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| As you hail from the Delhi area in northern India, what signature dishes would you recommend to someone visiting that part of India -- and how would this differ if you were to travel through neighboring states such as Rajasthan or Himchal Pradesh?
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| In Delhi, I would urge people to go to one of the chaat places. Today, several of the chaat restaurants serve Paani Puri made with bottled water. And there are many dishes that are deep fried and safe. Bengali Sweets, Haldirams, Mithaas and several others. Chana Bhaturas at Kwality’s is something I crave often and always try and get to. The Aloo Chaat found in A Block in Connaught Place (Inner Circle) is excellent. The vendor sits on the corner of the block, steps away from Dhoomimal Art Gallery, and I eat his Aloo Chaat at least a couple of times each time I visit Delhi. Sagar’s in Defence Colony is excellent for Southern Indian Snacky Foods like Dosai, Idlis and Vadas. Some believe their fare is even better than what you can find down South. Do I agree? It depends on what you compare it with. Andhra Bhavan has an excellent Thali that is hard to beat anywhere. Puraani Dilli (Old Delhi) has endless treasures waiting to be discovered by just about anyone. You could have lived here and still, each day, brings new discoveries and new opportunities. From the Daulat Ki Chaat (milk foam and pistachios) to the scores of varieties of parathas found in Paranthe Waali Gali, there is never a dull moment, and almost no food is bad here.
In Himachal Pradesh, one can go discover Tibetan foods and several of the fruit-based dishes. In Rajasthan, I love eating the Vaishnav and Jain dishes – meatless wonders that are no poorer for not having animal protein. Celebrating the vegetable kingdom, these are dishes that shall haunt any diner for a lifetime with their earnest goodness and easily digested tastes and never failing flavors. Kair Sangree is something I crave often in New York and have to wonder when that day will come that someone will grow the vegetable here, so we can find some industrious businessman opens a restaurant just serving this Indian truffle. Rose Milk in Jaipur near the Johari Bazaar is as good as milk or perfumed flavors get. Laxmi Misthaan Bhandar is a safe play to discover the foods of Rajasthan and also a great place to buy Khoye Waala Ghevar, a dessert that can beat any haute French dessert in blind tastings, where people judge a dessert by taste and texture alone, and not by its heritage.
What excites me about Delhi most is that this great capital city of India, has been on the crossroads of Indian civilization, and that has left it enriched with lore and tradition that are hard to find anywhere, let alone within India. If there is a true melting pot in this world – and I know NYC is one such melting pot – Delhi will someday, become the city against which all cities will be compared. For its wealth of culture, traditions, food and stories is as varied and rich as life can be. It is my birth city, but not the city I romance daily, as I do NYC, but I love it from afar, and through that distance, I can appreciate its magic and also lament its many failings, but always celebrate its people, their food and grit.
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| How does Indian food outside of India compare to Indian food in India? Does Indian food differ, for example, in the US versus the UK?
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| Indian food outside of India is just like Indian food outside of the Indian homes in India. Or almost as close. It is good, but never great. That said, Indian food can be great outside the Indian home in India, but its highlights are not found in what people would call restaurants. Whilst nations that grow and develop often feel they ought to copy everything about developed nations, India ought to be proud of its inimitable street food culture. Few places on the planet have such rich diversity and such brilliance found so profusely and ever-changing as the Indian landscape. Sadly, Indian restaurants mimic very few of the traditions of Indian street food and Indian home cooking in their restaurant environs. Even at best, they are always a sorry version of something that is way greater cooked at home or served street side. When India can find pride to serve modest Indian home- and street-fare in its omnipresent restaurants, the world will have a new standard to look at as far as Indian cuisine goes. And that day, we can make a comparison of merit between the foods served in restaurants in India and outside of it.
The restaurants in the US and in the UK are acceptable and often even better versions of many a shabby Indian restaurant found in the great motherland. Certainly there are exceptions to each generalization, and I will be demolished by many businessmen for being brutally honest, but I would rather face their wrath than perpetuate any misconception.
What is brilliant in our cuisine is the food of the Indian homes. And that is never dull, never compromised and never boring. Even as India changes – and it is growing and changing faster than most nations across the globe – Indian cuisine is taking on richer, newer and both better and sometimes not so interesting new heirs. I am never found not in awe of the magic that has found itself even in the most humble homes. As newer vegetables (what many are calling English Vegetables) find their way into the produce carts and markets, Indians are brilliantly taking these and giving them an Indian identity that is enthralling and compelling and speaks of a culture that is masterful when it thinks and observes with care what it has owned forever, its lifelong lustful relationship with food, flavors and aromatics. There is an India shining through its home cuisine in India, that lives also in the US, but not as vibrantly. As more Indians travel back home to India, and come back with newer recipes that Indian elders have created using Western ingredients, this new generation of Indians outside of India will begin sharing that same magic in the US and the UK. The seeds of this change have been sown. And the US will increasingly find itself looking at Indian cuisine to give it new flirtations with its old favorites.
