Unity in (Bread) Diversity!
If you were following my Instagram yesterday, you might know that it was Indian Breads Day - a day to celebrate the diversity of breads and bread-like dishes from the Indian Subcontinent.
Indian Breads Day is a part of an annual calendar of Indian Food Observance Days initiated by food chronicler Rushina. Much like the celebration of various global foods on specific days through the year (World Chocolate Day on July 7th, International Coffee Day on October 1st..), these Indian Food Observance Days or IFOD are specific days earmarked to indulge in, appreciate, share, and feel proud of various Indian foods.
To celebrate Indian Breads Day, APB Cook Studio (where I work) planned a whole day of events. It began with a chat between Rushina, Saee Koranne-Khandekar, author of Crumbs (the ONLY book you'll need to learn to bake bread), and Ruchi Shrivastava, an encyclopaedia on Indian food culture, and the brain behind food shows like Northern Flavours and Curries of India. The three spoke about the word "bread", and how in an Indian context it is used to loosely define a wide variety of items. They discussed taste and texture, ingredients and techniques, history and memories.
Following this discussion, we hosted and streamed series of live demonstrations of bread recipes from around the country!
Rhea Mitra-Dalal of Euphorhea Kitchen shared a recipe for the most delicious luchis stuffed with fresh green peas, called Koraishutir Kochuri, while giving us all a lesson on Bengali pronunciations (it's koh-chu-ree, not kah-cho-ree)!
Saee shared a recipe for Goan Poee, talking about how traditional poees have a distinct flavour - the sourness of slow fermentation with the sweetness of coconut sugar - because they are made using Coconut Toddy instead of instant yeast.
Chef Varun Inamdar made Bijapuri Chonge (pronnounced tsongé), a bread of the Konkani Muslim communities in Karnataka and Maharashtra. Slow roasted and then pinched to form a beautiful spiral pattern (similar to Rajasthani Koba roti), it is steeped in jaggery syrup and topped with fennel powder, dry ginger powder, coconut and poppy seeds. Beautiful to look at and oh, so indulgent!
Ruchi demonstrated the recipe of Bafla from the Malwa region, and cousin of the Rajastani Bati and Bihari Litti. Among the few Indian breads that are first blanched and then baked (sort of like a bagel is done), it is then crushed and soaked in deliciously copious amounts of ghee!
Shekhar the Baker, APB Cook Studio's resident bread expert, showed us his recipe for Sheermal. Shortened with ghee and hydrated with milk, he describes it very aptly as a cross between bread and cake!
And then finally I demonstrated a recipe that falls somewhere between a bread and a dumpling, one of my favourite things to make during my family's annual festive lunch during Ganpati pooja - Khotte Idli - a grainy idli cooked in a bowl made of jackfruit leaves.
The day's celebrations ended in a party, a potluck of Indian Breads! About 20 of us gathered in the studio, each with one unique bread from our family or community's repertoire. The kitchen was buzzing with people heating up their breads, dishing out the sauces and chutneys that accompanied. And finally we laid the table and sat down to break bread.
First there was silence, as everyone began to eat. Then there were exclamations as people experienced tastes that were new and novel to them. And then there was chatter as they began to ask each other the names, the recipes and the stories ones they loved the most.
I don't think I have ever seen that many different breads, from different cuisines and communities across India, all on one table!
And the gathering of people to experience and exchange each other's culture through food - I think that was my favourite part of the day. And one of the most powerful outcomes of the Indian Food Observance Days in general.
A few years ago, when I had only just begun to understand that food can be political, I attended the screening of a documentary film titled 'Stir, Fry, Simmer', which explores the interaction of food and identity. It examines (as written in the synopsis) "our own kitchen - the place we discover 'our' food and ways, where indeed, our taste buds learn to flower to the familiar", and questions, "But is this precisely where we also cook up what is not ours..."
What struck me the most after watching the film, is the power of food, like any other facet of identity, to divide people. It illustrated how for centuries in India, eating habits and food culture have been a basis for division.
But on the flip side, I believe it is the same quality of food that can also bring people together. By experiencing the food of others, we can better appreciate each other. And yesterdays's celebrations of #IndianBreadsDay, where people from various communities came together to celebrate culinary diversity, only reinstated this belief.
