Jenni

Looks like you were served pav bhaji. This doesn't usually contain tamarind or dates, at least I have never eaten a pav bhaji that did. The dish is made up of pav (the bread) served with a mashed veg dish containing potatoes, tomatoes, and other veg. The bhaji can sometimes be quite sloppy, as your looks. It's usually served with raw chopped onions, fresh coriander and lemon slices. The bread is toasted with plenty of butter. The proper way to make the bhaji and toast the bread is on a large tawa. Lots of butter is used! By the way bisi bele bath is quite a soft, moist dish so what you had sounds right. It is rice cooked with dal, veg, tamarind and a blend of spices. Made properly, it is excellent.

I have never grown or eaten a giant pumpkin, so I don't know how helpful this will be, but when my Dad grew some winter squash last year that didn't taste particularly amazing, we pickled them. The ingredients are very simple: spices, salt and mustard oil. If you are interested I have the recipe some where and can dig it out.

I don't want you to think I'm just nitpicking and disagreeing with you, but there's something I want to pick up on here. I think it would be incorrect to think that children have unspoiled taste by the time they are choosing a box of Mac 'n' cheese over home-made. I think your tastes are very dependent on what you are brought up on, and this can change even when you are a child. I was brought up with "proper" home made food, not pre-prepared kid food like fish fingers and chips and so on. We just ate smaller portions of what Mum and Dad were having, and in restaurants even we never ate off the childrens' menu. Consequently, when I went to other childrens' houses and was served fish fingers, chicken nuggets, etc. out of a packet I was not a fan. Because it was not something I was used to eating as a treat, quite frankly it didn't compare with Mum's homemade. I think children are very influenced by what they see their friends eating, what they think they should be eating (I've worked as a lunch supervisor at a school and I can tell you now that a lot of kids will refuse to eat things in their lunchbox that are unusual or considered more healthy when at school but when you tell their parents they are totally confused, as the child will eat this at home...e.g. not in front of their peers who are munching on dairylea lunchables and other crap), what they see advertised, etc. If they are brought up in an environment where Mum or Dad doesn't have time to argue and buys them whatever box they point at in the shops, or where Mum and Dad think that a child will find something out of a box to be a treat and therefore regularly buys it, then I think a child will get used to it and accept it as good food. In summary, to me it seems clear that children often like something based on the perception, so for instance a certain brand of fish fingers might be a cool, fun food with a funny advert. Their friends eat it, it wouldn't be considered weird. Home-made stuff can be "weird". Mac 'n' cheese from a box might have it's own connotations. But if you made your own and served it to them without explicitly stating where it was from (box or your own larder), will the child actually notice or mind? I don't think they would in all cases. Maybe some children would, but I think then you could argue that it's not unspoiled tastes at work, but the fact that they have become used to the flavour of processed cheese and again that magical combo of salt-sugar-fat. (Incidentally, on the few times I have tried processed (as in mass-produced, pre-prepared food products - I know the word processed is another problem but you know what I mean!) foods I have found them far too sweet, even savoury items. My thoughts are that over time this sweetness is not only addictive, but becomes the expectation. Therefore a home-made version of the product lacks sweetness and does not meet the expectation, so may not be considered as enjoyable by the regular proccessed food eater.)

Hmm, at the risk of completely humiliating myself, I disagree with this. I would say that McDonalds is less good because it uses poorer quality ingredients and makes large quantities of its products at a time, which are then kept warm before they are consumed (yes, I know they have a set amount of time they can keep the food in the warming bit for, but there's still a waiting period). They are also aiming at a totally different market. The Fat Duck, as an example, is trying to be innovative and creative with food. McDonalds is trying to make fast food that people will come back and buy over and over again, because it's convenient, cheap and hits that fast-food-taste spot. They use the magic sugar-fat-salt combination to make their food appealing, whereas The Fat Duck is trying to change your expectations of taste and the food combinations that you eat. Although the amount of training that a chef has will of course affect their ability to prepare delicious food, I don't think it's the reason that The Fat Duck is "better" than McDonalds...then again you are comparing two very different establishments that aren't really competing with each other anyway.

