The Center for Genomic Gastronomy

Hey, I am Koshy Brahmatmaj. I am from Mumbai and currently studying in Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore.

I come from a nuclear family with working parents. My parents are from Bihar. Papa form Basantpur and ma from Madhubani. Didi was born in Patna and I was born in Mumbai. Even though they were working and had a job they made sure at least one parent was home to eat lunch and dinner with me and my sister. It is only recent that I have had major meals of the day without my parents. I don’t know if this happened with my sister or not but I am pretty sure it happened with me because I am very cranky about what I eat. I can eat everything but I can’t eat the same thing again and again. I think it was only because of me the experimentation of food in my family started. Most of the time because of our schedules, dinner used to be the only time we are together. Food for us means sharing your thoughts about life, sharing your career aspirations and etc. except I wasn’t allowed to talk. Not because I talk rubbish most of the time or because the youngest member of family should not interfere in adult matters but because I can’t talk while eating. So if I would start talking I would forget about my food and take 3 hours to finish one roti.

lunch with family at Lady Hill, Gale, Sri Lanka

Cooking is something everyone in my family loves. But because of hectic lives and laziness (just me) we had to hire a cook. After around 15 years of trying out different cooks we finally found the one we like, Fatima Khala. Now khala loves taking leave. Whenever she doesn’t come all of us take charge of the food. Ma or didi make sabzi and bhujiya, I prepare dal and rice and papa and I work as a team and make roties. Both of us are horrible at it. His roties look like England and Nepal and mine like Australia and Bhutan. For dinner again I prepare dal and rice. If my parents or sister are going to be late then I prepare the sabzi as well. Ma or didi make roties.

The cooking scenario is at its best during the festival of Holi. Holi is very major festival for my family. Preparations for holi start a week before the festival. The entire family plays a major role in the preparations. Didi and I do the shopping. Ma is in charge of the sweets and vegetarian section. Papa is in charge of non vegetarian and drinks section. Didi and I are there to do the labour work. And khala takes care of rice, roti, puri and other miscellaneous things. Best situation is when khala, didi and papa are trying to convince each other that they are better than the other when it comes to cooking mutton.  Every year during holi we eat the typical Bihari food. I love Bihari food.

3 FAVORITE FOODS

My three all time favourite foods are aloo chokha, tamatar ki chutney and khaja. I don’t know about tamatar ki chutney but aloo chokha and khaja are Bihari food.

1. Aloo ka chokha is mashed potatoes. The Bihari wat of having mashed potatoes is with mustard oil and dried red chilies. Other variations include adding onions and green chilies. Litti Chokha is a special dish from Bihar. If Bihar was a country then Litti Chokha would be it’s national food. Chokha that is served with Litti is either made from eggplants or potatoes.

2. Tamatar ki chutney is a wannabe salsa type preparation. Tomatoes are first roasted, peeled and mashed. Fresh green chilies, onion and salt are added for flavor. I love having tamatar ki chutney with khichdi. The even taste good with beef momos.

tamatar ki chutney

3. Khaja is my favorite sweet. Wheat flour, sugar and oil are the chief ingredients of khaja. Khaja is again a Bihari dish. They are this puff sort of sweet. Khaja from Rajgir are known for there puffiness. Whenever anyone is travelling to or from Patna or Rajgir I always ask them to get khaja for me.

khaja

FoodLab Bangalore – is a 3 week workshop the Center for Genomic Gastronomy conducted with sophomores from the Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology in the fall of 2011. Students will examine innovation and conservation in South Asian food cultures, building on recent research of the Center (utopian cuisines, mutagenic meals) and working towards the next edition of the Planetary Sculpture Supper Club to be held in Bangalore on Nov. 12th.

Follow the conversation all week here on our Blog, join in the comments and use the twitter hashtag #foodlabbangalore to keep up to date.

Hello!

I’m Kamini Rao, from Bangalore, your go to person on all food matters.. well South Indian food. I want to study the art of changing experiences through the design of space. As naive as it sounds, when I grow up, I want to be the Indian Thomas Heatherwick.

The Post It.

Like most families, mine (the Rao’s) eat one compulsory meal together at dinner. Depending on the meal we split our week between the formal dinning table or lounging around the TV, subconsciously categorizing each meal within a vicious hierarchy where unfortunately Indian food from our region (Karnataka) becomes the mundane ‘everyday’ meal. At the top of the hierarchy we have the relatively exotic Thai meal and it’s close second, Pasta! Our table top is chaotic and for most Indians it’s a bit confusing. Each dish describes a different aspect of my life:

Brahmin Vegetarian – Plated on regular cutlery instead of a banana leaf, consisting mainly of rice and curry’s with an assortment of vegetables (too many vegetables), Catholic Manglorean – Meat, meat and fish! and globalized youth – (unfortunately) Dominoes or Mcdonalds.

Food, the single source of life has provided our family with plethora of happy memories but above all it has created a vast amount of anxiety. Ever heard of the phrase ‘Sharing is caring’? That concept does not exist in my family. There is a constant tug of war for the last creme brule, the ultimate family food fight. This inside of our fridge almost looks diseased with Post It’s scattered across Tupperware boxes, warding off strangers. And if one of those boxes were to go missing.. the reign of forks and knives begins.

THREE?!

How is it possible to have only three favorites? The torture of elimination!

