eG Foodblog: mongo jones - how to lose friends and annoy people

[mongo_jones]

very interesting. i'm still not entirely used to being in the 21st century. when you said your grandfather was in india at the beginning of the last century you threw me for a few seconds. what was he doing in india? was he in the civil services or business?

[bleudauvergne]

What's curry leaves?

[mongo_jones]

um. an aromatic leaf from some tree or the other. originally from south india, i believe (the real experts on indian food will have to step in with details--i'm glad to see that many of them are reading the blog, hopefully they'll keep posting). i'll post a picture once i get 'em. the local grocery gives bunches of it free with purchase to regular customers.

[Pan]

Lucy, you can see a picture of curry leaves here. Curry leaves are delicious and used in lots of South Indian dishes.

[andiesenji]

My grandfather was actually an engineer, and went to India to survey areas for dams, bridges, waterworks, and so on. He did not get on well with the colonial government because he was a trifle outspoken about the conditions he saw and wanted to do something about it. He had inherited wealth so wasn't totally dependent on his job and the from the stories I heard he was not above telling one of the bigwigs where to stick it. His first wife died out there from cholera in 1911 (all his children were in boarding school back in England). As I recall he remained perhaps two more years then went to Egypt where he stayed during the early years of WWI.

He returned to England, hated the climate and decided to emigrate here, where he had visited and traveled extensively in 1897/98.

He was of the privaledged class but hated prejudice in any context, thought segregation was an obscenity and generally was decades ahead of his time in thought. A liberal when liberalism was not even on the horizon.

[bergerka]

excellent. this blog business is paying off immediate dividends. i'll wait for the tyler/rivers sightings to pour in. in the meantime, does anyone in colorado know why every restaurant in boulder is in a strip mall?

For the same reason every restaurant in Phoenix is. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you, and I like your blog too much for that.

K

[Monica Bhide]

What's curry leaves?

Lucy - I did a short piece on curry leaves - you can find the piece and the discussion on it here in the India forum.

[mongo_jones]

My grandfather was actually an engineer, and went to India to survey areas for dams, bridges, waterworks, and so on. He did not get on well with the colonial government because he was a trifle outspoken about the conditions he saw and wanted to do something about it. He had inherited wealth so wasn't totally dependent on his job and the from the stories I heard he was not above telling one of the bigwigs where to stick it. His first wife died out there from cholera in 1911 (all his children were in boarding school back in England). As I recall he remained perhaps two more years then went to Egypt where he stayed during the early years of WWI.

He returned to England, hated the climate and decided to emigrate here, where he had visited and traveled extensively in 1897/98.

He was of the privaledged class but hated prejudice in any context, thought segregation was an obscenity and generally was decades ahead of his time in thought. A liberal when liberalism was not even on the horizon.

ah the royal engineers were an interesting group. was he a graduate of haileybury? i went to a talk last fall by a historian who specializes in the history of colonial engineering. a large part of the british enterprise (with regards to engineering) he argues was the building of large monuments that could compete with the architectural history of the mughals. thus while they built lots of railroads and bridges and dams and so on they also often erected bizarre statuarys and columns in the greek style near them. from what i remember of his talk many of the more interesting engineers were men like your grandfather and didn't get along well with the high colonial bureaucracy.

[mongo_jones]

okay people--i could go forever about the historiography and literature of english colonialism in india but this is supposed to be about food.

lunch today will be a bizarre mish-mash of leftovers. the only new thing i am making is a sweet and sour'ish preparation of mackerel to go along with leftover mushoor dal and some of mrs. jones' korean scraps. this is a dish i improvize anew each time i make it but i won't make claims of originality since i am sure thousands of other people have similarly improvized the same thing. all culture is communally created and should be so attributed. if there is interest i can document the mackerel transformation in digital photographic form.

[katzenjammy]

does anyone in colorado know why every restaurant in boulder is in a strip mall?

I know! I know!

'Cause they tore down the gas station that used to house Dot's Diner and built a foo-foo garden shop/bakery/whatever. The funky old building that used to house KGNU and the Aristocrat Steak House (greasy spoon greek-style diner) is now home to Baby Gap. Where Hannah Kroeger's New Age Foods used to be, there's an up-scale chain clothing store. The Wrangler II (once home of great BBQ ribs) is now Vitamin Cottage. And so on.

