In the Name of Chaats, Masalas and Holy Cravings....

Many warned me about the abject lack of imaginativeness in British cuisine...I thought they were exaggerating...I still do, because the cakes and other bakes in Britain are to die for... And I have had some reasonably good stuff at pubs here...But well, when it comes to the meat...they rather leave things a little less flavoured or seasoned...the salt has been drastically reduced from the national cuisine, I think, rather consciously...I remember one of the first outdoor campaigns that I saw, while on route to London from Brighton on many buses was the exhortation to make the already bland food blander still....Cut down on the Salt and Save your Life or something to similar effect was the slogan on the buses and just about everywhere else... Everytime I raise a fine point on cuisine, the problem is I try to drive it in with all the subtlety of a battering ram. But then I'm never allowed an easy point for, I have friends who love rubbing it in my face, that as an Indian I have no voice to complain. For isn't Indian food all about 'over-cooking, masking the flavour of meat or vegetables totally with about a million masalas and then deep frying the rest of the stuff'....And even as I protest vehemently, I think to myself....pooris and pakodas we fry...the meat is always 'cooked till tender' in our careful lexicon...which means there is no concept of lightly tossing the meat on a skillet with the bare minimum flavours or seasoning...and we can put just about anything in about 5litres of oil and chilli powder and pickle it for posterity...if that's not all, we can kill just about anyone with diabetes with the amount of sugar and condensed milk we empty into our desserts... Hmmm...that as it is...the reason why I'm willing to eat 'humble pie' is as follows...the friend, who I feel would gloat till he chokes, used to begin any conversation he ever had with me by asking me what I ate/ was having for breakfast/lunch/dinner. When I was in India, surrounded by everything that I gastronomically consider heavenly, I was of the opinion that food is merely for subsistence - ie, to give me enough energy to pull through a hard demanding day as a TV professional. Barring the occasional craving for something exotic, I would be hard pressed to remember wanting something specific for any meal... So asking me about what I ate, was like the most irrelevant, out of my interest area beginning to any conversation...and something I remember telling him quite pointedly too... These days, he often smirks at my status updates on facebook or my tagline on google messenger...It's either about craving chai or wanting pakodas or missing something else specific in the wintry loneliness of Brighton...And while I would have protested till I turned blue before admitting it, for once I feel the 'devil needs to be given its due'... For the past two days, I have been in a state of urgent want....for chaat...In fact, I was so sure I'd miss chaat so much that for nearly a week during my last month in Mumbai, all I had for dinner was assorted chaat.... If you haven't heard of panipuris and aloo chaats and ragda pattice and bhel puris...then there is a big chunk missing from the education your tastebuds deserve... For those unfamiliar with Indian street food, chaat is as unhealthy as it comes...well, atleast most of it is....but the speed with which it can be slurped and the immense satisfaction it leaves the eater with, is unparalleled...most of the ingredients are deep fried, dunked in sweet and sour sauces and garnished with starchy yummy potatoes and sprinkled liberally with salt and spices...and if potatoes are not the garnish, then they are the shallow-fried base for masala-infused lentils called chhole...Just writing about chaat makes me drool.... And then there is the pani puri...it's the simplest of them all....but in my book, the king of all chaats.....my chaat routine begins almost always with it...they are deep fried dough balls, the crust is lightly broken and filled with potatoes and other fillings, then dunked first in sweet date sauce and then dunked in tangy tamarind water before it is plopped into a bowl you hold...and as soon as the first one plops into your bowl, you gulp it down in one go and then drain the water that has escaped out of the dough ball into your bowl..... There you go....I am having foodgasms....I empathise with my friend I considered loony...In fact, I think I have gone three degrees loonier than him....I dream food, I crave food and when I manage to overcome the fierce pulls of laziness and inertia, I actually try to make some of it that I miss sorely in England... But the water is different....the ingredients lack the smell of India...and then there is the sterile prettiness to England, that leaves me feeling a little cheated when I try to recreate the food orgy that India alone provides.... And now after writing this post, I have just managed to increase my craving for chaat by about ten notches....Talk about therapy boomeranging!!! Hmppppphhhhh......