Unpopular vegetables
THE FOOD CLUB
| I cannot cook my version of shabdeg or turnips and lamb because of my daughter's aversion to turnips. And why does she hate turnips so vehemently? It is probably the natural sweetness of the vegetable together with what has been called the lacy texture. |
| My husband, on the other hand, sees red at the sight of spinach and tomatoes. Spinach is not a problem "" it never enters the house when he's around. It is tomatoes that are a snag, because they go into such a variety of dishes, from potatoes to pumpkins. |
| The compromise that we have reached is that the day tomatoes are used in the day's vegetable, a dish of bottle gourd (lauki or ghia) is cooked for my husband. He is ecstatic, because that, believe it or not, is his favourite vegetable. |
| My son, like most 13-year-olds, hates the kaddu-lauki-tinda triumvirate, and will avert his gaze when he comes across a vegetable vendor selling any of these offending articles. For him, his greatest misfortune is being born into a household where the father loves tinda and lauki, and his mother goes ga-ga over kaddu. |
| In fact, my greatest grouse is that in the land of lauki-tinda-tori, it is possible to get red and yellow bell-peppers, baby corn, broccoli and brussel sprouts on restaurant menus, but never the humble gourd. Yet, in the hands of a skillful chef, it is these vegetables which are far more versatile than broccoli ever can hope to be. |
| Gourds are, because of their watery nature, not the most popular of vegetables. My sister hates them too because, she complains, they have no taste. Her husband, on the other hand, has precisely the same complaint against two other vegetables: potatoes and aubergine. |
| He is one member of the restaurant-going population that will never dream of ordering parmigiano melanzane in an Italian restaurant or Imam bayeldi in a Lebanese one, though these two dishes elevate the humble baingan to a different level from any Indian preparation, except perhaps baigun bhaja. |
| Other friends have their own pet hates. Sakshi abhors peas and carrots because she finds them too sweet; Fancis despises capsicum because of the smell they emit when they're cooking. |
| Sanjeev's problem is more serious: he hates black mushrooms because of the way they jiggle in his mouth! But, in Chinese restaurants, black mushrooms make their appearance in a variety of dishes, whether indicated on the menu or not. |
| And my own revulsion? It's got to be kohlrabi (ganth gobhi). Cooked by every family in Kashmir on a regular basis, the smell it emits would give Limburger cheese and durian a complex. And the taste? Frankly, I've never got as far as actually tasting the damn thing. The smell has put me off for life. |