| |
|
 |
|
|
Articles > Magazines > New Age > Vegetarian Nirvana
|
|
|
Vegetarian Nirvana
- By Shoba Narayan
(This article originally appeared in
January 2000)
|
|
|
|
Somewhere between the cabbage-patch countryside of Western Carpathia and the shimmering cornfields of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, I hope to find vegetarian Nirvana.
You wouldn't think I would need to find it, having grown up in South India, where vegetarian food is as plentiful as the Hindu temples. But having made my home in the Western Hemisphere, I have to discover a place that recreates the flavors of my native land. And when I do find it, I have promised myself that I will settle there. Build a Hindu temple nearby, perhaps. After all, don't temples and vegetarian tempura belong together?
I blame it all on my mother, of course. It was she who raised me on a vegetarian diet practically from the womb, putting together spice-vegetable combinations with dizzying aplomb. Carrots with ghee for growth, potatoes with ginger to soothe, beans with garlic to rejuvenate, onions with asafetida to suppress, cucumber with coriander to cool, lentils with cumin to warm, and drumsticks with cardamom to arouse. The fresh vegetables sparkled with flavor, the gravies were light, and the spices were applied with a restrained hand.
Appearance matched taste: sprigs of pungent green mint arranged in concentric swirls over the yogurt-white landscape of a tangy cucumber raita. Texture balanced flavor: crunchy basmati rice absorbed the fiery spices of a biriyani- cinnamon, cloves, star anise, poppy seeds, and red chilies. Robust ingredients were offset by delicate herbs: a hearty stew made with beetroot, sweet potatoes, carrots, and other root vegetables with only a dash of green peppercorns and fresh curry leaves for interest.
When I first came to America to attend graduate school over a decade ago, the only thing that my mother cared to pack was my spice-box. The unsuspecting Customs officer who opened my suitcase for inspection was confronted with an Indian kitchen nestled inside a Samsonite suitcase. Clear plastic bottles filled with yellow turmeric, black mustard seeds, golden lentils, green curry leaves, sprigs of cinnamon and bay leaves lined my suitcase. He confiscated them all, and put an end to my spice trade.
During my first year at graduate school, I feverishly sought every Indian restaurant in the area, searching for sustenance. Shocked and disappointed, I discovered that most Indian restaurants served overcooked, under-spiced, never-chopped clumps of vegetables that masqueraded as a vegetarian dish. The French restaurants that got rave reviews in the newspapers, served more scintillating food, I was sure. The problem was that it wasn't vegetarian.
Over the years, my taste buds have learned to tolerate and even relish pastas, Enchiladas, Pad Thai and other foreign food as long as it is vegetarian. I haven't been able to bring myself to eat meat and the fact that a friend described a hamburger as tasting like 'chewing gum' hasn't helped either.
After marrying a self-described 'global citizen' I began exploring cuisine from other countries in earnest. Whenever my husband and I went to a foreign country we developed a routine. We would look in the telephone book for vegetarian restaurants. If there weren't any, we would wander through artsy neighborhoods in search of sustenance.
It was during one such stroll through Montreal that we spotted a tiny storefront with the sign 'Gastronomie Vegetarianne.' Inside was a veritable wonderland for vegetarians. Pesto pasta, Moroccan salad, Turkish salsa, hummus, curried rice, vegetarian borscht, potato pierogis, and stir fried tofu all vied for our attention. After eating every meal at Gastronomie Vegetarianne for three days straight, we have rued the fact that the food entrepreneurs of Montreal haven't considered exporting their culinary creation to the US.
Not that it is hard to find vegetarian food in America. It isn't. The problem is the semantics. Some people consider fish vegetarian, others think chicken is okay. Most aren't sure about eggs or cheese and offer them to me with cautious apologies. I love cheese, tolerate eggs and don't eat anything that moves. I detest the under-spiced, over-cooked, never-chopped clumps of boiled vegetables that masquerade as a dish.
When eating out in America, Indian, Italian and Mexican restaurants are our staples. In Italian restaurants, we can usually get some good pastas, and in Mexican restaurants, we get a variety of bean and cheese burritos. It was therefore with the lightest of hearts that we set off on a ten-day car-trip through Mexico. We looked forward to tasting authentic Mexican cuisine, the hotter the better.
Cruel disappointment awaited us. Mexican food in Mexico is nothing like American Mexican food. Most Mexican restaurants didn't even understand what vegetarian was. When we chanted, 'Sin carne, sin pollo, sin pescado,' in explanation, the waiter would look at us dumbfounded, as if to say, 'What else is there if you don't eat meat, or chicken or fish?"
After a couple of days, we gave up eating at restaurants altogether. Upon reaching a new town, we would head for the grocery store, buy some tomatoes, onions, yogurt, bread, cheese and salsa and have a picnic dinner on our hotel bed.
