The Road Less Travelled....

Stuffed Red Peppers

When you think food cultures, what do you typically think about?

And when you think fine dining, what do you typically think about?

Are the two lists the same? For me, they are not. For me, food cultures are numerous –Asian Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Malay, Indian (of course), Latin American, and these, only because I am at least somewhat familiar with them. There will, doubtless, be many more in the future. And these, are, of course, in addition to the stereotypical French, Italian, Spanish.

But fine dining? In my mind, fine dining is still dominated by French, Italian, Spanish. And, perhaps a bit more recent – Japanese. (And that this addition probably has more to do the technological and economic position of Japan in the world…can’t focus on that today; too much of a digression. Maybe in the future.) In general, Eurocentric, and specifically western European culinary traditions – most notably French and Italian and Spanish still have a much larger presence in upscale restaurants than those specializing in cuisines from Asia, Latin America, Africa.

Well ok, what, then, defines fine dining? It has to be a great deal more than well-cooked food made with fresh ingredients and plated cleanly and creatively. Because if it was just that, it wouldn’t be that cuisines from only certain cultures are considered “fine” enough to constitute “fine dining,” would it? So moving beyond simply good food, then, if I try to define fine dining… I associate the term with expensive food, white tablecloths, really fancy décor, and most definitely formality. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “a style of eating that usually takes place in expensive restaurants, where especially good food is served to people, often in a formal way.” Hmm. Especially good food? How on earth does one define that? I have eaten especially, even exceptionally good Chinese food, Thai food, Indian food…and these cuisines are not typically associated with the phrase fine dining. Don’t get me wrong – I’m certainly not saying it never happens. But a fine dining Chinese or Indian restaurant is rarer than a Spanish or French restaurant. Right?

Moving away from the basic definition, I also think of fine dining restaurants as places where one can’t be oneself. Or at least, where I can’t be myself. Maybe it’s just me. (But I really don’t think so.) Grant Achatz, an American chef, and a giant in the international culinary world, said of his restaurant Alinea, a three-Michelin star restaurant, and one that has been in the World’s 50 best list, that one of the dishes his customers respond most to is an edible helium-filled balloon. Why is it so popular? Because it makes all guests giggle, whether they are 8 or 80. To which he added (in an episode of Netflix’s The Final Table), guests “giggle in a 3-Michelin-Star restaurant.” So is giggling frowned upon, then? One of the unspoken rules of conduct in fine dining establishments? Ah. Now you have it – rules. But whose rules? Who makes these (unstated?) rules?

I have, in past posts, written about linguistic, sociolinguistic, pragmatic rules that speakers of English (have to) follow. I have questioned why these rules are still those put forth by a very specific and small proportion of the (largely western) English-speaking populations of the world. And now, I am questioning why a very similar population controls the rules of the culinary world, too. 

A bit more on definition… increasingly, it seems that a lot of what I also associate with fine dining is the use of certain techniques aided by science. Molecular gastronomy. The use of science to transform food. Creating foams, liquifying foods that don’t exist as liquids and then spherifying them, making powders out of oils….things I simply cannot wrap my head around. Techniques pioneered by Spanish Ferran Adria, and today, used by chefs like Spanish Jose Andres, American Grant Achatz, and American Wylie Dufresne to name just three, chefs who pride themselves on accomplishing the impossible. And for whom this pushing of boundaries is a prerequisite to culinary greatness.

Where am I going with this?

So the idea for this particular post has been brewing in me for several months now. I thought about it first as I was watching an episode of Netflix’s Chef’s Table Season 6. This particular episode featured a Turkish chef, Musa Dagdeviren and his restaurant Çiya, in Istanbul. I loved this episode and the chef because his focus was to keep Turkish cultures and traditions alive. And to this end, he traveled the lengths and breadths of the country, learned about regional foods and wrote a book – The Turkish Cookbook: The Culinary Traditions and Recipes from Turkey.  Wow. How I’d love to do this in India. Maybe someday.

But there was a lot more than the result… his ideas and thoughts intrigued me, mostly because they seemed so contradictory. Early in the episode, he described how, when he first opened Çiya, it was a kebab restaurant.  And he found that kebabs weren’t considered “cultured” – he described how disturbed he was that foods were considered “cultured” or “uncultured,” and he sought to change this. And prior to his travels, change it, he did, he claimed. How? I started playing classical music, he said, so people were eating kebabs and listening to Chopin or Carmina Burana. Huh?? So western classical music makes a food more cultured. Well then.

Today, culinary school curricula, even in countries like Turkey, are still dictated by the rules put forth by Auguste Escoffier, Paul Bocuse and their ilk…one can’t not learn to make the French mother sauces, of course, because French cooking is the basis of all good cooking. Even if you don’t learn traditions and techniques practiced for centuries in your own country. And while Musa Dagdeviren was quick to express his fairly strong disgruntlement with this, he still felt that playing western classical music would class up his establishment.

And watching this episode took me back to an episode I had watched a couple of years earlier, on season 2. This one featured an Indian chef, Gaggan Anand, who owns Gaggan, a restaurant in Bangkok, which was declared the best restaurant in the Asia’s Best 50 list in 2015. The first time I watched this episode, I admit, I simply celebrated Gaggan Anand’s success; boy from very poor family in Calcutta makes it in the international culinary arena – and (seemingly) succeeds in getting Indian cuisine recognized to the world of fine dining, something he was always told could never happen. Yay. But watching the episode with Musa Dagdeviren prompted me to re-watch Gaggan Anand. And I was much less sympathetic.

Indian chefs have not excelled in the international arena, Anand said, because they have never moved away from Indian food being comfort food. Hmmm. So comfort food cannot be fine dining. Another of those rules? How, then, did Gaggan Anand make it?

And this is where I am going with this post.

