Food by Any Other Name…

Italy, for me, is a wonderful country for many reasons:
The language. The food. The people. My friends. My family in Florence.

Italy, for my sister, means one thing:
The birthplace of tiramisu.

On vacation there last week, she first checked the back of the menu in the restaurants to check. Phew! We could stay. She ate it every day…as in every single day. The day she didn’t, she compensated by eating tiramisu gelato.

And she thinks I am über-addicted to stuff.

Don’t get me wrong – I love it as well, but not as much as I love the meaning. From tira + mi + su = pick me up or draw me up. Reference being to the sponge cake sucking up the rum, the coffee giving one a little pick-me-up or the best one yet – eat it and you are transported straight up to heaven. Surely my sister will agree - though it would’ve been better to pull her back down to earth to try something else for a change.

The Turkish people have their own version of a dish purported to send you straight to heaven, or at least faint, presumably from sheer gastronomic delight: Imam Byildi - the Imam fainted. While it didn’t exactly have me keeling over, I do admit to it being on par with melanzana parmigiana. (Hopefully this will not get me into trouble with my Italian friends). They are pretty creative with names in that country. While I was there, I decided to stay away from the kadinbudu kofte, not exactly thrilled with the idea of biting into something that translated as ‘woman’s thighs’. Gives ladies’ fingers (okra) a run for their name.

Back in Italy, given the recent abuses of the church, it was with pleasure that I ordered strozzaprete or priest stranglers. Years ago, it was common practice to let priests eat for free in restaurants and homes.

According to the story, some restaurateurs wished that the “freeloaders” would choke on the pasta course before they could get to the more expensive meat and fish courses and so they rolled the pasta into a shape that might get lodged in the priest’s throat. Hmmm… too bad I am a pacifist - would’ve dearly loved to invite some of the folks down at Channel 11 to come over for dinner, temporarily forgetting how to carry out the Heimlich Maneuver.

Italians of course have always been creative (and prolific) with their pasta names - all 600 of them. Identifying them is fun. I love ‘radiatore’ (radiators) and ‘mostiaccioli’ (little mustaches) and gemelli (little twins) and torchietti (little torches). Someone had a lot of time on their hands.

The names are one thing. Try identifying them. Any idiot can tell the difference between fusilli and rotini. And just when you can tell spaghetti from bucatini (the latter is hollow), along comes perciatelli. Before you start scoffing, try telling agnoloti apart from mezzelune, or cavatelli from orecchiette. I made a fool out of myself when I pointed to a dish and asked for the penne. Turned out to be garganelli. Duh! They could’ve fooled me. Of course, if it does turn out to be penne, you have to be careful they are not pennette (small penne) or pennoni (big penne) – the same with spaghetti/spaghettini/spaghettoni.

I also make ‘confusione’ with farfallini and tripolini or “little bows”. One is little butterflies and the other was named to honor the Italian conquest of Tripoli in Libya.

Talking about conquests, there is the historical apocryphal story of the croissant roll being made in the shape of the crescent of the Turkish flag, after the defeat of the Turks in the Siege of Vienna in 1683. Recipes for croissants do not appear in recipe books until the early 1900s and the earliest French reference is in 1853.

Some words are unfortunate enough to just sound disgusting. Take ‘barfi’ for example. To Indians it connotes a wonderful milky dessert. My kids refused to touch it – saying they felt like adding an ‘ng’ behind the word. My husband begs to disagree, and given half the chance (which he isn’t, thanks to the statin he has to slug every day) would eat gobs of the stuff, which is sweet enough to curdle your teeth. The Asian dish ‘lumpia’ is another word that has you imagining a clump of unappetizing goo staring back you at from a plate with a disconsolate “Are you going to eat me or what?”

And how would you like to eat razor clams? Arrghh! I clutch my throat in pain.

Go down the alphabet and you have a veritable salmagundi of unappetizing-sounding names: scrod and sprat and squab – the first two being fish and the last one being ‘young pigeon’ – who could be so heartless as to eat a baby bird that hasn’t even been given a chance to fly? Probably the same swines who eat shark fin soup.

If you are not already on your way to heave, allow me to continue. Raise your hand if you love eating a goblin’s fart…that’s pumpernickel for you. How about devil’s dung (duivelsdrek in Afrikaans) – that’s the name for asafetida ('hing' in Indian English) because that’s what it smells like.

