Sunday, January 30, 2011

La Cucina!

Its been an adventure finding fashion in the streets but the last few days I've spent discovering them in my kitchen! As Indian as my palate was for the 'saada khaana' (or simple food) in the Indian context, the 'Indian' saada khaana is anything but simple, we have complex tastes whether its food, fashion, faith or film. The 'basic' itself would churn out to be gourmet else where. I've however developed some Italian cooking skills, (thanks to my dear Italian friends and their little inputs while cooking in the Italian kitchen), some of it seemed so effortless after the complexity of Indian food but the simple stuff can be tough since we all have a 'way' of doing things. An Indian school friend who joined me for lunch the other day and I did the pasta alla norma, which is a traditional Sicilian pasta with pomodoro and melanzane for her. It was 'simple' and scrumptious. It tingled her Indian palate to say 'it was the best pasta she'd ever had' and if it were for her it would be tough to 'simplify' the cooking so much for it to turn out 'Italian'.



The Indian tongue is accustomed to taste a variety of flavours at one meal: sweet, salty, tangy, spicy.. these flavours are essential for an Indian tongue to say 'that was a good meal' after.

Italian cuisine these days is quite 'fashionable' as far as food fads in India go, it is a favourite with many, but its tough to find an Italian eatery in India not adding the Indian touch to it. Both these are rich and old food cultures, interesting different and enrichingly deep!


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