Food Porn...

Photo (c) Sam Foster

The topic of food porn sparked off in the middle of another farewell. (This farewell was memorable with Dipali giving us all some awesome chocolate cake)

Manasi quickly logged on to tumblr and showed us some very mouthwatering photos. She commented that all this 'food porn' is responsible for most of the obesity in this world. This got me curious. What is 'food porn'?

Now, wikipedia sounds very pedantic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_porn) and holds  feminist critic Rosalind Coward responsible and quotes her thus...

"her 1984 book Female Desire^[4] in which she writes: "Cooking food and presenting it beautifully is an act of servitude. It is a way of expressing affection through a gift... That we should aspire to produce perfectly finished and presented food is a symbol of a willing and enjoyable participation in servicing others. Food pornography exactly sustains these meanings relating to the preparation of food. The kinds of picture used always repress the process of production of a meal. They are always beautifully lit, often touched up." (p.103)"


And yes! Nigella Lawson is held responsible for making (food) lascivious and prurient as the Queen of Food Porn. 
:P I whole heartedly agree!

Skinny gourmet does a much better job with an interesting write-up about the origins of the term. 

"Frederick Kaufman's article entitled: "Debbie Does Salad: The Food Network at the frontiers of pornography," originally published in Harper's Magazine in October 2005."


Kaufman's original article was a delightful read (http://www.harpers.org/archive/2005/10/0080776)


"Kaufman’s article talks mostly about how camera techniques and ways of looking, the "pornographic gaze," have been incorporated into the visual presentation of food. He talks through how specific techniques of filming from the pornography industry--such as "swooping" over food--and traditions of presentation--such as repetition--have been adopted wholesale by Food TV. Although sometimes it seems to be an over-extended phrase, not everything is food porn. For a classic example of food porn in video, think of Giarda cooking. The close ups as the flame bursts from the burner, a zoom in on her eagerly licking melted chocolate from her finger-tip. When the final food is presented the camera swoops in like Fabio to a fainting maiden. The camera trails lovingly across the food, tracing the curves and confines, lingering. This is a far cry from the quirky (but endearing) camera-work that characterizes Alton Brown’s show."

I mentally compared this and the Discovery TLC programs to the ones we get to see in India television... Yuck! 

You get dumpy aunty blinking and stirring with a chirpy and vacuous idiot bouncing beside her. The camera is glued with a fixed gaze to everyone with occasional zoom-ins to glass/ceramic bowls of chopped ingredients.

The boob tube in the land of kama sutra has collective (and severe) erectile dysfuntion. With food channels rearing their heads, I am really hoping for the 'masala' to kick  in...

In the meanwhile, I leched at the food shot in Veggie Num Num's Flickr stream. Tons of enticing looking things at Flickrmindhive. I stumbled upon the fact that Flickr actually has a  Food Porn Group!

Some more interesting things to watch and read lie here:

• Drool over the hotties in - http://fiveprime.org/flickr_hvmnd.cgi?method=GET&page=3&photo_number=50&tag_mode=all&search_type=Tags&sorting=Interestingness&photo_type=250&noform=t&search_domain=Tags&sort=Interestingness&textinput=foodporn
• Even if you skip the rest of the article, read the part about 'Producing the Pornographic Aesthetic' at http://skinnygourmet.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-is-food-porn.html
  This part describes the process and methods of creating hot looking photos from food 
• http://www.tastespotting.com/ aggregates interesting food droolables from all over the internet.
• Eating taipei (http://www.flickr.com/photos/yusheng/sets/679140/with/370465445/) has very nice food shots from.... Well... Taipei.
• Don't miss New York Times' short tutorials on photographing gorgeous looking food (http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/how-to-take-photos-of-food/)
• Read about people with a fetish for photographing whatever they eat at (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/dining/07camera.html?_r=1)
• And well... Another Flickr group... Called "I ate this..." (http://www.flickr.com/groups/i_ate_this/)

I'd love to know what you've found as well... :)

Chappati Rolls 01 - Egg and Honey Mustard

Subarna wanted something that is quick to make and reasonably tasty for her to cook for herself and her kiddo. I often make Chappati Rolls in the morning since they are some of the quickest things to make when you are rushing out on your way to work.

I'd boiled the eggs the night before but did not shell them and keep since they'd become quite rubbery in the fridge by morning.

Piping hot chappatis are available at a restaurant that is minutes from my place from 5AM to 1AM. At Rs 3 a pop it is a HUGE persuasion for me NOT to make them :).

I put it two teaspoons of mustard powder into my espresso cup along with a pinch of powdered ajwain (to make for an interesting twist :) ) and them dribbled in a little honey along with a few drops of nice olive oil. It is very easy to make the mix too sweet so it is always better to add the honey in a dribble at a time. This way I can adjust the 'hit' from the mustard along with the cloying sweetness of the honey.

Next I quickly sliced the cucumber (to get some crunch) and some tomatoes to get some squishy tang and layered them on the chappati.

I did not add salt and seasoning now since the cucumber and the tomato slices would immediately release some of the moisture and make the entire thing soggy.

