Cuisine and Its Commercialisation: Indian Raita

Picture taken at ICA--Swedish Walmart...

Raita: Simply a yogurt dish.  Yogurt/milk curd base-made with common spices found in any Indian kitchen and fruits and vegetables.  Mostly vegetables.  The most common one is made with grated cucumber and yogurt.  Add salt, roasted ground cumin, a little amachur (dried mango powder) and top it with fresh coriander leaves.  Simple.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO BUY A PACKET--which in my opinion ultimately tastes bland and stale.  And produces much garbage because of its packaging.  And imagine how many other similar things that are 

Go natural, go simple.  Here are a few recipes for Raita...make it at home, experiment with different spices, create your own version.  DO NOT BUY THESE PRE-MADE PACKETS....They bring no creativity to the kitchen.  The greatest thing about Indian cooking is 'anumaan' --an idea, an estimate.  Unlike western cooking, Indian cooking never relies on 'exact' because, nothing in life is exact...experiment learn and create your own family recipes....and yes, in that follow tradition too. Something created just for the market or just to be innovative are really not good for you. E.g. Tumeric Latte, as sold by Starbucks.  We grew up drinking that --especially in winters.  It should be had in a certain season, cooked with black pepper (which gives a taste that is not for everyone)----don't just copy any old eating habit and absorb it without understanding that foods created for one region may not be the best in another region.  E.g. Mediterranean cooking, hailed for hits light-weight recipes and low calories --is  best for coastal climate...Not recommended for temperate!!  

Here is the recipe.....  I would drop the powdered coriander---just and make sure to roast the cumin before grinding it.  Do not use cumin seeds.  Also, let it stand at least a half hour before serving, so that spices have the time to soften and blend--better for flavour.  This is the simplest and the most common one.  Here is another one, but you have to buy the boondi (fried and crisp, chickpea flour batter)--or make it--and this is the second most common one. Others such as onion raita etc. that are popularised and sometimes sold at Indian restaurants are not that popular...often times onion and milk products are not mixed.  Traditionally, it is not respected. Milk is considered a complete food and even divine food (sorry vegans, more on that later)

Try it and then share your experiences!! 

Discovery

I love this word. Discovery.  Finding something that always existed, just that you did not know or did not pay attention.  But then viola--discovery!!

So last year we had a german girl staying with me for a short time and she pointed at a tree near by and said, that is a Hazelnut tree.  

No way, I said. 

'Yes, it is, my mother has it in her yard and I cannot miss it'.  

Later I found out that it was TrollHassell, meaning a tree from the same hazelnut family (I think), but ornamental.  It does not bear fruit. Technically, it bears flowers, but I have never seen them.  

And then recently, as I had to cut out a few outgrown shrubs, I found these tiny berries on a plant that was not visible before. It had been growing under the shrubs that had grown unruly.  

These are delicious blackberries....not blue, but blackberries....

There were only these many, maybe the others died out. Maybe there was no room to grow so they remain stunted.  But then...today, they get my smiles and they smile back at me.  For now they have been found. 

But Ah, the discovery.....the DISCOVERY and a gratitude for our abundant universe...

A New Tulip Capital

Guys, will delete this post soon, coz I am starting to think I should have only those pictures that I talke featured on this site. But wanted to share, that soon India will be the new tulip capital...

Art of Love and Grocery Stores

“For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.--Rilke

I saved these following pages for a while--mainly with the idea of writing a post.  Threw them out a few months ago, after I took these pics. 

This was distributed a bit before valentine's day some years back.  Imagine walking into your regular grocery store and they hand you these pages with a survey.  

What is it for?  You ask,

Oh, if you like someone and want to talk to them, here are a few questions ----that you can ask them to get to know them better. Imagine how lucrative it can be for grocery stores ---if they become dating hubs? 

Seriously? At a grocery store?  That reminded me of aa joke from Seinfeld.  Seinfeld says, 'My grandfather often says, you need to people in their natural environment where they are doing regular things, rather than create formal, artificial dates."

Sure says-- Seinfeld 'I have often wondered how would it be to meet someone in a grocery store and ask them' he extends his arms 'would you like to dance"

Under the Weeds

First published 8 years ago--EIGHT--wow, (July 7, 2012)--here it is again, just coz t'is the season....

I have been told to remove the 'ograss' (not grass, or weeds in swedish).  And so, I did.  Although these pretty dandelions can be used in salads and soups.  I removed them. And found something else underneath.....

Life.....

Some may call them snails.  I identify with them to a certain extent.  For I carry my home, on my back. 

Some call them pests, but to eat leaves and grass is their nature.  In any case, life (as I read in Joseph Campbell's works) lives on life. You cannot eat something that was not alive at some point. Can I kill them to protect my garden? And is my garden, my few plants, are they valuable enough to kill this life? Of which I know little .....could I be as inconsequential to it or others as it seems to me?

So, I let it be.  I picked them and kept them by the roadside. I wish I could have taken them to the skogan (forest) but this was before I got my bike.  Yes, they will destroy in order to live, in order to survive where ever they go...but are we any different?

The following pictures are just from the neighborhood, of how life thrives in summer.  Even when we consider it destroyed by pests, it grows and grows, shrubs, trees, flowers and weeds alike...then how can a few snails....be any harm.....