The Hungry Philosopher

It used to be general practice for South Asian mom’s to hand-feed their children rice until they developed the dexterity to eat on their own. I continued that practice with my own kids by mixing the various curries with their rice and shaping small sized globes of rice. When they got to be three or four, I would make the bites, the lokmas, and arrange them on their plates, for them to pick up with their right hand and pop into their mouths. As you know, there are rules to learn and practice: right hand, finger tips, no food should touch the palm. The Bengali word for the curry mixed and formed rice bite is LOKMA.  

Mixing and eating with the hand offers two advantages. First, in mixing the rice breaks down and the curries adhere to the rice. Second, each bite can be individually tailored. One bite can have added chilies, one bite can have more vegetable, another can have more meat, maybe you go adventurous and mix otherwise unmixed curries. The possibilities become limitless. By forcing the hand eating experience into fork and plate environment a lot of the flavor is lost in the name of civilization.

Eating curries and rice with a fork is immensely unsatisfying. Here’s why:

Any braised meat or vegetable dish cooked with spices (otherwise known as curry) was historically meant to be eaten with rice (or bread).  Never alone! Rice is the main dish. Everything else, including meats, merely garnish and flavor. This is why in South Asia the question asked of family and friends is “did you eat rice?” instead of “did you eat lunch or dinner?”

Rice is served at the center of the plate ready to receive the courses of bittermelon, daal, vegetable bhaji and meats. The rice, whatever it is, jasmine, basmati or brown, is the final component that softens, absorbs and most importantly FLAVORS curries.  Hence, first problem about eating with a fork is substantive. A fork-ready bite requires a higher proportion of flavoring, bhaji or curry than hand mixing. We can no longer eat enhanced spiced rice.  Instead, the fork is the instrument that converts rice into a side dish at restaurants.

Second problem is formal. We are missing the optimal flavor when eating with a fork. The mixing of curry to rice with a fork is always incomplete. It is difficult to break down the rice enough for the curry to be absorbed. Eating with my hand I can press the rice together with the curry just enough to adhere on its journey to my mouth. That moment of adherence, when the rice forms a compressed bite, is the perfect amount of curry to rice ratio.

Third problem with fork deshi (South Asian)-eating is textural.  The feel of our food is part of the pleasure. The creaminess of rezala (chicken cooked in yogurt and onions) or the bright-spiced oil of fried eggplant mixed into the soft warm rice is a part of the experience. I can feel and pick out the cardamom, cinnamon stick and bay leaves to rest and perch gently on the side of my plate. I can pick up my chili pepper or my lemon quarter to enhance any bite I choose. I can’t eat fish with a fork because I can’t pick out the bones. Fish curry with bones tastes richer than fork-friendly curries using sliced fillets. The fork compromises the taste, texture of curries and the central role of rice. 

BUT, I have to admit, eating with my hand can be messy even when allowed and not frowned upon. And worse, despite all the washing in the world some pungent curries can refuse to leave.  The turmeric and cumin can stain the fingernails. I want to eat my curry not smell like it or wear it. 

The basic revulsion of eating with hands in the West would limit me from mixing each bite for my guests. Maybe I could form bites, like sushi, to be picked up with a fork. The hand eating experience would still be lacking but perhaps the taste can be recovered a bit?

This is quite a problem. How can I get the taste of a well hand-mixed bite of Deshi food with a fork? Can I design a fork/spoon that can form little rice bites? Disappointment, not necessity must be the mother of invention. I have yet to translate that experience of composed rice bites to the American table.  This is my design, cooking and eating challenge.

Take for example my dinner tonight: Chicken and potato curry, basmati rice and roasted vegetables. I mixed and mashed it as best I could with a fork and made bites with a cookie scoop. The bites did not form as well as hand mixing would allow.

But, it does give me an idea of building a 7 course meal with these premixed rice bites. Rice with Bittermelon (bitter), Rice with Dal (salty), Rice with Vegetables, Rice with fish (Garlic), Rice with Chicken (Ginger), Rice with Beef (spicy), Rice pudding (sweet).

