Be polite, have a bite

Viv Richards in his autobiography complains of an Indian peculiarity that many foreigners visiting the country are rather foxed by. It has to do with our concept of “cocktails and dinner”, at least as prevalent in north India. Unlike in the West, where formal sit-downs involve civilised drinking with dinner (and conversation), in India, these affairs are known to stretch on and on, with the gentlemen downing copious quantities of “Scotch”, stuffing themselves silly with cardiologist-phobic snacks, before the dinner is finally brought out. By then it is usually past the witching hour and no one can taste anything. As Richards vividly notes, in one instance, his hosts, having tanked up, clearly forgot their duties and rushed to the buffet table as soon as dinner was announced, quite forgetting that there were starving guests too to take care of! The West Indies team was left to fend for itself.

 

For all our claims of “Atithi Devo Bhava”, this seems to be a cultural thing. Indeed, it would be futile to expect Indians to suddenly reform and sip their wines politely accompanied by a four-course meal — never mind marketing pushes. On the other hand, a style of eating that seems closer to our hearts is the Spanish tapeo — “the art of eating tapas” — that seems to be finally gathering currency at restaurants and has the potential to get into the mainstream too.

The practice of eating tapas —small snacks eaten between main meals, accompanied by wine —in Spain, goes back to the time of the botillerias (bottle-shops) and tabernas (taverns), when bottles or jars of wine sold here were kept covered by a “lid” of bread by the king’s decree. Enterprising owners of these establishments started topping these with small pieces of meat or olives, thus giving rise to the first tapas. Another story suggests that tapas made their first appearance when king Alfonso the tenth had to take small bites of food with some wine between meals. Once he had recovered, the king decreed that no wine be served unaccompanied by food — a wise measure indeed.

But regardless of its historical antecedents, tapas bars are now fashionable because the activity per se is so enjoyable — breaking the formality of Western-style dinners. This is a style of eating where everyone shares the bite-sized portions, and social interaction is facilitated by the accompanying drinks. There is an informality to the proceedings with tapas being consumed, typically, standing up or perched on stools while conversing. Now, doesn’t this remind you of a cocktail party in progress, in say, Delhi? Just replace the wine with the whisky.

The best bit is that though, typically, tapas are meant to be eaten between meals, they can be a meal in themselves. From deep fried savouries or simple ones like nuts, cheese and olives (green, Manzanilla, gordales or “big” ones, rellenas or “stuffed”, alinadas or “flavoured” and so forth) that were typically favoured, the recipes now include fairly elaborate concoctions, including those served with sauce. Serve these at your own do and eliminate the need for full-course dinners, post midnight.

Here is a recipe by Chef Giovanni Leopardi, chef de cuisine at Med, a restaurant at the Radisson, Delhi, that boasts of quite an interesting selection:

Peppers stuffed with crab salad (serves 8)
4 red bell peppers, roasted and peeled; chopped parsley for garnish. For the salad: 250 g canned crab meat, drained and squeezed dry; 1 red pepper, roasted and chopped; 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice; 100 g Philadelphia cream cheese

First check the crab meat for bits of shell. Now, place this with pepper and lemon juice in a mixer. Blend. Transfer to a bowl and add cream. Add more lemon juice if needed. Open up the peppers, deseed and pat dry. Cut in large squares. Fill each with salad and roll into a cone. Chill for one hour. Serve cold.

(anoothi.vishal@bsmail.in)