The Food Issue…
Snack time:Calcutta has a great subway, complete with air conditioning (sometimes) and a Ladies section in each car (always). During monsoon season, you may be hot and sweaty on the subway, but in the Ladies section you are safe as you swelter. Men don’t ever try to stand there and any who cross do so with rounded shoulders and apologetic eyes.
It’s a ten-minute walk along quiet streets to my metro stop. At one corner is the snack man, who toasts grains and nuts on demand. I’ve sampled a variety of snacks, including his most popular-based on puffed rice–along with my usual: hot, roasted peanuts in a newsprint sack, complete with a little twist of paper holding spiced salt to sprinkle on top. One day I branched out and asked for popcorn. Snack man dumped corn kernels into a small wok filled with what looked like ash. Well, I thought, street cooking is what it is. I didn’t expect him to haul out an Orville Redenbocker popper from under his cart. Still, ashy popcorn wasn’t my dream. How would I eat the stuff?
He tossed, stirred and shook, and pretty soon the kernels began popping, so he placed a sieve on top to prevent them spraying into the street. When the ash was studded with ivory popped corn, some still doing startling little jumps, snack man dumped ash, popcorn and all into the sieve, from where the ash drained off, leaving clean popcorn on top. I asked the man next to me why everything was cooked in ash. “Not ash!” he said. “Glash. Glash!” This took me a minute. Glash? Then I remembered that in Bengali, “s” is pronounced “sh.” Glass! He meant cooking sand. Doesn’t stick to food. Conveys heat. Reusable. Of course.
Street food: I’ve had several street meals, a biryani here, a glass of fresh OJ there., always from a stand that’s busy. My favorite is the egg roll. Forget about the tiny, deep-fried roll filled with dreary cabbage that comes with your lunch special at Woo Fong’s. A Calcutta egg roll has nothing to do with that. First, a chapatti is rolled from a fresh mound of dough, then slid down the side of a wok into a puddle of smoking oil. When dough meets oil there’s an explosion of steam and sizzle. Next a handful of thinly slice red onion is flung in, along with a deep-fried carrot patty I’ve selected from the stand’s smeared plastic cabinet. Salt, pepper and fresh cilantro are sprinkled on top. A bottle of thick brick red sauce is offered. I shake my head. A bowl of devilish green chilies is lifted. Another internationally understood No from me. A grimy shaker holding red powder appears. The cook, dressed in a blue sweat suit, eyes his partner who sits on the sidewalk grating vegetables into a soiled pink tub. They both lean back in laughter. I take this as a sign for me to decline once again.
Now for the grand finale: the onions+patty mix is pushed aside. Another large spoonful of oil is dolloped into the wok, and an egg cracked in which splutters and spits as it hits the oil. The chapatti is placed on top just long enough for the two to bind. Then it’s flipped, the veg mix is spooned onto the now-fried egg and the whole savory slab is lifted onto a board where it’s rolled like a jelly roll, wrapped in paper and handed to me. By the second bite I’m into creamy egg yolk, crunchy fried vegetables, steaming onions all savory with herbs and spices in a soft wrapping studded with toasty bits from the frying. It is so delicious I’m able to ignore that the wrapping paper is immediately soaked with surplus oil, which soon also coats my fingers.
Cooking school on the Bengali dining terrace. Protima, Sibhani, Payel and Puja joined me on the Soma Home roof for a cooking lesson. We made ratatouille. Puja (stirring, below) sniiffed the Herbes de Provence I’d bought at a fancy supermarket and declared, “It smells just like Pizza Masala!”
My use of four tablespoons oil for a large pot of vegetables caused Sibhani, who’s 12, much concern. She tapped my arm politely. “Dina-aunty,” she said, her eyebrows knitted in dismay. “More oil, I think.” She didn’t want me to be exposed as a cooking fraud.
“Well, let’s wait and see,” I told her, though I was unsure myself whether, given the strength of the industrial burner we were using, she might not be right.
“More now, I think,” she said after another minute, staying polite to her elder while hoping to convey the vegetables were about to singe into charred gunge.
“Let’s give it a little time, to see what it does,” I bargained.
Another few minutes and SIbhani was beside herself with anxiety “Aunty,” she jiggled my arm. “More oil NOW.”
To distract her, I handed her the large spoon to stir up the vegetables. Relief turned to amazement when she discovered enough liquid below to prevent the ratatouille from burning. Dina-aunty’s stature remained intact.
When I returned later that evening, everyone had sampled the French food. Most of it was still in the pot. “Very good!” declared Smrithi (below left). “Dina-aunty, so tasty,” said Rani. Protima, who is an orphan, just hugged me and smiled. Mere politeness, as I soon learned: “But not spicy!” they all shouted together and ran down the stairs laughing.
This cooking experiment was an exchange, actually. In return, I helped make chicken curry masala, the curry referring to the fact that there’s gravy, and masala meaning spices.
Here’s a great tip: To make the curry gravy, heat your oil and then add sugar–big crystals, not fine. As it caramelizes in the oil, add whatever onion and spices you’ll be using, along with loads of pureed garlic and ginger. The whole thing blends into a thick, fragrant yellow sauce, redolent of turmeric, cumin and caramel, ideal for coating and simmering your chunks of meat. With relief the girls used a good couple of cups of oil for their chicken dish. I’m sure you could get away with just four tablespoons!
Life in Calcutta hasn’t been only about food. We had a day at Maidan park where 11 young girls were introduced to horses and had their first horseback ride! You can imagine how that touched my heart, even though the horses were the size of burros.
We’ve had photo sessions in my room and in the Soma Home yard. Neha (below) is seven. She was taken into Soma Hpme to get her away from her mother, who beat her continually. One afternoon even the cleaning masi (assistant), whom we call Baby-masi because of her size, got into the spirit, pulling off my RayBans and turning herself into quite the Bollywood siren!
Last note: A few days ago I interviewed Guria. She’s a sex worker whose tall, beautiful daughter lives at Soma Home. Guria lives in a courtyard behind New Light, shared with her in-laws, who were playing cards outside when I walked by.
To talk comfortably we sat cross-legged on her bed, while her TV blared a Bollywood tragedy, punctuating our conversation with the heroine’s frequent sobs. The short bed took up half the space, which was perhaps 8×10. Decorating the walls were posters of movie stars beside favored gods with faded marigold garlands draped over them.
Her daughter’s academic trophies studded the small glass wall cabinets. Looking at these last, I noticed an astonishing array of nail polish bottles. I pointed to them and we laughed hard as I began to count. Forty-two in all! “I have a client who owns a salon,” she confided. “Sometimes he brings me nail polish!”
When our interview was done, I couldn’t help myself. “Let’s put some on!” We perused the gay offerings, everything from pale iridescent green, to purple, metallic grey and all shades of purple and red. Guria chose the color. Here’s the result!