Ok. I will stop now. I could go on, but I have to go get me some of that Trader Joe’s tiramisu from the freezer. In honor of my sister.

Don’t fly with me, Maharaja.

Three hundred dollars can buy a lot of things.


An espresso machine.
A Magnum of Cristal Brut Champagne.
Front row seats to a ball game.


Most of all it could have bought me a ticket on Emirates, $ 300 being the difference between Heaven and Hell. Heaven being Emirates - one of the World’s Best Airlines and Air India – one of the World’s Worst (as deemed by anyone, yes, anyone, who has flown on this chromium piece of crap).


But frugality being encoded in a Gujju’s DNA, I opted to hit the Select button for Air India instead.


I think back often to that moment…the finger hovering over the Select button and wish instead I could press a Rewind Button. The trip was like a bad movie, except this one lasted much longer and involved delays, surly, unprofessional and past their expiration-date flight attendants - conditions akin to what the slaves faced on the Amistad. At least those poor bastards had the option of jumping overboard – we didn’t.


My first mistake was thinking that Air India had a website. Ok. A website that worked. The sign “System busy…please try again later” flashed the first fifty times I tried. Well, alrighty then. I would call. To my surprise, I got connected…on the very same day! I put it on speakerphone and soon the soothing sitar music lullabied me into a deep sleep. An hour into my refreshing nap, I woke up to hear an irritable Hullo? Hullo? I explained I was trying to do an e-check-in. He quasi-snorted and informed me in a huff that it rarely worked and would “Madam pliss go to airport itself and check in then only”. By now, any restful gains made by the nap had evaporated and I barked that even ghoda-gadis had an echeckin that worked.


Fast-forward to airport.


Our second mistake was showing up on time for the 2.30pm flight. Of course it was delayed. There were no signs to tell us this – Air India passengers rely on word of mouth to keep others up to date. We stood in line, politely, because that was what basic protocol demands, but quickly figured out that nice guys finish last. Pretty soon, we were shoving and pushing like the best of them, and when glaring had no effect, resorted to yelling and cussing. Finally reached the counter and a surly, unsmiling clerk labeled our luggage. Not wanting my bags to be sent to Yemen, I kept my cool and even managed a Thank you.


We proceeded past Customs and Immigration, where the havaldar exacted his petty power-play and held us back in line for twenty minutes while he picked at his teeth and cleaned his ear with the same finger. Ushering us through security, we dutifully removed our shoes and belts, grateful not to be made to remove our underwear, no thanks to the Christmas Nigerian bomber.


Like almost every monument in Bombay, the airport is also named after Chhatrapati Shivaji – the Maratha’s one claim to fame. It was a pleasant surprise: polished floors, clean bathrooms and carts with wheels in the same direction - although I did wonder how it managed to be named Best Airport in India, because, according to FlightStats, only 50 percent of its flights arrived on time.

In Servitude

While my husband and I heaved the suitcases out of the trunk of the car (note: by ourselves), our three-year old ran into the house, excited to be back home from an India-vacation.


Checking each room, she came back with a puzzled expression on her face.


“Where are our servants, mama?”


I sat her down, gently placed two hands on her shoulders and replied: “You’re looking at them, kid.”


One of the toughest situations I had to face after getting married and moving to the States was the ‘No Servant’ deal. I do not remember signing up for the position of scullery maid. What I do remember is getting married to a guy in sixteen days…to someone I never met before in my life. No big deal. Moving my life to a new country forever. Piece of cake. Leaving my family behind – it would be painful, but doable.


But, no servants? Fuggedaboutit!


I had questions:
Did I had to make my own coffee in the morning? Who would squeeze the oranges for my juice? Use a vacuum cleaner? Who would make a garam rotlis and shaak for lunch and serve it on a thali? Who would dust the furniture and mop the grungy floors? And did people in the States really iron their own clothes?


To which I gave my own answers: Yes, me, me, me, me and yes.


There would be no dhobi to wash and iron the clothes. No vasanwali to wash the dirty dishes. No one to make lunch. Nor dinner. In fact, no cook. Would I really have to make my own food? Um, slight problem there. I did not know how. Never made a cup of coffee. Not even washed a dish. In fact, never lit a stove in 28 years.


To my credit, I had taken a Tarla Dalal class in the 70s, but the only memory I have left of it is a file full of recipes. And she never taught us how to light a stove anyway.