Food in america

Why can't you get a decent cup of coffee in New York? asks culture kiosque.

It may well ask, why is it impossible to get anything decent-tasting to eat or drink in the whole of the United States.

Following the gourmet boom of the 90's, things are better in most places of the country than they once were, but they are only relatively better: mass produced Canadian "President Brie" still passes for "gourmet cheese" in most snazzy places of new England; restaurants still serve the same tired, tasteless food, concentrating their marketing efforts on service and ambiance instead; and verbal innovation: it is "Thai-fusion" now instead of "sushi", though, with your eyes closed, you could not tell the difference; and produce -- meat, fruit and vegetables -- remain as indistinguishable from each other in taste and texture as they have always been. (I have always suspected that they were all produced in the same factory out of the same basic pulp merely injected into different molds and then spray-painted to create a pleasing appearance).

The health food boom may have made organic vegetables standard, but it only satisfies the moral urge to be good to one's body (being good to one's body is one of the pillars of the code of ethics in the US¹): it has done nothing for the taste of the stuff. In America, to paraphrase a character from Madness of King George, it turns out, it is possible to eat healthy food every day of one's life and -- never enjoy it.

The article then haphazardly gropes for explanations ("Protectionism? Nostalgia? Fierce brand loyalty? Hostility to fancy-schmantzy European drinks?") but brings me no closer to the mystery that, apparently, the whole American nation has no taste buds. If one did not know they -- the New-Worlders -- pretty much all come from here -- the Old World -- one would suspect some evil mutation. As it is, one is left with just two viable theories: either cultural determination, Barthes-like, extends to taste-bud formation; or emigration to the US was taste-bud asymmetrical: the genetic material was somehow sifted by the boats. ("No, you cannot embark on this boat, sorry.")

Shouldn’t the center of the civilized universe be able to provide a visiting Brit with a reasonable caffeine fix? asks the article, Brit-like, tongue in cheek. It means: it isn't.

___

¹ As predicted by someone -- Wittgenstein? No, he didn't have the wit; more likely Russell, he had so many things right! (Except the main point, of course).

Urad Dhal vs. Jesus 1:0

There is some disagreement as to whether

a) Jesus went to India during his hidden years (i.e. before launching his public career in Palestine); and went in order to learn all that mind-boggling stuff with which he subsequently beguiled the unlettered back home (a.k.a. "Wisdom of the East"), as this film would have it ("this is clearly a possibility we cannot exclude"); or

b) whether he went there at the end of his Palestinian career, to escape crucifixion, as his Holiness Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian would have it ("The evidence from books of history shows that the coming of Jesus to the Punjab and neighboring territories was inevitable");

but

that he did go seems to be clearly established by this recipe:

URAD DHAL

Ingredients:

1 cup Urad (black) daal
1 Onion sliced
1 Tomato diced
1 tsp Ginger grated
1-2 Green chilies chopped
Coriander leaves finely chopped
1 tsp Cumin seeds (jeera)
2 bay leaves
2 cloves
1/2 tsp. turmeric powder
Salt to taste
A pinch of Garam masala
Red chili powder to taste
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp lemon juice


Preparation:

Clean and wash the dhal properly. Soak it in water for 10-15 minutes.
Boil it in 5 cups of water. Boil till it becomes soft. It should not become pasty. Remove the water and keep aside.
Heat oil in a kadhai (deep skillet) and add cloves, bayleaves and cumin seeds, allow to splutter.
Now add ginger, onion and green chili and stir-fry till golden brown.
Add tomato and fry till it softens. Add all dry masalas (turmeric powder, chili powder, salt) and fry for a moment.
Now add dhal and lemon juice, mix very gently.
Sprinkle garam masala and garnish with coriander.
Serve hot.

Urad dhal is the oldest dhal known to man; excavations at Mohenjo Daro have shown that Indians were eating it, spiced with jeera, turmeric and amchur, some five thousand years ago (while our ancestors, people, ate raw meat on a stick in caves).

Then Jesus arrived and began his teaching and the Punjabis were faced with a difficult problem: do we go and listen to that odd-looking, wheatey fellow over there, or do we continue to squat here and eat urad dhal (using our right hand, of course)?

Then, not surprisingly, they punted for urad dhal.

This explains why there is no trace of Jesus and his teaching in India. Urad dhal wins. It always does.

*

(Further research reveals that Jesus did not, in fact, go to India, but to Poland. 'Twas the mushroom season that did it, I am sure).

