again, after draining the water, wrap the pulse in a moist cloth and keep in a container and keep this in an oven. Warm the oven at minimum temperature for a minute or two and the warmth and moistness will coax the pulses to sprout.

I am reminded of those days now, with winter having set in here. A few weeks, I ground some rice for appam and looked forward to a breakfast of soft appam and stew. But, what I got instead was a flat thick dosa like pancake with no sponginess whatsoever. That reminded me of how I fermented the batter in the US and adopted the same here. So keeping the vessel with batter near the heater, in between gas burners and in the warmed oven, is now a regular feature. And yes, try and grind the batter in the morning, giving it enough time to perform! Now, my idli batter looks light and airy and I am smiling in glee.

This post is to all those who struggled, worked a way around and won, however small the victory!