Graduating in Gastronomics

Having spent the last 3 days in unbearable pain – starting first with bouts of uncontrollable throw-uppings, a bloated tummy, a trip to the hospital, my looks making the nurse mistake me for an ecg scan candidate over the age of 30, and finally a couple of life-saving injections… I happened to think of this poor blog that I abandoned a few months ago. And said to myself, what better thing to do than to share some of the pressing (hehe) queries on my, er.. mind. So here is…

There is apparently such a thing as the Bengali Stomach. I have been introduced to the annoyingly self-important term quite a few times in the recent past. And considering where I come from myself, I figured it would be no different in character – varying in degrees maybe, but more or less the same thing. I mean, after all, aren’t we all Indian??

Or so I thought. Until it hit me, swelled up in me rather (you must excuse the multiple references to my stomach infection… im still in shock). I’m not sure what caused it, or if it was my sub conscious aided by random snippets of info over-working itself… but I think I’ve developed one. A Bengali Stomach, that is.

Often I heard that it must not be underestimated. Often I secretly smiled to myself at how carefully it was guarded. Often I was appalled by the diametrically opposing interpretations of such simple things as, say, curd. I come from a place where curd is the ultimate cure for everything. And while it still holds for my tummy… I’m afraid the poor thing is caught in some sort of an identity crisis.

See… let me explain… (and no, this isn’t going to be boring). The thing is, I was brought up to believe in this rather inter-connected notion of how our bodies work. You know, your head, limbs, internal organs, ear-nose-throat, lungs, bowels… all affect each other. And so, we occupy ourselves with ‘managing’ our bodies at most points of time. Oil bath once a week with your mum literally grinding an entire cup full of thick castor oil down from the top of your head… to cool it down; castor oil on your tummy to soothe it if it’s bloated, castor oil at the base of your foot to cool the body at night. Milk after eating mangoes, curd rice at the end of the day, buttermilk the moment you sense that summer is, I don’t know, a month away?? Hot pepper rasam to soothe an aching throat, cool panagams to beat the heat. And who can forget the diwali marundhu. Heat and cold are the extremes we operate between.

And then are the weird, inexplicable remedies – add salt to sour curd to reduce the sourness, ghee with rice to soothe a tumultuous tummy… and the funny thing is it works. Atleast for me. I think we see our bodies as being heat conductors of some sort. And in the end it’s all about restoring balance. Balance at all costs. And the poor tummy is just one of the various parts of our entire being… treat the whole body and teach the tummy to behave.

It is with such cultural learnings, that this poor south Indian kid, entered the realm of the not-so-far east. And lo and behold, it really is a different world out there! The Bengali Stomach, mind you, isn’t merely a part of the entire being. She is, in FACT, the entire being. From birth to death, they have a different relationship with it. She is pampered, cajoled, protected and put on a pedestal. She comes first, and the rest follow.

While our meals consist of different parts cancelling each other’s negatives out, their meals consist of individual parts balancing themselves carefully. While acidity is a transient state for us, for them it is the all becoming final word. I admit, it is rather confounding even to describe.

I’m amazed at the intricacy of each preparation. I’m amazed at the extent of variety each meal can go upto. And I’m amazed at the kind of detail it requires. Sure we have frightfully demanding preparations… any tam will know how much effort it takes to hear ‘malli-poo maadiri irukku’ for an innocent idli, not to mention koottu or avial, or even see how molaga-podi is made; but there is something to be said for the effort that goes into every single item on their menu. Firstly, there are a gazillion different ways in which the meal is consumed. We follow a rather, dare I say, simple approach – there are veggies, and then there are pulses and we mix the pulses with the veggies. We have non-pulse-ey preparations as well, put its pretty obvious what goes with the rice and what is the curry. But with a Bengali meal, my poor tummy is at quite a loss as to what it has just consumed – did I just have dal without curry, or did I mix the curry with the rice… or is it a different variation of koottu?? And then there are the 7-8 odd things surrounding my plate… how the fuck do I know where to begin??

Secondly, every ingredient seems to play a different role. Curd is added to the preparation, but not diluted like in our mor-kozhambus; vegetables are fried without boiling first, and oil IS the gravy in most dishes, not a mere part of it.

And adding to the bewilderment is the fact that everything tastes finger-licking delicious. Needless to say, my adventures in gastronomics had begun. And my poor tummy finally gave herself up.

She says to me she loves the new tastes, flips out at the options and amazes at the preparations; but I think there is a tiny part of her that is hurt when curd is thought of as acidic. Friend!, she screams, not foe!! And I’m afraid I’m gonna have to give this one to her.