I think it's a difficult issue. Firstly, different people like different things. Personally, I don't enjoy smokey tastes, and I'm not a huge fan of sweet-tasting roasted vegetables such as peppers, onions, etc. But that doesn't mean that a dish made from these ingredients wouldn't taste good to someone else. And as you mentioned, people can grow to like things, either through repeatedly exposing themself to a flavour or because their tastebuds have changed with age. For instance, I now like olives because I kept forcing myself to eat them until they tasted good, and my brother now likes wine even though when he was younger he hated it. Another factor would be the kind of food you were brought up with - my Nan for instance likes quite soft vegetables as that is how they were always cooked in her house. I think one of the things you are getting at is that a dish made from more "natural", "real" ingredients should taste better than a mass-produced, low quality product. Now, first let's acknowledge that the words "natural", "real", "quality", and even "mass-produced" can trip us up when we use them to describe food, so let's use an example instead. Let's compare a home made burger made from good quality meat, freshly chopped onions, nice pickles, decent bread, etc. with a McDonalds burger. Hey, let's even go further and add home made chips (I'm using this word in the UK sense! So fries for Americans) and compare them to the McD kind. Logic suggests that the former meal should taste better than the latter. Maybe it does to some people. But other people may like the McDonalds version better. Now why is that? Well, there could be a number of factors. If the person in question is a regular McD eater, then maybe they recognise the flavour and it seems familiar and comforting to them. Or maybe they eat a lot of mass produced food in general and the combination of sugar, salt and fat is something they crave, that their taste buds are used to. I remember reading once that this combination of sugar, fat and salt has an almost addictive quality. Perhaps if you eat it regularly your taste buds begin to expect it and you find food containing other flavour profiles less tasty, or even weird tasting. There are other things to consider too. Do people actually think that McDonalds is better than a home-made burger, or is it just more convenient? Less expensive? Less work for them? A fun night out with the kids/ friends. A taste of childhood? Someone might still enjoy eating a McDonalds burger even though they know they can make a "better" burger at home, or buy one from a slightly more upscale restaurant. At the end of the day, I think it's important to realise that what people enjoy eating is up to them. It's a personal thing. You can tell them that it's rubbish, but don't expect them to care or listen or be happy that you think you have the right to tell them that. If you feel guilty about your food preferences, than maybe it's because secretly you know that it's unhealthy or low quality or involves some kind of moral dillema. And then maybe it's time to re-educate your tastebuds - start eating fresh foods cooked from scratch whenever you can. And then maybe that McDonalds burger won't taste so good anymore.

One common way of using habaneros is to put them whole (or with a little needle hole poked in them) in to a dish with a lot of soupy sauce. At the end of cooking, you remove the chilli. This adds flavour and a little heat without blowing anybody's head off. Having said that, I love habaneros and can enjoy their heat and their flavour!

Do something new. Something different. Step outside of your comfort zone. All of these could be accomplished by trying to learn about and experiment with a new cuisine. Thai? Mexican? Chinese? Moroccan? Lebanese? Italian? Peruvian? Why not pick a country that you've always quite admired food-wise (or not - maybe pick a country you know nothing about!). Then pick a region. Then get googling, looking through books, etc. Then post your results in the correct regional forum for us all to drool over!

Bahaha, that's awesome. Now how much of that salad do you think actually gets eaten?

I know many will disagree, but I feel that the large number of pre-chopped veg in the supermarkets and "meal kits" is a bad sign. I feel that soon, people will lose even the basic skills of preparing food like grating a carrot, slicing onion, etc. I know people are busy, but it still makes me sad that they cannot even face chopping up a little veg. Sometimes I get home after a long day, often after cycling for an hour through bad traffic, but I still always cook a fresh meal and I find it relaxing and satisfying. I know not everyone thinks of cooking that way, but I still think that it is not that bad to chop some veg up after work.

^^ I suppose it's because "all-natural" implies they took cream, eggs, sugar, chocolate/fruit/candy and made ice cream straight from that. It implies that the ingredients are pretty much straight and untouched, and then they are turned into ice cream, when in actual fact they are rather processed.

It amuses me that the "best place to eat vegetarian food" is a South Indian restaurant in Delhi, aka North India. If you want the "best" South Indian food (and I agree, it is fabulous for vegetarians) at least find a place in South India!

Pretty much anything on a spoon! Biggest culprits are nutella (the evil spread! Luckily we almost never have it in the house), yoghurt, ghee and pickles.