After several days of eating variations of the same meal, we longed for some hot, tasty food. When we heard that one of Mexico's best vegetarian restaurants was in an obscure town called San Luis Potosi, we resolved to head there straight away. Perhaps it was hunger pangs that caused my husband to press his foot on the accelerator. When we overtook a truck on a two-lane highway, we encountered a police car on the other side. The cop promptly pulled us over. A Mexican officer in a blue uniform approached us and rattled off something in rapid Spanish. We recognized the word 'registration' and pulled it out of the dashboard.
"Look up the Spanish word for Sorry," my husband hissed.
"L'lenarlo, l'lenarlo" I cried excitedly, having memorized a few key words in preparation for our car trip.
"That means 'Fill it up,'" my husband said.
"Los Sciento, Los Sciento," I babbled.
The cop stared at us as if we had escaped from a traveling circus.
"You don't speak Spanish?" he asked suspiciously.
My husband shook his head, trying his best to look like a good tourist. Being from India, both my husband and I could easily pass off for Hispanics. In fact, we had a tough time convincing the cop we weren't.
"Where are you going?" the cop asked.
"To San Luis Potosi."
"No tourist goes to San Luis Potosi." The cop looked suspicious again.
"Where will you stay?"
"We don't know," my husband replied. "We heard that there was a good vegetarian restaurant there." "Vegetarian. You vegetarians?" the cop asked.
We nodded. "We are Hindus," I said helpfully. "We just want to drive to San Luis Potosi, eat in that vegetarian restaurant and head out."
The cop shook his head disbelievingly. After checking our American driving licenses, he handed everything back to us.
"Welcome to Mexico," he said and waved us on.
You know what the worst thing was? There was no vegetarian restaurant in San Luis Potosi. The hotel concierge that gave us that piece of information had lied to us. We drove through every street in that dismal town, asking pedestrians in halting Spanish about 'El vegetarian ristorante.' Nobody had heard of anything remotely vegetarian.
Hungry and hardened, we headed back home to New York, sure that we were destined to languish in a vegetarian wasteland. I tried Macrobiotic diets and became a Vegan for a while. I resorted to experimenting with world cuisine. I found that stir-frying potato Pierogis in mustard oil with some sesame seeds and cilantro created a wonderful Polish-Chinese dish. I layered Indian vermicelli with some British Stilton cheese, covered the whole thing with tangy pizza sauce and baked it like a lasagne. I went too far when I blended soybeans like a humus and added tons of garlic. When I opened the dish in the evening, I found that the soybeans had fermented beyond recognition and reeked of garlic. My husband complained bitterly and went on a hunger-strike.
"Every cuisine in the world has 5000 years of history," he said. "Why are you trying to mess with it?"
"I want flavorful food," I replied stoutly.
"I want Indian food," he said. "Could you make that please? I am tired of entertaining the United Nations in our kitchen."
Then one day, in a grand stroke of cosmic irony, we found our vegetarian Nirvana right in our backyard, as it were. There is a Hindu temple in Flushing, Queens that we visit often. After our Mexican trip, we went to the temple one weekend and spotted a grimy sign that said 'Canteen' right next door. One Sunday morning, we decided to check out the temple's canteen and went in. Immediately, we were surrounded by comforting sounds and smells- the sizzling sound of a dosa being poured on a pan, the smell of coconut chutney and onion sambar. There were no waiters. Instead we had to stand in line and recite our requirements to a sari-clad woman who would then sing out our order to the cooks. "Two dosas, one plate vada, one idli, and two coffees."
Since that initial foray, we have mastered the formula. Find a Hindu temple and a great Indian-vegetarian restaurant cannot be far apart. Boston has the Udipi restaurant near the Laxmi temple in Framingham, San Francisco has Komala Vilas in Sunnyvale, Chicago has Devon Street with its competing South Indian eateries, Washington has the Shiva temple with its attached canteen and many other large American cities like Miami, Dallas are putting up their own Hindu temples with canteens to feed the devotees.
We have eaten at temple-canteens numerous times since and as far as we are concerned, they serve the best vegetarian food this side of the Bay of Bengal. I don't even have to move anywhere. All I have to do on a Sunday morning is cross the Queensborough bridge from Manhattan to Flushing, go to the temple, gather some good karma and head over to the canteen for some good food.
Dosas: Rice and Lentil Crepes filled with spiced potatoes and onions.
Idlis: Steamed lentil dumplings that are fairly bland. They are to be eaten with chutney and sambar.
Chutney: a blend of coconut, tomatoes, green chilies and salt.
Sambar: A tart and tangy gravy of vegetables and lentils with tamarind seasoning.
Vada: Fried lentil doughnuts.
Biriyani: Rice cooked in a stock pot with spices and choice vegetables so that all the flavors get absorbed by the rice.
Raita: Cucumber and yogurt salad.
This article originally appeared in
January 2000.
Copyright © 2001 New Age. All rights reserved. |
|
|
writer :: reporter :: foodie :: mom