Next I sliced the egg and layered that as well. If I layer the lot I get distinct swathes of taste and texture compared to the situation where I just mix them all up...

The honey mustard seasoning went on top of all this...

As an afterthought I chopped and added a sprig of coriander leaves to add to the interesting mix of flavours.

And... this is straight after I chomped a bite of my brunch :)

Baingan Bharta with Panch Phoron

I wanted to break away from the standard mix of powdered spices (dhania, jeera, and garam masala) and give a little twist to the north Indian version of baingan bharta. I also wanted to dispense with the haldi and the onions to bring out the flavours of the 'whole'/(unpowdered) spices that I would be using.

* Aside - I remember the standard Bengali 'Begun Bhorta' as something that just blends coal char-cooked aubergine/begun(bengali)/baingan(hindi) with chopped green chillies and raw (and VERY strong) mustard oil and that is served piping hot on some steaming rice...

I've recently bought myself a granite mortar and pestle to grind wet spices.  I find a marked difference in taste and texture when I use this compared to a quick whirl in the mixer-grinder. So... The ginger and garlic went it it for a quick grind...

I got bugged with the mess when I tried char-grilling things on a gas oven, so, I've resorted to using an iron mesh. Very nifty. The baingan cooked on it for about 7 minutes.

I keep turning it to get it to cook evenly. It shrinks considerably after it is done...

I like the charred flavour, so I kept most of the skin. You can remove it if you don't like it as much. I squashed it and got ready to dunk into the phoron/chaunk that was sputtering on the other hob. 

While the baingan/aubergine was cooking, I warmed up some mustard oil in a pan (this needs a good dollop of oil. Putting in too little makes for a not-so-nice bharta). The panch phoron and the ground ginger and garlic happily cooked and sputtered sending a splendid aroma wasting around. The cat decided to drop in through the kitchen window. I got it off the platform quickly and got going again. 

The baingan/aubergine landed in the pan and I sautéed it for a while to work the flavours in. 

I added some tomatoes, since they provide a bit of a contrast and sautéed some more...

...and voila! My dinner was ready.

Tomato Porar Chutney

I'd decided to make something with panch phoron after digging in and deciding to write about it.... So...

Here is something very easy (it took me around 15min). I made this yesterday night for dinner. Had it along with Begun Bhorta and chappati.

Although you can just chop the tomatoes and throw them in the pan, I like the slightly charred flavours that come with things cooked directly on a fire. Much as I would prefer wood, I had a gas oven at my disposal at 10 in the night when I decided to make this for dinner after playing with the cat.

I put a bit of wire mesh on the oven to char and cook, since it does not mess up my gas oven. You can see the tomatoes happily cooking here... It took five minutes. I did not have tongs (or chimtay as we say in Bengali) so I used chopsticks to turn the tomatoes over after the part on the fire was done.

While the tomatoes were cooking, I added the panch phoron to some smoking hot mustard oil.

Soon the tomatoes joined the party in the pan with  the panch phoron. Be careful not to burn the panch phoron. You can see the ideal colour of the spices in this photo.

Then I added a wee little bit of sugar. You could too, if you like a sweet and tangy chutney like me (although my origins are more bangal (east bengal) ghotis or people who origins lie in the western part of Bengal would prefer this).
  

Tada! I'd some warm comfort food (that was surprisingly healthy!) to eat for dinner.

Try this out and let me know how it turned out...

Paanch Phoron...

Anchal asked me for the ingredients of paanch phoron. To make quintessential Bengali food you MUST have this in  your kitchen armoury.


The wikipedia article about paanch phoron is quite succinct and and to the point:

Panch phoron has the following ingredients in equal measure:

• Fenugreek (মেথি methi)
• Nigella seed (কালো জিরা kalo jira)
• Cumin seed (জিরা jira)
• Radhuni (রাধুনি radhuni)
• Fennel seed (সঁওফ sőf or মৌরি mouri)

I usually buy the ingredients separately and and roast them on a tava before cooling and mixing them. I find that I get better flavour this way rather than buying the spices pre-mixed.

Radhuni is rather exotic and difficult to get outside Bengal. At a pinch I replace it with plain mustard seeds (very neutral as a flavour when fried). The end taste is almost similar but I'd rather wait and use radhuni instead of substituting it. Adding ajwain (it is from the same family as radhuni) does not really go well. The flavour goes completely ka-bing.

People looking for kalo jira, outside Bengal/Orissa, I'm sure, have faced problems like I did. You get offered everything from shah jeera to sabza, till you realize that it is called kalonji in many places. In fact it there is a disambiguation page for black cumin on wikipedia!

(To digress a bit, sabza is actually a bunch of basil seeds... I'm sure most people don't realize this when they have it in falooda :) ) 

What really intrigues me are the similarities with the balance of flavours 

in panch phoron when you compare it to Chinese five spice, both:

• Share fennel (mouri/saunf) as a common 'sweet'ening element
• Have a spice that gives another undertone of sweetness (star anise in Chinese five spice and fennel in panch phoron)
• Share an element of 'heat' as an undertone (radhuni in panch phoron and sichuan peppers in Chinese five spice)
• Work on the principal of balancing flavours (yin and yang as the Chinese would put it 

I will cook a few things with panch phoron and post later. Makes no sense in writing so much and not using the darn spice :)

Handmade made to order pork sausages...

