India’s flavours & spices have enriched the world

SACHA VAN NIEKERK

EVERY region in India has its distinct delicacies and styles of cooking. But when it comes to curry, there’s a technique called tempering that’s widespread.

This consists of the complex layering of dry roasted spices blended together before being braised in oil with onions, ginger, garlic and chilli.

This liberates pungent aromatics, while other compounds in the mix mingle to enhance warm notes.

Unfortunately, to the untrained palate this level of sophistication in cooking may go unnoticed and under-appreciated. This was at least the case for American syndicated humour columnist for The Washington Post, Gene Weingarten.

Last month, he penned an article titled: “You can’t make me eat these foods”. In it, he systematically picked apart various foods he cannot seem to stomach that included blue cheese and hazelnuts. On the list, he also included Indian food.

“The Indian subcontinent has vastly enriched the world, giving us chess, buttons, the mathematical concept of zero, shampoo, modern-day non-violent political resistance, Snakes and Ladders, the Fibonacci sequence, rock candy, cataract surgery, cashmere, USB ports ... and the only ethnic cuisine in the world insanely based on entirely one spice,” Weingarten wrote.

A range of spice blends can be layered to form curry powder. The pulverisation of spices is also often used to create a unique blend that is specially put together for a particular dish.

His controversial words fell below a rather apt illustration depicting him as an adult baby in a high chair with a bib on. Although the column is meant to take on some form of wit and sarcasm, many felt it seriously missed the mark and exposed the two-time Pulitzer winner for being ignorant and having a gravely misinformed understanding of what spicing entails.

To say Indian cooking makes use of one spice is factually incorrect, although it seems Weingarten has the impression that curry powder is a spice of its own.

From the vanilla bean-studded custard croissants displayed in Parisian bakeries to the tongue tingling biltong eaten on safaris in Africa, India is most likely to thank for every flavourful morsel as it contributes about 75% of global spice production.

The Journal of Ethnic Foods states that, sourced from various parts of plants including the bud, bark, root, flower and fruits, 50 out of the 80 spices grown in the world are from India, many of them native. To make a curry powder, whole spices are toasted to release some of the oils, making the blend more fragrant.

Select spices are chosen to marry together unique flavours that suit various dishes. Once cooled, the spices are finely ground into a powder or pounded into a paste that is usually prepared fresh.

Model, author, activist and host of Top Chef and Taste the Nation Padma Lakshmi was one of the first celebrities to respond to Weingarten’s column via Twitter. “Is this really the type of coloniser ‘hot take’ the @washingtonpost wants to publish in 2021 – sardonically characterising curry as ‘one spice’ and that all of India’s cuisine is based on it?

“For generations, people have slung racist insults about the ‘stinky’ foods of immigrants: Italians with garlic, Irish with cabbage, Koreans with kimchi and, yes, South Asians with curry. It was never funny,” she wrote.

“What’s puzzling is that editors and copy editors let his words through. Does The Post still have so little diversity among editors that this mini-screed raised no red flags?”

In response to the backlash he received on the piece, Weingarten was quick to defend himself. “Took a lot of blowback for my dislike of Indian food in today’s column so tonight I went to Rasika, DC’s best Indian restaurant. Food was beautifully prepared yet still swimming with the herbs & spices I most despise. I take nothing back,” he shared in a now-deleted tweet.

In South Africa, a lot of our favourite cuisine is uplifted with a tangy side of chutney to take flavours to the next level. The roots of chutney date back as far as 500BC in India when bottling fruit and veggies with vinegar, oils and spices could help prolong the shelf life of perishables. This style of preparing the ingredients was brought back to the Romans and British after their trade encounters with South Asia. Now these flavourful sauces add flavour globally.