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Indian food blinders
Feb. 14th, 2023 01:43 amIt's really a crime how Indian food is limited in North America. I live in Toronto, where Indian restaurants abound, but we mostly get North Indian restaurants, and mostly a certain number of standardized dishes at that. On the veg side, I can predict with about 90% accuracy what will be on the menu of any restaurant. There are some South Indian restaurants too, but also there they focus on dosas, which is technically a breakfast food. There are some hakka restaurants as well, which is Indianified Chinese/Szechuan/Manchurian food.
I'm mentioning this because my own partner is Parsi, aka Zoroastrian from Mumbai, which has its own food culture, greatly influenced by Gujarat. I don't cook Parsi food a lot but the other day my partner suggested that I make papri. I picked the recipe from Niloufer King's My Parsi Kitchen, followed the instructions, replaced goat with TVP chunks, and it was freaking amazing. Parsis are indiscriminate meat eaters, having none of the restrictions that other Indian religions have, but we've veganized most of the Parsi recipes that we know of. Parsi cookbooks will often offer veg alternatives within a recipe, as well.
Anyway. I mention this because I wonder about how much more Indian food we're missing out on, since there's a narrow expectation of what Indian Food should be in this city. The internet is a great resource to expand one's horizon (we regularly make one Nepalese recipe we've first tasted at one such restaurant) but you have to know what you're looking for, you need to be exposed to dishes! Some foods are acquired tastes, you're not going to know you've made it right the first time you taste it! And then in some restaurants, you get white spice syndrome, where the spiciness of a dish is cut by 3/4rds when you're white.
Maybe I just need to venture out to Scarborough some more.
I'm mentioning this because my own partner is Parsi, aka Zoroastrian from Mumbai, which has its own food culture, greatly influenced by Gujarat. I don't cook Parsi food a lot but the other day my partner suggested that I make papri. I picked the recipe from Niloufer King's My Parsi Kitchen, followed the instructions, replaced goat with TVP chunks, and it was freaking amazing. Parsis are indiscriminate meat eaters, having none of the restrictions that other Indian religions have, but we've veganized most of the Parsi recipes that we know of. Parsi cookbooks will often offer veg alternatives within a recipe, as well.
Anyway. I mention this because I wonder about how much more Indian food we're missing out on, since there's a narrow expectation of what Indian Food should be in this city. The internet is a great resource to expand one's horizon (we regularly make one Nepalese recipe we've first tasted at one such restaurant) but you have to know what you're looking for, you need to be exposed to dishes! Some foods are acquired tastes, you're not going to know you've made it right the first time you taste it! And then in some restaurants, you get white spice syndrome, where the spiciness of a dish is cut by 3/4rds when you're white.
Maybe I just need to venture out to Scarborough some more.