Privilege. And Brahminism

A South Indian Chicken Curry

1995. My first year in the US – in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I am a student at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, getting a Master’s in TESOL, trying to figure out what being a graduate student is in the US. I am at a coffee shop, possibly the Crimson Café, where I first partook in the incredibly Kentucky Derby Pie – to this day, I crave that piece of pie I had that day, though I do make a version today. Which is pretty damn good. Wonder if the Crimson Café still exists.

No. It isn’t the Crimson Café. I can picture where I am, but can’t name it. I am with an Indian friend – can’t remember his name. He is pretty dark skinned, and speaks with a fairly strong North Indian accent. I don’t.  It is not a date, I don’t know much about dating yet. It is friends sharing a conversation over coffee. Did he think it was a date? I have no idea.

While I clearly don’t remember a lot of details, I have a distinct memory of how our waitress receives and responds to us. “Oh I love your accent”, she gushes at me, the moment I open my mouth. This is a reaction I am already used to. My semi-British accent, I know, is an asset, one I am already learning to use to my advantage.  She doesn’t give my friend a second look, even though it is he who ordered our coffee and cake. Did I mention he is cute? Absolutely gorgeous. That, I still remember.

To people around me, my somewhat British accent was, and still is, a passport – to privilege. As I learned in Alabama, as soon as I opened my mouth, I was someone intelligent. Someone to be respected and listened to. Despite the brown skin. Pallavi Iyer, on The Global Jigsaw on Substack, describes how English in India is not a language; it is a caste. And by virtue of the kind of English I speak, I belong to the highest caste. Even outside India.

What of my caste in India? This has less to do with the kind of English I speak, and more to do with the family I was born into. A Tamilian Brahmin family. Even though my mum is a Kannadiga Brahmin, the family spoke Tamil at home. Of course.

So I grew up in a Tamil Brahmin family. The highest caste. Tam Brahms, I have learned over the past decade, are a thing – more on them….er….us in the future. A friend, in response to last week’s post, said, in response to my account of Brahmin and non-Brahmin Tamil terms for curry, that it is easy for a non-Brahmin to spot a Brahmin– because “we wear our caste on our foreheads”. In terms of how we speak – our accents, our word choice, even our grammar; in terms of what we wear, even the kinds of clothes we wear. And of course, in the food we eat. Or don’t eat.

There is so much I haven’t experienced surrounding caste. And this is probably because I am a South Indian Brahmin. Well, I was born a South Indian Brahmin.  I haven’t had to experience the repercussions of not being Brahmin. I was born privileged.

So what did my South Indian Brahminism look like as I was growing up? My own experiences with Brahminism were strictly culinary; my dad, at an early age, disavowed his Brahmin heritage because of, among other reasons, the inequities the system perpetuates. He stopped wearing his sacred thread, the thread given to a boy during his upanayanam ceremony, a rite of passage; the symbol of the caste. And no son of his would ever wear the thread either, he decided. And so it was. But in our food habits, we were pretty South Indian Brahmin; for the most part, we followed a sathvik (/sɑːt̪ʋɪk/) diet, one that contains foods that supposedly raise our levels of consciousness, one that avoids foods that supposedly corrupt a Brahmin’s purity: meat of any kind, and even many vegetables, notably onions and garlic. While both my parents temporarily gave up vegetarianism during their years outside India, they never cooked meat of any kind at home. Our caste was on our plates. Why? Absolutely nothing to do with religion, but simply because this was the food my dad was used to, and the food he still prefers. My mum is, and always has been, a bit more adventurous. Today, while having reverted to vegetarianism, he does eat non-sathvik foods like onions (although he hates garlic in most things). But prefers traditional vegetarian, Tamil Brahmin fare.

So why have I focused on my being a South Indian Brahmin or a Tam Brahm in specific and not a Brahmin in general? Because South Indian Brahmins are the most stereotypical of Brahmins. Because how Brahminism has come to be associated with vegetarianism (and purity) is a very thorny issue, one that probably always been, but today, undoubtedly is, inextricably connected with politics. And here’s the thing: many Brahmins even in India do eat meat – Kashmiri Brahmins, for example, or Bengali Brahmins, or Himachali Brahmins. Also, many Hindus eat beef. But the Brahmin (and therefore Hindu)-pure-vegetarian narrative is so strong in India that it has succeeded in portraying the whole country as more vegetarian than not. Which it simply isn’t. Much more on that later.

Now being the good and dutiful daughter I am, I have moved further away from my South Indian Brahmin background and have diversified hugely in my culinary ventures;  I both eat and cook non-sathvik fare. Although, as evidenced by the recipes I have provided thus far, I do also love traditional Tam Brahm cooking. Variety, remember? And a fundamental belief that the politicization of ancient texts, an interpretation to suit a certain purpose, will not dictate how I behave. Or what I eat.