I have grown up eating these sausages on happy weekends and on occasions like Christmas, Easter, and such like.


My dad goes to the butcher (earlier in New Market and now in Taltolla Market) and chooses the cut of meat. Next the meat is minced to the preferred consistency and then spices (often home ground), minced onions, parsley, pudina, fresh minced green chillies are lovingly massaged into the meat.


The porcine gut is stacked on a funnel and the mixture is pushed in arduously by hand. Next the long resulting tube us braided into sausages. Fascinating to watch.


Here's a picture of the boiled sausages. I quite love the the 'badi' (porcine skin) pieces that is left over (and boiled with the sausages) in the sausage generated stock.     


Lucky Peter is going to get the entire kilo of this ...

Bangali Hinger Kochuri

I remember that we used to go to this shop in Entally that fried piping hot hinger kochuri along with some amazingly consistent aloor torkari (potato curry).


I tried it again after many years. Baba got this for breakfast today...

Again this came in a recycled newspaper thonga (handcrafted paper bag) and the torkari came in a earthenware bhar (Bengali for kulhar or terracotta earthen vessel made by a potter). Little things that have not changed perhaps in the last 50 years or more... 

Kheer Kodombo

This is one sweet that is a rage when it comes to taking it back from Kolkata. 


The kheer kodombo has a sweet little surprise hidden under the outer covering of dryish channa (sweetened paneer/soft milk cheese) of sandesh like consistency. As soon as you bite into it, you will encounter a rosogolla steeped in sugar syrup just below the surface. :) 

After all these years, I finally discovered that the true origins this sweet is not really 'Benagli' per se since Bengali sweets use channa-almost exclusively instead of mawa and kheer. Although the rosogolla inside is channa, the outer covering assimilates sweet making  traditions from other parts of India.


I am always pleasantly surprised to see how eco friendly the bengali sweet shops are still. Notice the degradable recycled cardboard box sans plastic lamination. Sadly they are losing out to the more industrial sweet makers who give a more durable but more plastic box these days. 

Dal Puri and Halwa Puri

Every time I land up at home in Kolkata, I remember and crave for the crunchy and *deep fried* Dal Puri and Halwa Puri that I have always known in Ripon Street.


The old shops are still there. The new ones are ALSO doing great business... Time stands still about these things...

Salad Idea 01

Baba liked the salad I made yesterday so I tossed this one up today.


Ingredients:

• Half a cucumber (diced)
• A tomato (diced and deseeded)
• Bengal gram sprouts
• Coriander leaves (minced)
• Spring onions (minced) to add a bit of crunch

Dressing

• Lemon juice (half a lemon)
• Vinegar (1 cap)
• Mustard oil (a dribble)
• Worcestershire sauce (a dash of...)
• Rock salt

Phulkopir Torkari

This started out as a make-do curry cooked for a quick lunch. After some incessant gorging on yummy Bengali wedding food at Vaswar's marriage, I just wanted some simple home cooked food. I took what ever was there in the fridge and in the spice cupboard and put this together.

First I smashed some ginger and tossed it in with paanch phoron (Bengali mix of five whole spices) and two medium sized tomatoes in mustard oil. To this I added a little turmeric and some Kashmiri chilly powder to add some colour.

I then added the chopped cauliflower (phulkopi in Bengali) florets and coated the mixture. Covered the cooking vessel and let it cook a bit.

  Once the cauliflower is cooked a little I added some peas (the last few peas from a retreating winter :( ) and then the chopped methi.

Voila! The phulkopir torkari is ready :)

Pepperoni is not Italian...

Pepperoni Pizza (c) NYTimes.com

My Twitter stream delivered a surprise today. I realized after reading a New York Times article that pepperoni in not Italian. In fact Italians don't make smoked pork salumi! I quickly went the Google way and discovered interesting things. For example:

• Salumi 'is a family of Italian cured meat products, similar to the French charcuterie. Some people confuse salumi withsalami, a specific type of dry-cured meat produced in Italy.'
  (Further reading on this topic...)
• Salami 'is cured sausage, fermented and air-dried meat, originating from one of a variety of animals. Historically, salami has been popular among Southern Europeanpeasants because it can be stored at room temperature for periods of up to 10 years'
  (Further reading on this topic...)
• Charcuterie ' is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products such as bacon, ham,sausage, terrines, galantines, pâtés, and confit, primarily from pork.'
  
• Pepperoni is:
  •  An air-dried spicy sausage with a few distinctive characteristics: it is fine-grained, lightly smoky, bright red and relatively soft.
  • Is not Italian (It was 'invented') in America. Hence it American-Italian.
  (Further reading on this topic...)

I also found a few recipes for home made pepperoni :) [http://www.google.co.in/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=pepperoni#sclient=psy&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=homemade+pepperoni&aq=2s&aqi=g1g-s3g-o1&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&fp=ba3e4d0f2e757e41]