The most recent boom time brought a ton of building and renovation to Boulder, especially in the historic/downtown area. Commercial rents skyrocketed, driving a lot of home-grown small businesses out. Dot's lives on -- in a strip mall on 28th Street. And we have The Cheesecake Factory squatting across the street from the groovy deco courthouse on the Pearl Street Mall.

Boulder County Commissioner Paul Danish got it right in 1999:

"The broader truth here is a point Jane Jacobs made in her classic book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities: Basic, beat-up old commercial buildings with affordable rents and short-term leases are the incubators of new business. New commercial buildings and gentrified old ones may look nicer, but new businesses can't afford the rents and long-term leases."

Thus when the much-loved Mountain Sun brewpub opened a new location, they did so in the decaying strip mall in Table Mesa.

___

And while on the subject of Boulder/Why, you might check out Mondo Boulder's Unbridled Dictionary.

[Marlene]

okay people--i could go forever about the historiography and literature of english colonialism in india but this is supposed to be about food.

Yes! Food please!

[hillvalley]

my name is mongo jones and i once selected "revolution #9" three times back-to-back on a jukebox in a los angeles bar. the jukebox was shut off 3 minutes into the second playing. i'm just saying.

number nine number nine number nine number nine number nine

I know absolutely nothing about Indian food, culture, etc. Could you tell us if and how you have combined cultures in Boulder? Do you find you eat more like us Westerners now that you are in middle America?

[mongo_jones]

I know absolutely nothing about Indian food, culture, etc. Could you tell us if and how you have combined cultures in Boulder? Do you find you eat more like us Westerners now that you are in middle America?

i will post long, boring thoughts about some of this after lunch.

in the meantime here's some more pictures for you to look at:

1. pics from our recent trip back to lost angela

2. pics from our trip to india in the winter

[hillvalley]

I know absolutely nothing about Indian food, culture, etc.  Could you tell us if and how you have combined cultures in Boulder?  Do you find you eat more like us Westerners now that you are in middle America?

i will post long, boring thoughts about some of this after lunch.

in the meantime here's some more pictures for you to look at:

1. pics from our recent trip back to lost angela

2. pics from our trip to india in the winter

Excellent. Thank you. Let me know if you want to know anything about Jew food in return.

[mongo_jones]

actually, before i go to start cooking the mackerel, let me throw this out there:

when you think of indian food what do you think of? specific dishes? other associations?

i'm very interested in different people's answers to this general question. there's no right answer of course, but lots of good raw material for us to cook with.

[gingerly]

mmmackerel..i knew it.

swami jones' exotic indian cooking courses. my principle will be that you only need two ingredients: heat and dust. and i'll greet everyone with the traditional splash of cowdung in the face.

heh!

enjoying.

[Pumpkin Lover]

Mongo's got a digital camera. Awwwwww yeeeah. Let's see some of those Indo-American dishes this week, aight?

[mongo_jones]

apparently mrs. jones didn't get the memo about finishing the leftovers for lunch. this is what she's whipped up as fresh banchan (korean side dishes):

1. sauteed fish-cake strips with peppers

2. steamed spiced mung-bean sprouts

(picture blurred by steam and my general ineptitude)

the next aroma in the house will be from mackerel preparation

Edited June 14, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[Pan]

actually, before i go to start cooking the mackerel, let me throw this out there:

when you think of indian food what do you think of? specific dishes? other associations?

I think of North Indian and South Indian food. I think of Madrasi and Malayali vegetarian food - masala dosas, idli, utthapams, aviyal, and in part curry leaves. I think of kebabs, tandoori meats, all kinds of breads - chapatti, naan, kulcha, pooris. I think of brinjal curries. I think of kulfi, ras malai, gulab jamun, that delicious sweet yogurt I get at the Bangladeshi store. I think of the feast of wedding food I had years ago in Srinagar, the fabulous vegetarian breakfast I had in Madras Woodlands in Delhi. I think of biryani and the Restoran Biryani, a middling but hearty establishment once operated by Indian Muslims in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. I think of delicious, un-mucusy okra dishes. I think of oil - especially mustard oil. I think of lassi and masala chai. I think of firni at the Karachi Rice Shop, the defunct restaurant that was on 46 St., the son of whose owner dated my mother once upon a time. Above all, I think of wonderful blends of spices, as reflected in the delicious smells in Indian stores and in well-made Indian dishes at any level of luxury and elaborateness from the humblest street food to the royal dishes with silver and gold foil on them as I used to get at Bangles Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur in the 1970s.