Over 90% of my weekly shop is veg (and fruit). I buy grains, dals and spices monthly so that's why I'm not counting that. I love vegetables and don't know how people can not eat them! I actually get cravings for spring greens with garlic, courgette in dal, spicy carrot salad, spinach raita, mooli paratha, roasted aubergine chutney, tomatoes with anything...I could go on and on! Veg are my passion and I eat an absolute minimum of two at every meal (including brekkie). I think some of it may be down to the way that Americans and British people traditionally cook their veg: boiled (or nowadays, steamed), with a bit of butter on them if you're lucky. Now that can be a bit bland and boring, especially if you find the taste of some vegetables a bit difficult. But all it takes is a bit of spice or herb or a different method of cooking them and you can make vegetables taste fantastic! A case in point is my favourite spring greens dish. To a little bit of oil add (in this order) cumin, ajwain, asafetida, garlic, and then after the spices are done, greens and salt. Stirfried to whatever texture you prefer. If you're scared of cooking veg any other way but steamed for health reasons, fear not. The small amount of added fat aids absorbtion of fat soluble vitamins, the spices aid digestion, and stirfrying means there is no water (with valuable vitamins in it!) to throw away. Add a bit of seasoning to your veg and suddenly they are tastier, and often more digestable too. So there's nothing to lose and you'll find yourself eating more of them! If you just don't know how to squeeze veg in, try a chutney/ sauce such as this one. Take an aubergine, and roast in an oven till soft. Mash the flesh, peeling if you desire - I don't because I'm a crazy person who likes the texture of the skin (in this case, chop the skin in to small pieces). Heat a little oil in a pan, add mustard seeds and when they pop, green chillies. Then add a couple of tablespoons of tamarind paste (soak a ball of tamarind in hot water for 10 minutes, breaking it up with a spoon near the start of the 10 mins. Then strain through a seive, pushing out as much tamarind as possible but leaving seeds and fibres behind), the aubergine, a little turmeric and salt. Cook for a few minutes, till the tamarind loses its raw taste. And there you have it, a great side dish to many things (rice, idlis, dosas, pongal, upma, sandwiches, crackers, cooked grains of your choice) that is made of a vegetable but you won't even realise it! And the roasting reduces the volume of the aubergine so you can eat loads without thinking about the fact you've just eaten a portion of veg. There's loads of other ways to eat veg: I put them in dal, I eat them in raita, a grate or chop them for spicy salads, I add them to rice or other grains, I make them into sauces or chutnies, I cook them on their own (with spices, of course ), I cook them in combination, I whip them into pancakes, I steam them in idlis or dumplings, I add them to flatbreads... I love to show other people how to love veg too. An example would be my Mum, who used to hate cauliflower because she had only ever eaten home-grown cauliflower in an enforced way (they ate what they grew...that was all the veg they had to eat), boiled (with added caterpillars sometimes ) and was sick of the flavour. So I tried making a little dal with cauli in it...she kinda liked it, said the dal was like a nice sauce that made the cauliflower taste nicer. Then I made a cauliflower-stuffed paratha...she liked that too, almost not like eating veg at all but you just got a little flavour and texture. Finally, I was cooking cauliflower "on it's own" (aka with a little spices popped in oil and some ground spices too)....and she liked that! Success! So eat veg, love veg and be happy guys. Vegetables and fruit aren't a punishment, they are a delicious group of foods with enormous possibility!

Some people do heat the oil to smoking point to make it less pungent, but there are plenty of people who would look at you aghast if you suggested that! The oil is even sometimes used completely raw, added to a dish at the end, when extra pungency is desired. I use mustard oil in most of my pickles, raw in a bengali mashed potato dish and cooked (but not heated to smoking point) in many vegetable dishes. I have never had a problems with it, and I like the pungency.

You should really try it with the mustard oil and the panch pooran. The mustard oil gives it a lovely kick, and the panch pooran has a great flavour that goes brilliantly with it. [Please note that many panch poorans in the shops these days have mustard seeds instead of radhuni, which is why I mentioned panch pooran popping in the recipe I gave]

^^ I have not really ever eaten ful mudammas as a small dish or dip - it's more of a hearty dish.

With some of these things, do you think that the actual product may have changed? Certainly I think more sugar, salt and other things are added to foods now, so perhaps that's why things people remember liking now taste too sweet or otherwise unpleasent.

