Sweetness

On Sunday night, we had been to a Gujarati and Rajasthani Special Dinner Buffet at a restaurant. Needless to say, I ate till I was fit to burst and enjoyed every mouthful.

What strikes me as unbelievable, even to myself, is that being such an avid food lover, and a person who is always looking to taste new things, I had never had a complete Gujarati meal, ever. Dhokla, yes, Gujarati snacks, oh yes of course. But a Gujarati meal? Never. So this was something new to me, and I loved the taste, especially the sweetness in all the dishes.

I have heard people say disapprovingly about Gujarati food - "Oh, but everything is sweet!" Well, everything is not sweet, as in completely sugary, but the dishes do have a distinctly sweet element in them. I can understand if people do not like it, but I, personally, quite enjoyed it.

Actually I have heard people complain about sweetness in food quite a bit. A Delhi friend of mine, working in Pune for a while, complained to me that the chicken preparations in Pune are sweet. I have heard people shake their heads disapprovingly about Bengali food and say that they add sugar to everything. I don't know about the chicken of Pune, but I have eaten Bengali food a number of times in my friend's place, and I have enjoyed it every time.

But what surprised me, was when someone, a few years ago, complained to me that Karnataka food is sweet.
"Sweet?" I said, "I don't think so."
"But you add jaggery to everything!"
"Ah, of course, but that is just a tinge of sweetness!"
"But it is sweet!"

Ah well, I guess what is normal for me is sweet for this person! And then I observed the food that my mom makes. Yes, that slight element of sweetness - is it there, is it not there... that mild. But it makes so much difference! I remember once when my mom was away and I made the huLi, and I tasted it to find that it was not satisfactory. When my mom came back, I said, "Amma, I have forgotten something! Not the tamarind, the salt is okay, the khaara is okay, but something is missing!" Mom tasted a bit of it and said, "Bella!" (Jaggery). I quickly added a teeny tiny piece of jaggery to the huLi, mixed it and tasted it, and lo, it was perfect! The sweetness is so mild that you cannot really make out its presence, but it does make a difference.

A good friend of mine, let us call her K, was my hostelmate when I was doing my post-grad in Tamilnadu. She married a man who worked in Bangalore, and came to live here. In one of her conversations, she told me, "Shruthi, you people add jaggery to everything!"
This conversation was old now, for me.
"Yeah", I said wearily, "just a little."
"But it is definitely sweet. I don't like it, really. There is no point going out to restaurants in Bangalore, I'd rather cook at home!"
In the same situation, I know people who would have said, "Baaaah! How can you eat such food?" But K is a decent and sensible sort, so she said, "Shruthi, how could you manage eating the food in Tamilnadu?"
"I had no choice! You can cook at home, but I couldn't do that, I had to eat in the mess!" I said.
Then I decided to be more gracious. "Oh, perhaps adjusting to no sweetness in your food is easier than adjusting to sweetness in your food, who knows?" I said.

Well, something that I don't even notice in my food, is such a deterrent for someone else!

BUT. Stating that "Kannadigas add something sweet to everything" will be a false statement. Even though S~ and I are both Kannadigas, and from comparatively similar families, our food is quite different. My mom-in-law doesn't add jaggery to any dish. It took me a very long time to pinpoint what the difference was. As always, we tend to find most comforting what we are basically used to, and so I still prefer that imperceptible tinge of sweetness in my food.

Food habits - fascinating, aren't they?