[tryska]

thanks pan. now i'm hungry. and i just ate lunch.

[SobaAddict70]

actually, before i go to start cooking the mackerel, let me throw this out there:

when you think of indian food what do you think of? specific dishes? other associations?

i'm very interested in different people's answers to this general question. there's no right answer of course, but lots of good raw material for us to cook with.

hm, good question.

If you were to ask this question of me in my pre eGullet days, I would have to say bad Indian restaurants on East 6th Street.

Now, it's a bit more diverse... Now, it's anywhere from bad renditions of Northern Indian cuisine to vegetarian specialties to places in Jackson Heights that I miss, to Monica's amazing eGCI courses, to Goan fish curry (especially Goan fish curry!), to Amma, Tabla and Suvir's new place whose name escapes me at the moment.

Specific dishes: dal baati, yogurt smothered potatoes, radish kachambar, paneer in a tomato gravy, butter chicken, Amma's jackfruit biryani, sweet lassi. Mint and cilantro chatni.

Lately I've been browsing through a Vedic vegetarian cookbook that I rarely use these days but am itching to cook something from. Maybe this weekend. Did I mention the yogurt smothered potatoes? They're simply awesome.

Soba

[Pan]

thanks pan. now i'm hungry. and i just ate lunch.

Me too, as a matter of fact, and it was Polish food from Teresa's.

[phaelon56]

my name is mongo jones and i once selected "revolution #9" three times back-to-back on a jukebox in a los angeles bar. the jukebox was shut off 3 minutes into the second playing. i'm just saying.

That jukebox was shut off three minutes later than it should have been (it actually should have been shut off before the song even began playing but I wasn't there to yank the cord - then again.... I was dumb enough to kick a skipping jukebox once in an after hours joint and learned never to do that again - some very drunk people liked dancing endlessly to the skip on a James Brown song).

Do you find you eat more like us Westerners now that you are in middle America?

I have trouble thinking of Boulder CO as "middle America" unless it's changed radically since I spent the winter in Sunshine Canyon back in the late 70's (it most likely has). I'm still trying to dig up my recipe for "Lemon Poppyseed dressing" from the Carnival Cafe, a long gone Boulder institution that was a remnant of the hippie era. IIRC, it had about thirty or more ingredients and was very tasty.

I am looking forward to the blog and to learning a bit more about Indian food. I had long assumed that, apart from some delicious breads, I simply didn't have a taste for Indian food. A month or so back, I had dinner at Mina, a small family operated place in Sunnyside Queens (NYC) and my perspective was radically altered. I'm told that their food is closer to Bangladeshi than Indian - perhaps it was the freshness and care taken in preparation or maybe the difference in spices but I loved it and hope to soon try more Indian food of that caliber.

Mrs. Jones (who must be saintly I am certain) is Korean? Have you found any ways in which the two cuisines can influence each other and create some interesting results (that would the "New KorIndian" cusine that has us all a twitter))

[bleudauvergne]

actually, before i go to start cooking the mackerel, let me throw this out there:

when you think of indian food what do you think of? specific dishes? other associations?

i'm very interested in different people's answers to this general question. there's no right answer of course, but lots of good raw material for us to cook with.

Nan, chicken tikka, a sauce made with ginger with an evasive taste I cannot name, tandoori. Lassa the drink, I'm probably spelling it wrong. Pan's reverie was pretty nice.

[NulloModo]

when you think of indian food what do you think of? specific dishes? other associations?

I am just now starting to explore the breadth of Indian cuisine. Currently, most of my Indian experience comes from eating at Indian restaurants in the area, and thus to me Indian food has been:

strongly flavored, usually reddish, yellow, or brown in color, often covered in a thick sauce, served up with lots of flat bread and rice, and cooked till super-tender (I can't reacall ever having crunch Indian food). Oftentimes there are condiments served in a little silver condiment carrier, which are of unknown contents and origin to me, but taste nice. Usually one is green, one is white and chunky, and a couple others are shades of yellow and brown.

I'm sure this is not at all authentic, or maybe it is to a certain part of India, I like it a lot though, so I would love to learn more.