Gaggan Anand decided to apply to El Bulli (Ferran Adria’s restaurant; declared the best restaurant in the world 5 times) to be an apprentice and study under Ferran Adria. And apprentice, he did, and brought back Adria’s molecular gastronomy techniques to his own restaurant in Bangkok. So out went the chicken tikka masala (nothing at all wrong with chucking that out), in came the edible plastic bags, Indian fois gras, and spherified yoghurt – a la Adria’s spherified olives. And for Anand, his yoghurt spheres became the symbol of what he called progressive Indian cuisine.

And recognized he was. It was after this that his restaurant was #1 in Asia’s top 50.

Hmmm. Is it a lack of generosity on my part to wonder why he won? Did Gaggan Anand climb to the upper echelons of the food world and win accolades because of his flavors? Because he does Indian food really well?  But in his own words, he “destroyed” Indian food. And don’t get me wrong, if he “destroyed” Indian food simply because he wanted to, simply because he wanted to explore the world of molecular gastronomy, to convert his kitchen into a chemistry lab, super. More power to him.

But was it because he thought he should simply because that would provide him entry into the world of haute cuisine, to the normative Euro-American centers of high-end cuisine…well…that’s a different point, isn’t it?

So did he win because he conformed? He followed the rules set forth by existing culinary giants, most of whom, even today, remain European and American. Following European culinary traditions. Even Bourdain, who, as you know, in my book, had no faults, said that any chef worth his or her salt needed to know how to make an omelet.  Because of course, there is only ONE right way to make one. The French way.  And one cannot deviate.

Ironic, isn’t it, that the rules come from cultures that prize creativity and individuality so highly? The road, seemingly, cannot be the one less travelled. Or at least that’s the message people from the periphery hear. The center dictates. The periphery follows.

The recipe for today, then. Something I associate with fine dining is things that are stuffed. Don’t know when or how this started – maybe when I started watching food TV years and years ago when I was a graduate student, and saw that things like stuffed quail were considered fancy. Now I have no idea if stuffed foods are still considered classy, nor do I care.  But for fun, I thought I would give you a recipe for something stuffed today – stuffed peppers.

When I first moved to the US, and was invited to my first Thanksgiving, I wanted to contribute some Indian flavors to the feast. I made stuffed peppers – a recipe my mum made up when I was a kid, and one that has undergone many, many iterations in my household. I usually use bell peppers, but have also experimented with many other kinds – whatever is available. When I was in Frankfurt over the summer, one of the most incredible vegs available was these long, sweet red peppers. No idea what they are, but oh goodness, they were delicious. So I decided to do my Indian stuffed pepper recipe with them. They were a total hit – even my little boy enjoyed them.

I have provided a picture of the peppers I used, but if you don’t have access to them, use bell peppers instead – either green, or if you want a slightly mellower, sweet result, red.

---

Stuffed Red Peppers

Ingredients (serves 4; vegan; vegetarian; gluten-free)

For the stuffed peppers:

1.     5 or 6 large red chillies cut into two and de-seeded OR 3 red bell peppers halved and de-seeded

2.     2 cups of mashed potatoes

3.     ½ cup very finely chopped onions

4.     1 tsp finely chopped garlic

5.     1 tsp finely chopped ginger

6.     1 tsp salt

7.     ½ cup finely chopped cilantro

8.     1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder

9.     1 Tbsp fresh lime juice

10.  1 Tbsp vegetable oil

For the sauce:

11.  ¾ cup finely chopped onion

12.  1 tsp garlic, finely chopped

13.  1 tsp ginger, finely chopped

14.  2 cups finely chopped tomatoes

15.  ½ tsp turmeric

16.  1 Tbsp ground coriander seed

17.  1 tsp fennel seed

18.  1 tsp cumin seed

19.  2 Tbsp oil

20.  1 tsp salt

21.  1 tsp sugar

22.  ½ cup water

23.  Fresh coriander to garnish

Method:

1.     Prepare the peppers. For bell peppers, cut them into two halves, and de-seed them. If you are using a long red chilli, there are two ways to prep them. You can slit them down the middle of one side in such a way that you don’t cut it into two. What you want is a whole chilli with a slit down the middle through which you can stuff it. Alternatively, you can cut off the top part of the chilli, de-seed it, and then cut it in the middle to give you two pieces. The bottom of the chilli will be roughly cone-shaped. The top half will be tube-shaped. Both halves can be stuffed.

2.     Mix all the ingredients (ingredients 2-9 above) for the stuffing together, and stuff the chillies. Be careful not to overstuff them because the stuffing expands on cooking.

3.     Heat the 1 Tbsp vegetable oil in a skillet till very hot. Put in the stuffed peppers and allow the skins to blister a bit. Now turn the heat down, put a lid on the skillet, and cook the peppers for about 5minutes, turning them over once or twice in between. At the end of 5 minutes, the peppers should be about 50% cooked.

4.     Make the sauce. Heat the 2 Tbsp oil in a skillet, add the cumin seeds, fennel seeds, and turmeric.

5.     When the seeds have sizzled a bit, add in the finely chopped onions, garlic, and ginger and cook for about 7 minutes on medium till the onions are translucent. Don’t brown them – this changes the taste.

6.     Next add in the chopped tomatoes and salt. Cook with a lid on for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cook till the tomatoes are good and soft and the oil has begun to separate.

7.     Now add the sugar, ground coriander, and ½ cup of water. Cook for another 10 minutes.

8.     Put the stuffed and browned peppers into the sauce, turn the heat down to low, and cook the peppers in the sauce with a lid on for about 10 mintues – till the peppers are as tender as you like them.

9.     Take off the heat and garnish with fresh chopped coriander.

10.  Eat with a rice or bread of your choice – or plain. They make a lovely meal all on their own!