Lokma: A bittersweet journey in 7 bites. This will have to be my next food design experiment.

I theorize that Amani’s love of tapas was latent in her childhood plate of radiating “lokmas.” She expects satisfaction from each bite of food and her standards can be high.

Brownies represent the alter ego of bittermelons. Instead of embracing the bitter, brownies challenge us to endure the abundance of sweetness.  Brownies with a hint of roasted bitterness and bittermelon bhaji with a hint of roasted sweetness operate like a dynamic gastronomic yin-yang. Most taste and encounters with others happen within this range. Sweetness and bitterness, ease and effort, are encounters that asks us to notice our repulsion and attraction to things. Life happens between tastes of bittermelons and brownies, between bitter medicine and sweet poison.

I have yet to meet a person who hates brownies. Unlike bittermelon, brownies are not an acquired taste. The sweet, moist and dense brownie conquers and overcomes bitterness unlike bittermelon bhaji that celebrates it. The beloved brownie does not have the unpleasant bitterness of a thing that cleanses the human liver or the risk of a thing that boils over and requires unpleasant cleanup, like dal.  There are ways to make an experience of brownies, unpleasant. Just imagine biting into a brownie and hearing an unwelcomed crunch, maybe of an errant eggshell shard.

Broken off into small bites with hot coffee or cold milk, or spooned from a bowl, warm and draped in melting vanilla ice cream, casual or elegant, there is no wrong way to eat a brownie. A miracle food in my house, brownies are one of the few foods celebrated by all members of my chopped and blended family.  In the past, in addition to special occasion dessert, a squat tower of brownies served as the platform for birthday candles, as well as traveled, boxed, to school as birthday treats instead of cupcakes.

Brownies represent a magical definition-defying confection between cake and candy. A small square aims to deliver big taste for the elegant and casual American diner. Dense and moist enough to be picked up and bit into without an uncivilized shower of cake crumbles, brownies exist for a society on the go and perfectly represents a designed American cultural experience.   In fact, the brownie was invented as a portable dessert for the ladies meeting at Chicago’s Palmer house to discuss the Chicago World’s Fair. Today a “to-go” version of this confection at the Palmer House comes boxed and wrapped with a ribbon. The packaging also includes a brief history and the original recipe. The taste can be described as dense yet delicate, with a texture between fudge and cake that melts in your mouth. The walnuts that give the confection texture compose the top layer and are coated with a light glaze. The recipe says it’s an apricot glaze but a fruity taste is hardly noticeable.

I chose Michael Ruhlman’s,  Make Ahead Brownies recipe as a guide for Atiya’s 15th birthday brownie for two reasons:  he claims the recipe is as “easy to make as pancakes” and his recipe yields a big half sheet pan. I quickly learned that the abundant size came with other considerations. For example, an equally big bowl and muscles are needed for mixing. I tried mixing the batter in the stand mixer while pouring the melted butter. I ended up with a melted butter shower all over the countertops and floors. It was a messy unpleasant clean up.

The next time I baked these brownies, I learned my lesson and stirred the batter in my largest bowl with my very own elbow grease. This was one of the few cooking instances where technology did not enhance the experience. Beware of technological shortcuts.

The brownies are wonderful: intensely chocolaty, fudgy, dense and delicious at any temperature.

I love the simplicity of the measurements that can be easily halved by the math-challenged like me. Look to Ruhlman’s recipe for details and his introductory narrative.

Ingredients (the amounts are NOT gentle suggests)

• 2 cups flour

I have Pillsbury brand flour, last year 2016 Gold Brand flour was recalled due to e.coli. How does e.coli get into flour? We take the neutrality of flour as a given. Consider the dangers of anything processed.

• 2 cups cocoa powder

I was sad but not surprised to learn of chocolate’s high carbon footprint. I used Hershey cocoa power and have no idea about the environmental and social impact of their chocolate sourcing or production.

