An AI in an EI Kitchen – Part IV

My introduction to fish was a happy one. I encountered it filleted, flaked, crumbed and fried as in Bird’s Eye Fish Fingers (are they still around?). Fish was delicious, Fish smelt good. Fish came in neat cardboard cartons out of a deep freeze. There was no connect between the aquarium and the meal on my plate.

Fast forward twenty years or so to when I stepped into the EI kitchen and discovered that fish was on the daily menu: every denizen of the deep was fair game. And so I was introduced, in quick succession, to Parkat (Sting ray), Mushi (Shark), Rawas (Salmon) Surmai (Mahaseer), Cupar (Eel or Tuna), Catfish, Ghol (Croaker), Bombil (Bombay Duck), Bhangda (Mackerel) and a whole lot more from the elite Pomfret to the guttersnipe Newtie. And how can one forget the shellfish? Prawns, shrimp, crabs, lobsters, oysters, clams were expensive in comparison but still added their presence to the meal. Each fish was allotted its own masala ranging from red, hot and sour to yellow, to green to reddish brown or brownish red – the ingredients were selected so as to enhance the particular flavour of the fish. Some fish were good for frying, others for stuffing, yet others for curry and some for baking and cutlets.

The fish was still delicious but there was one catch: it had to be fresh! Hello, Indian Fish Market.

My first visit was an education. There sat the women, buxom of build, laden with gold, hair slicked to a shine, baskets brimming with different kinds of piscatorial fare. A stone slab and a mean looking sickle completed the picture. There was a time honoured process involved in the purchase: examine the freshness of the fish by pressing the gills and checking the eyes, then haggle over the price, then sidestep the flying scales, fins and other incidental debris and avoid the ubiquitous cats. All this while being overpowered by the aroma of fresh, not so fresh and some quite stale fish and discarded entrails. It was also tough to avoid the puddles of ‘fish water’ and you undertook the homeward journey trying hard to avoid the accusatory glances of other commuters. Buying fish was not for the fainthearted. Neither was cleaning them – fish always seem to be caught while enjoying their own last meal!

I soon learned the useful trick of sending hubby to buy the fish. The fisher-women loved him and a few became his ‘fast friends’ hailing him as soon as he entered the market and producing for him the best of their stock. He would come home with a lot more than he bargained for, but since the fish was fresh and cleaned to perfection he was readily forgiven: we could look forward to a weekend table laden with the ocean’s bounty.

Those fisher-women with their lively banter and occasional invective are now long gone. The present generation is not so amiable in plying the trade and fish is sold at ‘fixed price only’, take it or leave it. The up-market housewife has also been responsible for the introduction of ready to cook ‘fresh’ fish delivered to the door. The trawler companies are finding it convenient to cut out the middle woman.

Fish is no longer on our daily menu, but when it does make its appearance, we remember the time when the trip from market to table could be quite an odyssey!

An AI in an EI Kitchen - Part II

How do you cut up an onion? Let me count the ways!

Hubby’s Mum was making a curry. I offered to help. Asked to cut the onions, while an unexpected visitor occupied her time, I cleaned and chopped with a will. When Mum-in-law returned to her kitchen, she was presented with a neat bowl of onion chopped exceedingly fine. The exercise had been undertaken, slowly and precisely, using a very sharp knife (I was grateful that I could count ten fingers, all intact, after the achievement). She looked and said, “No, no! The onions had to be cut round.” Apparently, it was common knowledge that for that particular curry, onions had to be prepared that way. Unfortunately, I was not party to that 'common knowledge'. Fortunately, Mum-in-law was quick with the knife and we had onions cut in the round, in no time at all.

Onions are used at the beginning of most preparations. And, once fried, they disappear into the other ingredients which are added in their appointed order. Once ingested and digested, who would be able to tell which way the onions had been cut? But Mum-in-law insisted that it made a difference and, all her life, she would fulfill the demands of the dish by cutting up the onions exactly as required. So well did I learn the lesson, that even now when laziness tempts, conscience insists that I slice, dice, chop fine, cut round, half round or long as stipulated by the book.

Does it make a difference to the taste? I am not sure. I think the rule was created to instill discipline in the art, to keep attention focused on the job in hand and to add variety to what would otherwise be a run of the mill occupation.

What does make a difference to the taste is that ‘pinch of love’ that inspires perfection at every stage of preparation of a meal. An ingredient that you will find in every EI kitchen!

An AI in an EI Kitchen – Part I

Far back in time, when I was still a klutz in the kitchen, a brother in law was sternly admonished by his doctor and advised to stick to a rigid diet of plain boiled vegetables. That’s something you can’t go too far wrong with and I happily volunteered. I chopped up the vegetables and popped them in the cooker, but before I topped it with the lid, a visiting sister-in-law sauntered in (my sisters-in-law numbered seven at the time), took one look and asked me what I was making. When I explained, she told me that bro-in-law would as it is be upset with the diet, the least we could do was make it attractive, ‘Food should not just taste good, it should look good!”. We took out a fresh lot of vegetables (the already chopped up ones were consigned to the soup pot) and set to: the bottle gourd was cut into semi circles, the carrots julienned, the potatoes wedged and the peas, thank goodness, were their own petit selves. Steamed to perfection, with just the right amount of salt and then arranged on the plate, those veggies looked as good as any gourmet meal and the delighted smile on bro-in-law’s face said it all. He really appreciated the effort to make a humdrum meal look special.

EI food has always had that extra-special touch. Be it a birthday, an anniversary or a family get-together for any reason, the table is a delight to the eye; while the aroma urged you to tuck in forthwith, the view made you pause and applaud. The meatloaf usually took pride of place with a covering of sculpted mashed potato, the shape being the product of the imagination and nimble fingers of the hostess. The sausages usually ended up as the ‘hairdo’ on a grapefruit face, the salad was presented as a horn of plenty, and sometimes even the rice would be coloured and moulded. The sweet dish was the piece de resistance – once again a sight to behold. This is just a sampling. Different hostesses had different ways of laying the table, each one a masterpiece in its own right. It is hard to believe that all of this was done by women who had learnt the craft from mother in the family kitchen.

Today, food styling is big business and big bucks. Those in the know will tell you that aesthetics is everything and a meal should engage sight, scent, taste and texture. In short, a work of art in every sense.

Suddenly, I am taken back to mealtime in the nursery. A formidably fussy eater, my meals were always presented as ‘pictures’ on the plate so that I could be coaxed into eating the ‘old man’s nose’ or the ‘little dog’s tail’ without realizing that it was actually the food that was going down. The ‘art’ may have been a little rough, but it certainly pleasured the mind of a child.

Somewhere in my AI childhood I felt the EI touch!