So today, I give you my first absolutely non-South Indian Brahmin recipe, a chicken curry. A south Indian chicken curry. This is a recipe I have created over the years (I change it every time I make it), that has a combination of spices I like. As I tried to come up with a name for this curry, I struggled. Because I don’t want to name it something that might prevent you from making it simply because you don’t have one of the ingredients. So for example, I could call it “Chicken curry with coconut, curry leaves, and fennel seed” or “Chicken curry with curry leaves, fennel, and black pepper” or “Chicken curry with coconut milk and curry leaves”. The point I am trying to make here is that perhaps you could look at this as a set of steps to make a chicken curry, rather than a strict recipe for a specific chicken curry. Whatever I call it, though, it is most certainly South Indian – because of the presence of some ingredients and the absence of others. So here we have it, A South Indian Chicken Curry.

A South Indian Chicken Curry

Ingredients (serves 4-6, served with rice or a bread of your choice)

1.     ½ Tbsp cumin seeds

2.     ½ Tbsp fennel seeds

3.     1 Tbsp coriander seeds

4.     1 Tbsp peppercorns

5.     5-6 sprigs of curry leaves, if available

6.     1 Tbsp Kashmiri chili powder OR 1 tsp regular Indian chili powder OR ½ tsp cayenne pepper

7.     1 tsp turmeric

8.     ½ Tbsp mustard seeds

9.     2 cups finely diced onion – doesn’t matter what color

10.  1 Tbsp ginger paste/finely chopped ginger

11.  2 Tbsp finely chopped garlic/garlic paste (this is 7-8 cloves of garlic)

12.  1 cup diced ripe tomatoes (you can certainly use canned tomatoes)

13.  3 Tbsp tamarind paste from a jar or pulp extracted from a 1 ½ inch ball of tamarind. You extract the pulp by soaking the tamarind in about half a cup of hot water for about 30 minutes. Then remove the seeds, and mash the tamarind up with your fingers – this loosens the pulp from the fiber. Squeeze out the fiber (either with your hand used as a sieve, or an actual sieve) and use the pulp. You might need to add a wee bit more water for a second squeeze after you sieve it the first time. If you are using the jarred tamarind paste, check the ingredients for salt. If it contains salt, reduce the salt in the curry by ½ tsp.

14.  2 ½ tsp salt

15.  3 Tbsp coconut oil

16.  1 cup coconut milk

17.  1kg (about 2lbs) of chicken – thighs/drumsticks or a combination. I MUCH prefer dark meat to white meat. If you are averse to dark meat, by all means use white meat, but reduce the cooking time.

18. ½ cup of chopped cilantro (optional)

Method

1.     Toast the cumin, fennel, coriander, and pepper corn over low-medium heat constantly stirring. Toast for about 5 minutes till the spices are very aromatic. Set aside to cool. Once they are cool, grind them to a fine powder – I use a coffee grinder, or sometimes a mortar and pestle. (Note: If you want to skip the step of grinding your own spices, you can use the ground spices in the following proportions: 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp fennel, ½ Tbsp coriander, 1 tsp black pepper. Toast all the ground spices together on a low flame for about 2-3 minutes till fragrant.)

2.     Heat the coconut oil, and when it is hot, add the mustard seeds.  The difference between using coconut oil here is that it froths when heated, unlike the more neutral oils we have used before. Turn the heat down, wait till the mustard pops and add in the curry leaves. Stand back while they splutter.

3.     Add the diced onions and 1 tsp of the salt. Sauté the onions on medium for about 10 minutes – this time, you are waiting for them to start to brown.

4.     Once the onions start to caramelize, add the ginger and garlic.  Sauté for 2 minutes.

5.     Add the tomatoes and tamarind. Cook for 3 minutes.

6.     Add the ground spice blend, the chili powder (Kashmiri, regular, or cayenne). Stir in and cook for 2 minutes.

7.     Add the chicken, the remaining 1 ½ tsp salt and ½ a cup of the coconut milk. Stir, put a lid on, turn the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, till the chicken is done. While stirring, if you think the chicken is sticking to the bottom of the pan, add ½ cup of water. How long it takes to cook entirely depends on the size of the pieces of chicken.

8.     When the chicken is cooked, stir in the remaining ½ cup of coconut milk.

9.     Add the cilantro and serve hot with a carb of your choice. When I made it last, we had it with white rice and a typical South Indian dry spinach curry - a spinach sundal (/ɕʊɳɗɑl/.

I mentioned a few posts ago how much I love cultures coming together in the creation of new foods. Well guess what we did with the leftover chicken curry? Made an amazing pizza! Shredded the chicken, mixed it in with the leftover curry sauce, added in a roughly chopped green pepper. Made our own pizza base, topped the base with the chicken mixture, added some sliced onion, topped it with cheese – and boy, was that ever a fantastic pizza! Try it!