• 1 teaspoon salt

The power of salt, like water, can easily be overlooked. It makes me think of the fairytale about a king who asked his three princesses, “How do you love me?” To his satisfaction the first answered, “Like honey, father,” and the second answered, “like sugar, father.” To his great disappointment the youngest princess answered, “like salt, father.” Years later when she served him a meal without any salt, the king understood the value of salt.

• 8 eggs

There are so many fun books dedicated to eggs now. This recipe comes for Michael Ruhlman’s Egg: A Culinary Exploration of the World’s most Versatile Ingredient.

• 4 cups sugar

In addition to the notorious history of sugar production tied to slave labor, the detrimental role of sugar for human health, makes it a treat with a high cost.

• 4 teaspoons vanilla extract

What a magical ingredient! Every time I open a jar, I have to take a whiff of the sweet spice.

• 1 pound (4 sticks) of butter

How many cups of milk does it take to make a stick of butter? This is definitely a luxurious recipe. One I probably would not make in Dhaka, unless there was a super special occasion like a birthday.

• 2 cups of chocolate chips

Chocolate chips have an odd birth after the 1938 invention of the chocolate chip cookie at the Toll House Inn by Ruth Wakefield. Legend has it that WWII soldiers from Massachusetts shared their care package cookies with their fellow soldiers and the cookie became popular on warfront and then the home front.

Mix dry ingredients. I like to add two teaspoons of espresso powder.

Mix eggs, sugar and vanilla. Add the melted butter in a small steady stream while whisking or the eggs will get scrambled. You may have to take breaks. I did.

Add dry to wet. Mix gently scraping the sides and the bottom of the bowl.

Pour batter on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

The sheet of brownie emerges from the oven, unconvincingly done, gooey and soft. The surface will still look wet and slightly cracked. The best thing to do is let it cool. If you cut into it, the chocolate will ooze. This is the HARDEST part about this recipe: waiting. After what seems like an eternity your cooled and better yet, chilled brownie will be easier to cut into squares. Eat, share and freeze for later.

The simple sweet has a complex and even bitter history that reaches back to the chocolate of the Aztecs and forward to a group of women discussing the Chicago World’s Fair to introduce America’s productive power to the world. The story of the brownie is deeper than its shallow flat form. The brownie eaten at birthdays, received in care packages, shared with friends, eaten alone in consolation becomes a part of your story. The decadent and luxurious confection between cake and candy comes at a high cost to the environment and to your health. Brownies only make sense when shared with others as a treat, in small bites of unhealthiness to celebrate the dark sweetness of living.

How to eat brownies?  Make a lot; share even more, like any guilty pleasure.

No taste assaults us more than bitterness. Unlike our mammalian instinctive attraction to sweetness, a love for bitter is learned. It used to be standard practice that every Bengali mid-day meal would begin with bittermelon. Bengali children learn to swallow bitterness, some eventually grow to enjoy it but at some point all have to learn how to endure it. “It will clean your blood,” promised adults. The magical medicinal properties were supposed to offer redemption. From the bittermelon, I learned that things have properties and abilities beyond my experience. Apparently the unpleasant properties in my mouth accompany pleasant and beneficial properties for my body. There is more to what I taste.

In addition to the narrative of healing there were also a threat of future sweetness denied.  “You must eat the bitter to enjoy the sweet,” was not an abstract lesson. Strangely both my daughters enjoy bittermelon bhaji despite my continued aversion. Perhaps the narratives had stronger hold on them or maybe they inherited a high tolerance for bitterness from their father. Beyond the cultural narrative, bittermelon remains more than a vegetable for human consumption, more than all its qualities and properties of bitter, bumpy, seedy, green, organic, domesticated, transported, cultivated, eaten etc. Bittermelon represents a location in existence, in geography, in cultural narrative. When we invite the bitter-melon into our shopping cart, cooking pot and stomach attracted by its potential healing and nourishing powers, we also invite all the other factors that made the bittermelon possible. The bittermelon and I find each other as locations of existence, worlds colliding, along with the worlds of pots, refrigeration, trucks, grocery stores, Asia, Ayurveda, markets, plastic bags, oil, spices, salt, plates, earth, rain etc.

