CHOP, FOR A CHANGE
et me tell you a story, which happened half-a-million years ago. Life wasn’t as we see it today (but of course!). The daily tuck wasn’t easy to come by and most of the time I had to fight for it. From gathering wild berries and trying different leaves, fruits and shrubs and animals, tasting was a complete occupation. I would get up with the rays of the sun, look for my bearskin wrap and start my day by finding something to chew on. Usually juicy fruits were a sumptuous way to start the day but I also enjoyed raiding bird nests for eggs. I would have to really remember what had tasted good the day before and head out to the forest to find that tree or shrub just to get myself some more of it. The older women in the clan loved to give me some bitter munchies to start off with but I was happier chomping tree bark, which usually left me dry in the mouth and I would then have to look for water from a nearby brook or find more fruits. In order to remember what tasted well, I used to draw the fruits, trees and those things that moved on four legs on my cave wall.
In summer it was tougher to get my hands on good food. Many times I had to fend off a troop of monkeys to get to a branch with juicy fruits. I loved eating eggs but it was a bit of a bother when I got so high up in the trees only to see that the breakfast was already over!
At the edge of the forest was a lovely rocky ledge with an overhang of magnificent banyan branches and on those branches I had seen a collection of nests that had to abound with eggs. So, one day I decided to go to the edge of the forest. The trek was tough, between having to ward off bears and bash a few pesky animals on the head with my club, I also had to shoo away some of those nosy big cats. But when I reached there, I was in for some luck. The sun had been out for the better part of the day, my nest-raid had yielded me three large eggs but as I stepped down from the overhanging branches, I was dis- mayed to see them slip out of my hand and fall on to the hot rock below. The funny part was that they fell and stayed put instead of rolling off. When I reached down to pick them up — they were sizzling and warm, they looked different, the white was whiter and the yellow was firm. I hazarded a taste of these deformed eggs and they tasted good, in fact very good. More so, the salt from the rocks made them delicious and I was also pleasantly surprised to see how well they tasted without the shell! From that day onwards, I would always wait till the rocks got warm and then break the eggs on the rock for what you people now call the primitive breakfast. A half-a-million years ago! Though we cook eggs in a non-stick pan now, we still know how to do a lot of other tricks with rocks and food. The ‘silbatta’ or the grinding stone is a favourite with traditional cooks. The finesse of grinding spices and cooking pastes is unrivalled when done on a silbatta. A pesto made in a marble mortar and pestle is far subtler than one made in a mixie. From grinding grain into flour and pulses and rice into batter for those scrumptious dosas and vadas, stones are still a part of every traditional kitchen.
Hyderabad with its rich rockscape has also stamped its own authority on hotstone cooking — the legendary pathar ka gosht. Here’s how you can get stoned too!
Mandaar Sukhtankar Executive Chef, The
Park, Hyderabad
Give a starving man a pair of chopsticks to eat with and you will ensure that he curses you forever! That is, of course, if he doesn’t know how to use them. And even though it is a well established fact that certain foods must be eaten with the appropriate implement, unless you were raised using chopsticks it can at best be an awkward experience.
Considered an extension of your fingers, chopsticks are traditionally held in the right hand — even by those who are left-handed as this prevents the accidental elbowing of a right-handed user sitting next to you.
Used in much of Asia especially in the rice bowl cultures of China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, chopsticks have been around for a long, long time. Some think that the great scholar Confucius, influenced the development of chopsticks. A vegetarian, Confucius believed knives would remind people of slaughterhouses and were too violent for use at the table.
During the Middle Ages, royalty preferred using silver chopsticks because of the mistaken notion that the metal would change colour if it came into contact with poison — a method commonly used to bump off your enemies!
Chopsticks were also crafted from lacquered wood, porcelain, ivory, coral and jade. I remember a pair of the most exquisite chopsticks made of gold and embossed in silver with Chinese calligraphy… Only these were not used to eat with. They were used to hold up a friend’s rather lustrous hair — rather like a pair of prongs. But we are digressing. As with all dining experiences, etiquette comes into play with chopsticks as well. Licking the ends of these implements or waving them in the air rather aimlessly over your food while you’re deciding on what to pick up next constitute bad manners. Likewise, dishes are always picked up by hand and not pulled towards you using your chopsticks. If you are eating your soup (for some reason soup is always eaten), etiquette demands that you do not poke around with your chopsticks looking for the bits and pieces the soup may contain. Using your chopsticks like a spoon by keeping them together is not allowed either. And clicking your chopsticks together as if you were playing a musical instrument or digging under food to pick up the best pieces are both unpardonable things to do.When not in use, chopsticks should be placed on the table or dish or chopstick holder with the tips to the left.