8 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:
I, for one, would love to learn more about Nepalese curry and cuisine.
I like it, but I wouldn't even think of cooking it! Not that it is necessarily too complicated.
It's very different to the cooking in Kerala. Much much less heat, with subtle and mysterious notes. They use bitterness more, and sourness. They use fermentation- the pickles are different. The use of mustard oil. Asafetida is much more prominent, and also fenugreek. There are jars of herbs and spices, possibly lichen, that I can't identify in MiL's cupboard. Castrated goat curry, mo:mo, choila, barbecued wild boar... these are a few of my favourite things.
It's very far from a homogenous Nepalese culture and cuisine. My wife's family are from Kathmandu, and within that, they belong to the Newar community who have their own language, customs and cuisine.
As they tell it*, in a traditional extended family the younger women (daughters in law) would each take turns cooking and skivvying for a week before that fell to the next unfortunate in the rota. My dear mother in law refused learn to cook as a child, saying she did not need to: she would employ a cook as she was going to be a doctor. Indeed she became a doctor, and married another. Ironically she ended up in England with no maid and no cook, while her sisters all married into wealth and stayed in Nepal with live-in servants and cooks. Funny how things turn out.
*Caveat lector. "They say..." What do I know?