Ingredients (all quantities are gentle suggestions)

• 2 Bittermelons
• 2 small red potatoes (enough to be equal the sliced bittermelon)
• 1 small onion
• 1-teaspoon turmeric
• ½ -teaspoon chili powder
• Salt to taste
• 3- tablespoons oil, vegetable, canola whatever you have.

1. Collect Ingredients.

You can usually find it in any Asian grocery store in the U.S. (to my surprise our local Kroger started carrying the strange vegetable among other distant geographical things). I wonder about the following questions: Doesn’t this counter the slow food local food movement? Is it wrong to eat Bitter-melon in the U.S. where it is not grown? Where does turmeric grow? Are onions and potatoes local? How are these ingredients grown? What is their history? How did people start eating bitter-melon anyway? How far is your grocery store? How are you getting there? What makes it possible for all the ingredients to be available? What makes it possible to gather all the ingredients on my counter? How many grocery trips? How many farmers, carriers, clerks, and stockers?

2. Slice the prickly bittermelon in half lengthwise. Scoop out seeds using a spoon. Thinly slice each half. This might be a good time to use a mandolin. Massage the sliced bittermelon with a generous palm full amount of salt. Let slices sit and sweat for at least a half an hour. Then wash and rinse the sliced bittermelon with cold water, a few times. Let rest in colander and dry. The salt draws out the bitterness. This strange process can be emotionally instructive. As if, we need to draw out bitter emotions in order to wash it away. What happens when salt meets the bitter-melon? What is that relationship about? Similarly, kale, another bitter vegetable, needs to be massaged with oil in order to make edible raw. Does this make kale related to bitter-melon? This process of salting, resting, rinsing and resting (again) takes time and energy but makes the dish taste roasted and experienced instead of angry and bitter. The encounter of Lisa and the Bitter-melon requires a lot of preparation.

3. Julienne potatoes.  Keep skin on. The red potatoes hold on to their structure despite the stir-frying. Yellow or russet potatoes, although delicious, fall apart and are best saved for mashed potatoes. Neutral buttery potatoes have the magical power to temper the bitter and bulk up the dish with smooth sweetness. How does a potato grow in darkness? What is the relationship between the earth and the potato?

4. Thinly slice onion. Consider the all the things involved. Knife, cutting board, onion, hands, eyes, tears, kitchen, house, suburb etc. All these things come together in a particular way for the new thing “thin onion slices.”

5. Heat oil in a large saute pan so you don’t suffocate the vegetables. A crowded pan will make the slices steam and become soggy, instead of developing the delicious roasty bits on the edge. I too feel steamy and soggy when faced with a crowded room. Add sliced onion, turmeric, chili power and salt. Saute until your nose detects the slight roasting of the spices as they merge into the hot oil as one complex flavor.  Onions will become soft. Add a teaspoon of water if the spices begin to stick or burn.

6. Add bittermelon and potatoes. Toss and sauté on high heat until all the vegetables are coated in the spiced oil. As the vegetables begin to soften, lower heat to a simmer, place lid on pan and let the now roasted vegetables continue to soften in the steam, about 10 minutes. If the vegetables are old and dry, having traveled the world to get to your kitchen, the bhaji may need a tablespoon or two of water to help steam and soften.

7. Once vegetables soften, raise heat and fry once more without lid. This will dry and roast the now tender vegetables allowing the spiced oil to cling. Do not stir so much that the vegetable break up into a mush. The pieces of potato and bitter melon should keep their form. Restless stirring does not make things cook faster.

8. Serve with steaming hot plain white rice. This will probably feed 4-6 depending on your love of bitterness.

All this is only part of the story about when bitter-melon and I meet. As the bhaji enters my internal system it begins to remake me, as I had remade it. The mechanics of that internal world is a mystery to me. Even if someone were to explain the all the narratives of nutrition, digestion, biological structure and systems, it still would not begin to explain the existence of the grown, hollowed, sliced, salted, fried and digested vegetable. Everything has mysterious existential depth, even bitter things.