An Ottoman Fairy Tale

.
I have found myself recently with a few hours on my hands while waiting for a plane at the Istanbul airport. Unlike most airports in the world, which all look alike and sell the same machine-made overpriced junk -- the Ataturk makes an effort to include traditional Turkish handicrafts and foods, which makes a layover interesting. As I wondered around, sampling foods and inspecting tiles and embroidery, I suddenly I remembered a story. As far as I know, this story is a work of fiction and all resemblance to real people, places, or events is entirely accidental. Well, then:

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Sometime in the early spring of the year 17... the Sultan and his favorite wife were enjoying a bit of lokum in the Flower Room¹:


when the grand vizier approached softly, respectfully bent in half, bearing in his hands a meticulously executed report²:


The gist of the report was this: in a remote corner of the world known as aṣ-Ṣūmāl a new kind of dish was discovered; the spies who had eaten it have reported experiencing in the wake of its consumption the feelings of light-headed delight, blissful contentedness and delicious sluggishness.

Even the briefest perusal of the hypothesized recipe made it amply clear why this should be so:

Pilaff With Herbs and Gum Mastic

Ingredients:
500 gr Basmati rice
150 gr butter
1/4 tsp salt
750 gr meat stock
1/4 bunch parsley, finely chopped
1/4 bunch dill, finely chopped
1/4 bunch fresh mint, finely chopped
4 green onions
1/4 bunch radicchio
1/2 tsp ground ginger
4 cardamom pods, crushed
2 drops of gum masti

Preparation:

Wash and drain the rice. Melt the butter in a skillet, add the rice and saute for 3-4 minutes. Add the finely chopped herbs and green onion and mix well for 4 minutes. Add the salt, ginger, gum mastic and cardamom. Then add the meat stock and mix again. Lower the heat and let steep over low heat for 5-6 minutes. Finally, stir with a spoon. Serve piping hot.

Although the power of the report had been intentionally muted by the scribes, who, to protect the innocent, excluded graphic representations of the appearance of the dish when it is served in a sweet-dough casing with pine-seeds:


yet, the Sultan's favorite wife unwittingly (and near-imperceptibly) moved her ample lips somewhat while listening to the report all the same³:

(And who could blame her? I can see your lips are moving, too).

"Excellent!" exclaimed the Sultan and clapped his hands in delight. "That resolves the issue!"

(The Sultan and the grand vizier had spent the whole winter fruitlessly trying to decide what target to choose for the traditional spring campaign: whether to invade Azerbaijan again, or to besiege Vienna, which has not been besieged now for a few years. Neither objective excited them: it was just more of the same tiresome, dull, dreadful same-old-same-old; Azerbaijan-Vienna, Vienna-Azerbaijan. And the food was dreadful).

But now, unexpectedly, a new, fresh, obvious target has suggested itself!

"Dispatch the Janissaries immediately!" exclaimed the Sultan.

(The name Yanissari literally means "though guys in slippers":)


The following morning the sounds of the Janissary orchestra could be heard wafting in from the outer courtyard as the troop assembled and departed for the campaign (press to play):


Later that summer aṣ-Ṣūmāl was added to the Grand Empire as its sixty seventh province (making for a kind of ornamental tail); and the dish entered the Ottoman dietary mainstream⁴ for centuries to come.

__________

Footnotes and Disclaimers:


بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم : the Basmalla: "In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate". (What did you think it was?)

¹ The flower room does exist in the Harem of the Topkapi. The flowers look to me a lot like something from Jahangir's book of flower designs; they may have come to Istanbul by way of a Mughal carpet, perhaps like the one in the Gulbenkian.

² I'm lying, of course. This work is a Hilya, which is a genre of calligraphic work embodying the Prophet’s moral, behavioral, and spiritual qualities as well as aspects of his physical appearance. I allow myself this act of borderline disrespect in this instance because the work is also an Icazet, that is, a diploma awarded by the teacher to a student of calligraphy after examination of a piece of calligraphy written by the student in the presence of a his/her teacher or teachers. This example is signed by several teachers of the calligrapher Mehmet Ferit (18th century). (Special thanks to Journal of Ottoman Calligraphy).

³ Lying again! The dish is Safavid and represents a male prince. (Special thanks to the British museum).

⁴ More lies. Somalia was never part of the Ottoman empire and elaborate pilafs were part of Turkish diet long before the conquest of Istanbul.

*

(God, what a fun way to waste a perfectly good morning this has been!)