Asian Soups, Stews & Curries:
By: Alexandra Greeley

The Subcontinental Divide: India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal
Separating Europe from the rest of Asia, the countries of India, Sri Lanka, and tiny, mountainous Nepal may be the true Asian melting pot. Through the centuries, foreign traders, armies, explorers, colonists, and immigrants crisscrossed the Indian Subcontinent in search of their own treasures. In their wake, local cook pots began to simmer with some very new ingredients.
Perhaps the best example of this melding comes from the kitchens of Northern India, where in the sixteenth century, nomadic Tartars set about building India’s Moghul empire and kitchens. With its Persian roots, the cuisine they created was both elegant and sensuous, fit for the Maharajahs who feasted on it.
But this Moghul food—with its slow-cooked silken curries, complex seasonings, and tandoori-grilled meats and breads—is only one portion of India’s culinary tradition, for in every region, every state, every village, and every home, daily foods reflect countless influences: geographical, spiritual, cultural, religious, medical, and agricultural. As a result, there is no single Indian cuisine, certainly no single national dish. There is just one national reverence for seasonings and textures and one vast Indian buffet that casts a spell on the hungry.
Because New Delhi is the capital, many visitors end up in the North, stopping in Delhi to gaze at history, and certainly to sample some sublime cooking. I was certainly one of those visitors, hoping to grasp the essence of this extraordinary cuisine in a crash culinary course. To do that, I spent several days in the inner sanctum—that is, its several kitchens—of the Maurya Sheraton Hotel & Towers. I also partook in hours of food talk with Indian food historians J. Inder Singh (Jiggs) Kalra and Dr. Pushpesh Pant.
In the end, I learned that seemingly more than anyone else, Indian cooks have perfected the subtle art of seasoning. And watching the hotel’s cooks at work confirmed this: frying yellow dal brightened with splashes of turmeric; tempering curries with ghee, mustard seeds, slivered garlic, and wrinkly dried chilies; beating vats of yogurt enriched with asafoetida, green chilies, and chopped ginger; stretching and twirling blobs of dough for tandoori baking; and accenting potato masala with handfuls of mustard seeds and diced red onions.
Then the gentle and kindly master of the South Indian kitchen, chef N. Rajan—with his graceful walrus mustache—showed me his distinctive dishes: the sambar, kabhi, avial, iddli, sadan, wada, and saviya kheer he was preparing for a buffet, all foods with a much more aggressive level of seasonings than their Northern counterparts. Though we did not speak a common language—except food—his gestures told the story.
Later, I watched chef Raminder Malhotra preparing pots of curries in his dhaba kitchen on the outskirts of New Delhi where the ubiquitous cow strolled by. This little stand—a physical, but not a gastronomic, equivalent of an American fast-food place—attracts a large following because of Malhotra’s genius. In a site not much larger than a closet and staffed with a surfeit of workers wedged together by the cook fires, this dhaba turns out a remarkable number of dishes, including the most dazzling rogan josh and butter chicken imaginable.
Such is the magic of New Delhi’s food. I can only dream about the rest of India.
Sri Lanka
Poised off the tip of India like a drop of golden water, the island of Sri Lanka—once described by the Chinese as “the land without sorrow”—is a hot, tropical country where the cooking mirrors that of South India, resplendent with curries, coconuts, and chilies. For those who love pungent curries and an abundance of seafood, Sri Lanka could very well be gastronomic paradise.
Of course, other influences come in to play as well, for over the years, this island has been home to many different nationalities—the Dutch, Portugese, British, Malays, and Arabs, to name a few—each of which has contributed to the local cuisine. So don’t be surprised to find the Muslim-inspired dessert Wattalapam (page 00) or the famous Dutch-inspired multi-course feast, Lampries (page 00). Western influences also show up, said one Sri Lankan woman now living in the United States, and most modern kitchens in large urban areas have food processors and other labor-saving gadgets. In fact, she noted, freshly ground spices, grated coconuts, and brewed Ceylon teas—all that a slower, simpler lifestyle implies—are giving way to convenience foods. In today’s cities, for example, few women use the mortar and pestle for pounding and grinding spices, favoring instead the faster food processor.
It would seem, however, that many Sri Lankan cooks respect and adhere to the traditional ways. This same Sri Lankan woman still shreds her own coconuts and wring sout her own coconut milk, making it fresh on the days when she plans to cook with it. “I never use canned coconut milk,” she said. That may be a gesture to the old ways, the old flavors, but it also indicates that many Sri Lankan cooks still revere the richness and brilliance of a cuisine based on a kaleidoscope of spices, on the superlative creamy richness of coconut milk, and on the blaze of chili fire.
Nepal
Whenever I think of Nepal, I fantasize about trekking into the Himalayas and finding Shangri-la. I also think about the Nepalese Gurkhas, the tough Nepalese soldiers enlisted by the British Army as much because of their mountain endurance as for their courage. For years the Gurkhas have seemed a part of my Himalayan dream, as much a romantic image as fact. They are not fantasy, of course, though perhaps fantastic, and when we lived in Hong Kong, we saw them often, parading at public festivals and playing their skirling bagpipes.
I even once spent a day amongst the Gurkhas in their Hong Kong camp, judging their cooking contest at a country location near the Chinese border. Moving from one cook fire to the next, I sampled steaming, chili -laden dishes that, at the time, seemed hopelessley exotic. Today, of course, I understand more about their robust cuisine developed to counter the frigid temperatures of their homeland. It closely resembles North Indian cooking, with an emphasis on savory vegetarian fare, yogurt, and rice.
As elsewhere in Asia, so it is in Nepal: Rice is queen of the kitchen. With that as the primary starch, the Nepalese often serve rich lentil soups and a variety of meats—goat, sometimes yak, poultry, but never beef in this Hindu country. To complement or substitute for rice, the Nepalese may prepare tsampa, a raw grain that is ground and mixed with milk, tea, or water. Chilies seem to play more than a minor role, for the Nepalese food I’ve tasted has been extremely hot.
Breakfasts may be simple, a snack of corn popped in a clay pot or maybe some leftover rice. But a mid-morning meal the size of a Western brunch really fuels the day, as it consists of rice, lentils, pickles, and a curry or two, said my Nepalese acquaintance, Jamak. Should hunger strike before evening, the Nepalese may nibble on sliced bread; or chiura (beaten rice); or boiled eggs. And the day closes with a meal much like breakfast.
Besides rice, the other constant in the Nepalese diet seems to be hot, strong tea: Mugs of this brew, enriched with milk and heavily sweeten, keep the Nepalese company from dawn to dusk.