Actually, the figure seems low to me, but then I am going by my experiences in the UK. I would estimate that most people at my place of work eat a sandwhich every working day. I of course exclude myself from this - I have never liked sandwhiches and usually take some rice dish to work.

Hi Dan, your message is old but no-one seems to have quite replied with what you wanted, so I thought I would answer anyway. 'The Turmeric Trail' by Raghavan Iyer has a chapter on Mumbai street snacks. It includes recipes for snacks such as pani puri, various bhel dishes, ragda patties, pav bhaji, vada pav and others. There is also another chapter on general snacks, with recipes for various pakoras amongst other things. What I would say though is that I have yet to find a recipe book with chaat and snack recipes that really capture the taste of the actual street versions of the dish. Recipes are good to start from, but I highly reccomend spending some time (selflessly) trying the dishes you want to recreate on the street. You should be able to watch the vendor making them, and this will help you, as will tasting the dish repeatedly. Then you can go home and use the basics you have learnt from the written recipe and tweak it to match what you saw and tasted on the street. Does that make sense?

I love breakfast, because I love eating (and cooking). And I'm always ready for it, because I get up at 5am to do yoga, study and make my lunch for the day. I make a proper hot breakfast (idli-sambar, upma, pongal, chapatti-veg, etc.) and a cup of tea, which I eat around 7am, and then I'm ready to leave the house around 7.30am to cycle to work. I think I would collapse through weakness if I didn't eat breakfast! I guess if you wake up, shower and then drive to work, you probably are not that hungry for breakfast. But trust me, if you get up early and do loads of stuff, and then you know you're about to cycle, you WILL feel like eating something!

One of my fav ways of cooking broccoli is this: Heat some mustard oil and add a teaspoon or two (depending on how much broccoli you are cooking) of panch pooran and some dried red chillies. When the mustard seeds start to pop, add a little asafetida and then add the broccoli and salt to taste. Stir and fry until tender. You can also add garlic with the asafetida for a nice variation.

[Please note that my English approximations in brackets are just to give you some idea of what the dish is!] In Mumbai you must eat vada pav (a sort of "burger" with a fried potato ball inside), pav bhaji )a spicy vegetable mash served with toasted and buttered bun - this is a bad description, but it is totally delicious) and bhel puri (spicy puffed rice mix) from street side food vendor. My recommendation would be to look out for places with a crowd, as then you know it's good. In terms of general Maharashtrian things to try, personally I would say to make sure you eat poha (flattened rice), sabudana khichari (sago cooked with peanuts in a dry pilaf-type dish), sabudana vada {sago fritter), usal (sprouted bean dish) and pithle/zunka (both gram flour dishes - one is more solid than the other, but they are both great with bhakri). If you can try bhakri (an unleavened bread, more coarse and rural than chapatti), you will be eating some really traditional rural food. Sweet wise, don't miss shrikhand (strained and sweetened yoghurt) and puran poli (sweet stuffed bread). Gola (I believe the US has something similar called a snowcone, except gola is compacted ice on a stick rather than shaved ice in a cone) is a great cooling snack, but I don't know if your tummy will be up to the ice.

We only buy asparagus when it's local-ish (as in from the South west of the UK...occasionally we do go slightly further away in the UK, but never abroad) and in season. Our local farm shop grows their own. As a family we prefer the thicker stems, which we never peel and have never find to be stringy or unpleasent. The thinner stems have tended to be less flavoursome. The best asapargus I have ever had was in a tapas bar in Lyme Regis, of all places! The asparagus was locally grown, really thick and succulent and served with lashings of melted butter. Mmmmmmmm....

Ratanjot is known in English as alkanet. I did a quick look in a herbal and could not find any cautions against pregnant women using it, but you may want to check with your doctor. In terms of how much you will need for a dish, I don't think you will need a huge amount. Do you have pieces of the root or powder? I'm thinking no more than 1/2-1 teaspoon of the powder for a kilo of meat, but I would recommend googling some recipes. Remember that kashmiri chillies also contribute to the strong red colouring. These chillies make a powder that is more like paprika than chilli powder and have a bright red colour.

To a religious person I think that's like saying "Well, if you don't agree with your parents then why did you choose them?" No it isn't. Anyway, I promise this will be my last post in this discussion!