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| As co-executive chef of Dévi, your upscale Indian restaurant in New York City, do you see the popular notion of Indian food changing in the American consciousness? How would you rate Americans' current interest in Indian cuisine and culture?
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| Dévi is hardly upscale. It is comfortable, clean, odorless, inviting, hospitable and proud without ego. I think of it as an extension of an Indian home. It has some presence, but never overbearing. It has good food, but never food tortured, twisted and designed to look something it ought not to be. Dévi is about paying homage to the Indian genius around good food and good flavor. We did not start Dévi to be part of a trend, or be a statistic. Hemant Mathur and I have strived hard and worked very hard to give our diners (Indian and non-Indian) food that is never ashamed of its connection to India, but also never easily compared to the largely familiar cuisine that, sadly, is called Indian.
Indian cuisine is gaining popularity as Indians are gaining notoriety on the world stage. Every day, across America, corporations are opening their doors to more trade with India. Employees from the US are traveling to India and vice-versa. This traveling of minds back and forth has created a bond and an interest between our two nations and cultures that is now solidifying into something tangible and somewhat more than a mere trend. It has become a reality of many lives. As I travel the nation to cities large and small, I find more Indian faces in companies and cities and more non-Indians greedily eating what they know is not truly good Indian food, because they have been touched by India. Travel to India has changed their palates and made them hungry for the flavors we Indians celebrate and take for granted. Indian cuisine is not easy to accept for one reason: its mind-boggling depth of flavors and richly layered symphonic revelations of taste and indulgence. How then can one who has experienced such revelations ever be happy eating what is far more modest and lackluster? It cannot be. And so, slowly but surely, Indian cuisine is making its way into the American mind, body and soul.
Cookbooks written by a new generation of culinarians with only one agenda – that of promoting honest, real and comforting flavors of their homeland – are changing the way Indians and non-Indians are looking at our cuisine. As more and more people cook from books that celebrate the rich diversity of the Indian homes, they will bring new hunger and greed for Indian cuisine. One that can never be achieved by feeding on the mediocre-at-best restaurant fare that has great popularity, but also that many non-believers.
I would rate the American interest in India as being greatly increased. But I also worry that restaurants that serve what we Indians have silently accepted as Indian cuisine, lead us to a very dangerous place, a situation where the hungry and greedy, the wanderers and the travelers, come with little or no reservation; but if we are not careful and smart, we could easily lose as we fool them into tasting what is mediocre at best, and nothing our native land could ever have created, at least in the home settings, but has our name and stamp. We must do our best to ensure no one anywhere in the world, has a first bite of India in an establishment which serves a restaurant-style cuisine connected to India, and passes it off as being a true statement of the varied and rich, greatly diverse cuisine of the Indian subcontinent. We risk losing more fans than we can gain if all we can serve is a cuisine laden in fat, cream and monochromatic flavors. It will take just as many more lifetimes to bring back new wanderers if we continue serving a cuisine that requires antacids to be ingested in large numbers soon after it has been savored. That is nothing we ought to be proud of and, at this moment, that is the cuisine largely present here. I see no lasting trend unless we strive to change our menus and bring the refinement and savvy of our home kitchens and our street foods into our restaurants.
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| What edibles or ingredients would you recommend that one bring back from India?
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| One can find most anything here in the US. And sadly, what I love is not easy to find for those without access to Indian homes. What I ask friends and family members to smuggle in are homemade Achaars (pickles and preserves) and vegetables like stuffed Karelas (bitter melon) and Kair Sangri. Naan is not worthy of smuggling in, since it is not even brilliant five minutes past when it is served. Do I crave Naan from Karims in Old Delhi? Every time I eat a Naan anywhere, I wish we had Karim in New York City. My India lives in memories and my hunger to be back and enjoying it in person. I recommend that people travel to India, eat good food, open their hearts and minds to the magic of India, and come back hungry to change how they eat here and add the wondrous ways in which we bring vegetables, fruits, nut and legumes into our diets in India, to their kitchens and homes. That is what I think people ought to bring into their life after a visit to India. This is tangible, it is doable and also lasting and memorable. |
Published: May 2008
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