Indian Breads Day is a part of an annual calendar of Indian Food Observance Days initiated by food chronicler Rushina. Much like the celebration of various global foods on specific days through the year (World Chocolate Day on July 7th, International Coffee Day on October 1st..), these Indian Food Observance Days or IFOD are specific days earmarked to indulge in, appreciate, share, and feel proud of various Indian foods.
To celebrate Indian Breads Day, APB Cook Studio (where I work) planned a whole day of events. It began with a chat between Rushina, Saee Koranne-Khandekar, author of Crumbs (the ONLY book you'll need to learn to bake bread), and Ruchi Shrivastava, an encyclopaedia on Indian food culture, and the brain behind food shows like Northern Flavours and Curries of India. The three spoke about the word "bread", and how in an Indian context it is used to loosely define a wide variety of items. They discussed taste and texture, ingredients and techniques, history and memories.
Following this discussion, we hosted and streamed series of live demonstrations of bread recipes from around the country!
Rhea Mitra-Dalal of Euphorhea Kitchen shared a recipe for the most delicious luchis stuffed with fresh green peas, called Koraishutir Kochuri, while giving us all a lesson on Bengali pronunciations (it's koh-chu-ree, not kah-cho-ree)!
Saee shared a recipe for Goan Poee, talking about how traditional poees have a distinct flavour - the sourness of slow fermentation with the sweetness of coconut sugar - because they are made using Coconut Toddy instead of instant yeast.
Chef Varun Inamdar made Bijapuri Chonge (pronnounced tsongé), a bread of the Konkani Muslim communities in Karnataka and Maharashtra. Slow roasted and then pinched to form a beautiful spiral pattern (similar to Rajasthani Koba roti), it is steeped in jaggery syrup and topped with fennel powder, dry ginger powder, coconut and poppy seeds. Beautiful to look at and oh, so indulgent!
Ruchi demonstrated the recipe of Bafla from the Malwa region, and cousin of the Rajastani Bati and Bihari Litti. Among the few Indian breads that are first blanched and then baked (sort of like a bagel is done), it is then crushed and soaked in deliciously copious amounts of ghee!
Shekhar the Baker, APB Cook Studio's resident bread expert, showed us his recipe for Sheermal. Shortened with ghee and hydrated with milk, he describes it very aptly as a cross between bread and cake!
And then finally I demonstrated a recipe that falls somewhere between a bread and a dumpling, one of my favourite things to make during my family's annual festive lunch during Ganpati pooja - Khotte Idli - a grainy idli cooked in a bowl made of jackfruit leaves.
The day's celebrations ended in a party, a potluck of Indian Breads! About 20 of us gathered in the studio, each with one unique bread from our family or community's repertoire. The kitchen was buzzing with people heating up their breads, dishing out the sauces and chutneys that accompanied. And finally we laid the table and sat down to break bread.
 |
| There were at least 25 different breads from around the Indian Subcontinent on that table! |
First there was silence, as everyone began to eat. Then there were exclamations as people experienced tastes that were new and novel to them. And then there was chatter as they began to ask each other the names, the recipes and the stories ones they loved the most.
I don't think I have ever seen that many different breads, from different cuisines and communities across India, all on one table!
And the gathering of people to experience and exchange each other's culture through food - I think that was my favourite part of the day. And one of the most powerful outcomes of the Indian Food Observance Days in general.
A few years ago, when I had only just begun to understand that food can be political, I attended the screening of a documentary film titled 'Stir, Fry, Simmer', which explores the interaction of food and identity. It examines (as written in the synopsis) "our own kitchen - the place we discover 'our' food and ways, where indeed, our taste buds learn to flower to the familiar", and questions, "But is this precisely where we also cook up what is not ours..."
What struck me the most after watching the film, is the power of food, like any other facet of identity, to divide people. It illustrated how for centuries in India, eating habits and food culture have been a basis for division.
But on the flip side, I believe it is the same quality of food that can also bring people together. By experiencing the food of others, we can better appreciate each other. And yesterdays's celebrations of #IndianBreadsDay, where people from various communities came together to celebrate culinary diversity, only reinstated this belief.
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