Walking towards curry leaves
This is what happened when I went produce shopping so that I could make dinner.
I walked up and then down the big road nearest to where we are staying. I want to be specific. But on Google it's not clear what this road is called. Where I met it, it's Chengam Road. A bit up from there, it's Tiruvannamalai Road. A bit down from where it's Chengam Road, it's Mangalore - Villupuram Road. And it's probably just best to ask someone.
I walked along this road until I saw a sprawling fruit and vegetables stand across the road under large trees and an evening sky. With some anxiety I crossed the busy road.
The woman running the stall had short wavy hair. I am seeing more women with short hair, I think, here in Tamil Nadu. I thought her tomatoes were overpriced when she told me they were 100 rupees per kilo. There were bright orange papayas to my left that looked riper than the one I'd already bought elsewhere, so I took one of those as well. That was 200 altogether, for a kilo of tomatoes and a big papaya. Then she wanted to know what else I wanted. No, I didn't want ginger (I didn't feel like peeling it). No, maybe tomorrow but not today for the half a pumpkin wrapped in plastic wrap. Genuinely though, maybe tomorrow, pumpkin would be good. No bananas. No to the other thing an older lady was selling in packets beside her. But I did want some coriander, so I got a large bunch with some ropey stalks and some wilty stalks. That was 220 altogether.
She walked out from behind the scale and picked up a bunch of bananas and plucked one off to put in my bag, as if she knew better that I was potassium deficient. Carrots were right beside the weigh scale and a few of those also went into the bag. Along with the coriander a few branches with leaves went into the bag, and I knew enough to know these were curry leaves. Still 220 altogether.
By now I have eaten curry leaves, in sambar, rassam, upma, uttapam. I can't recall eating them before I came to South India. (south India? southern India? Southern India?) Here in Tamil Nadu I have glanced over at other people in the restaurants and messes, looking for evidence that I was supposed to pick them out of my food like bay leaves. I just eat the curry leaves.
When we were in South Africa last month I made the chickpea curry from Rainbow Plant Life. One of the things I didn't have were fresh curry leaves, optional but recommended. I've never possessed curry leaves before. I thought of the big plant in Mum's front garden, but I was pretty sure those were bay leaves, not curry leaves, and I was right. So I used no leaves. The curry was still so good, lick the sides of the pot while cooking good. I made it twice.
We returned to India. I made a little new document in AnyType called "easy Tamil Nadu meals to cook." I was looking for something else in addition to peanut-tomato veggie stew. I've been randomly buying spices but not having a plan for them. We've been toting around cumin seeds and black mustard seeds for months. It occurred to me that I could just use the method from the chickpea curry to make other things. I made a dahl with it in Kanchipuram. A few days later, while being bitten by mosquitos, I made an eggplant and soya chunk stew using the exact same spices and method. After returning from the produce stand with everything I needed to make dinner, I did a dahl again with the same method.
I had forgotten that the curry recipe this method had come from had called for fresh curry leaves. They sat on the branch on the ground while I squatted on the bathing stool that I'd moved to where the stove was, below the front window inside our room.
I had forgotten to ask Gemini what to do with the curry leaves before I started cooking. By the time I remembered I was deep into making what I think is called the masala.
The black mustard seeds and cumin seeds had been tempered in olive oil until the popped and one of them scalded my foot. The onions and garlic had been fried until I got impatient. Then the turmeric, the kashmiri chili powder, the cinnamon, even some uncalled for nutmeg, some coriander and cumin powder had been bloomed. Which is to say, cooked very briefly in the MSR pot, until almost all of it stuck to the pot. I'd added ginger-garlic paste and chopped tomatoes, and a stock cube. I stayed 90% true to the recipe, but not 100%. This is when I added the curry leaves.
The curry leaves weren't tempered, and they didn't look like those in the dishes we've been eating. They looked bigger, and some of them were folded, and all of them looked soggy, and Bell picked a few out of her dish and I didn't hold it against her. I also didn't know what I was supposed to be tasting. A nutty flavour? But our dahl did have curry leaves mixed with the black mustard seeds, which is a texture and sight and mouthfeel that's a daily experience here. In this way this dinner was bringing the outside in, making dinner a bit more like Tamil Nadu from within the featureless comfortable room with no indication of where we are except for the mosquito screening on the windows.
The picture above is on the road of many names just before I crossed the road to meet with the lady at the produce stand.