When a popular newsmagazine some time ago decided to anoint the humble masala dosa India?s National Dish, it was a choice designed to provoke. In a country where the very diversity of cuisines ensures that there can be no one ?national dish?, there is no harm in provoking yet another debate.
Regardless of the surprise winner?dal makhni and butter chicken or perhaps ?chowmein? may be deemed more representative of commercial ?Indian? cooking? what was interesting was the provenance of the supposed national dish: From below the Vindhyas. Indian cooking has traditionally been synonymous with (restaurantised) Punjabi food since partition when the tandoor unleashed an urban revolution of sorts all over India.
But the popularity of south Indian cuisines within restaurants is all set to overtake the pop dal makhni-butter chicken (BC)-naan formula. For decades, ever since savvy Udupi restaurateurs descended upon Bombay and introduced the then-food capital of India to the masala dosa, all that we knew about ?south Indian? food?outside south India?were various bastardised versions of dosa-idli-sambhar. Today, the pan-Indian popularity of appams and stew, chettinad chicken and jumbo prawns in ubiquitous, fiery ?south Indian? masalas almost rivals that of the Udupi tiffin. In Delhi, people are raving about even simple home-style preparations like sweet and sour pumpkin as a tiny eatery like Gunpowder catches the capital?s attention. In Hyderabad, Chennai chain Fisherman?s Fare is the new place to dine out at ? even if it doesn?t serve the trademark kachche gosht ki biryani that every blue blooded Hyderabadi swears by. While Mumbai seems to have now discovered Kerala cuisine after its dalliances with Mangalorean (and local Malvani) seafood with restaurants such as The Rice Boat in Andheri serving typical Sadya (Kerala thali). Community-based kitchens such as Moplah or Suriani too are being gradually discovered and show signs of coming into the mainstream?with top hotels pushing their cause.
In Gurgaon, the Amit Burman-Rohit Aggarwal owned Lite Bite Foods has just come up with its most serious venture yet: Zambar. Despite the tongue-in-cheek name, the food is hardly flippant and if you go tasting curries from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka, it is possible to distinguish how the style of cooking changes.
Southern cuisines?from the south of any country are usually more flavourful, spicier, using plenty of seafood, herbs, veggies and fruits and exploding with the goodness of these fresh ingredients, than northern cuisines. You only have to look at southern Italy vs the north, the south of France with its Med climeand so on. So is it with south Indian cuisine(s) that make full use of the bounties of the land?and water. As the cuisines from the peninsular states catch on, we must appreciate their complexity.
This year, the ITC brand Dakshin completes 20 years of its existence. In its own quiet way, Dakshin has been a leader in that it was the first to think of selling the cuisines from the south to a nationwide audience. Drawing its inspiration from the food of the undivided Madras, the restaurant first opened in 1989, in Chennai, at a time when the dominant Tam Brahm community either ate at home or at the Woodland or Udupi hotels. It was a tough market to break through but the brand did not sacrifice on research.
Dakshin?s journey to the north?many years down the line?was by contrast much smoother as the chefs gently guided untrained palates into appreciating the cuisines.
Today meen moilee and appams may need no introduction, but if you go beyond these, it may well be possible to appreciate the subtle differences between, say, the respective fish curries of the Vellore Naidus in Andhra to how it changes in Tamil Nadu to the twist in Kerala?s Moplah cooking.
When we start appreciating these subtle nuances, we would begin to understand, ahem, zimbly zouth!