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Dosa’s come in all shapes and sizes and the light, crispy kind is my favorite. It’s mainly a South Indian breakfast dish but has evolved into a popular street food that can be ordered any time of the day.

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Sorpotel is a delicious dish made in the southern coastal regions of India, mainly Goa and Mangalore. Originally a Portuguese dish, it’s been adapted with Indian spices and made with pork (which is not a common meat). Rumor has it, not long ago, the dish was flavored with pig’s blood which terrified me, so it’s only a recent favorite of mine.

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There are no words to describe Uncle Chipps. The explosion of flavor in your mouth is almost magical.

FoodLab Bangalore – is a 3 week workshop the Center for Genomic Gastronomy conducted with sophomores from the Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology in the fall of 2011. Students will examine innovation and conservation in South Asian food cultures, building on recent research of the Center (utopian cuisines, mutagenic meals) and working towards the next edition of the Planetary Sculpture Supper Club to be held in Bangalore on Nov. 12th.

Follow the conversation all week here on our Blog, join in the comments and use the twitter hashtag #foodlabbangalore to keep up to date.

I’m a Bengali, which in no way defines who I am, but there are certain traits -whether cultural or genetic that have latched themselves onto me like sucker fish. Food is the solution to every problem whether it be health, psychological or emotional. Food is what gets people together or breaks ties depending on the quality of the menu. It provides the medium for soul searching and scintillating arguments.

Yes my friend, a loaded table is a happy household.

A gathering of kindred spirits makes for a hearty meal.
I have observed since long ago that a meal eaten in the right order, in the right place, in the right company can satiate the soul in a way that I can hardly believe nirvana can.

There is something about the heat from the platter, the textures under one’s fingers and the ruckus that comes with every family meal that will never find a substitute.

Honestly speaking, I’m no gourmet. I’m never the first to grab a menu, nor one for patiently sampling wine. I never consciously mull over the firework of flavours that flare up in my mouth during a good meal. No, I’m the one who sits to a corner of the banquet greedily savouring each and every magical moment that the bites reveals. The sounds, the fragrance, the sudden secret chuckles or the passing gestures.

The expression on my brother’s face one warm evening in my grandma’s house in Paris when the mysteries of a mince pie were first revealed to us. He’d bitten into a little smiling train that he thought was a candy, now over ten years later, he still has it a tiny memory of a meal. There was the time a dear old lady made a six year old me comfortable in her woodsy house on the out skirts of St. Petersburg and watched smiling as I demolished an entire plate of steaming pelminis with single minded determination. My mother and my father dancing to Dean Martin on a Sunday evening as the thick meat sauces bubbled over in the kitchen and the spectacular burst of colour scattered over the counter top promised a delicious end to the day.

Dean Martin- That\’s Amore 🙂

I listen during meals, I learn. Our family dinners have taught me more about these people who raised me than chance conversations. There is something revealing in the way a person behaves when they’re submerged in an avalanche of flavours. They find themselves willing to let their guards down, their persona on the side board and join in the numerous arguments that are a traditional side dish with every meal.

The cuisine is varied. During the week we have a fairly regular menu that’s a precarious combination of convenience and nutrition. Under my mother’s critical eye the Vitamins march themselves up to an array of pots and pans and our Muslim cook churns out a series of highly delicious, usually vegetarian dishes. But I don’t pay too much attention to these.

It’s my evening ritual of either milk or tea that I look forward to on week days. I make this myself being ridiculously peculiar about the proportion of coffee to cocoa to cinnamon in my mug (which has to be the right colour with the right kind of handle).

The orgies begin on the weekends when my family finds itself together, bungling into one another as we try to navigate through our tiny kitchen. We make what suits our mood and our pockets- Lord are the prices rising!- and we improvise. My brother has a way with garlic, my mother with mushrooms and peas. My father with meat and fish. It’s rather entertaining actually.

As for myself, I’m the kid who can gently mold chocolates and bake. When I bake I feel like an alchemist or a witch. The funny thing is, once I’m done I like sitting back and watching again. Watching expressions chase across their faces as they sink their teeth into my creations. Sometimes I barely have more than a bite of what I’ve made. I get more pleasure from watching and listening.

That’s what I look for in a banquet- knowledge.

The Trinity- Or food i can’t live without.

I’m a milk addict.

And India is the world’s largest milk producer 🙂

There you have it. But there aren’t two ways about it- I’m hooked. If I don’t have my two mugs a day, I start feeling drowsy and glum or irritable. Yes you have it: I, an average nineteen year old girl, go into withdrawal if I don’t drink.

It’s not always the inherent flavour of the substance- heck that’s sometimes rather nasty with the adulterated crap one gets now a days- but it might be the consistency. I can’t really put my finger on it. Milk and honey; milk-and-coffee; milk-and-cinnamon; milk-and-turmeric. It’s endless!

The scary thing is, years from now I can actually imagine “popping” a bottle of milk to celebrate my wedding to a dairy farmer.

Paneer. Palak paneer to be precise.

Yup another milk based product but this one is submerged in spinach and my-oh-my is that good! Originally a Punjabi dish it spread like wild fire all over the country. It’s comfort food and the bane of my mother’s existence- I get her to make it at least twice a week. There is something about the flavour and of the thick, rich green gravy and the white delectable consistency of the paneer that makes me drool.

It absolutely hits the spot!

 A recipe for you 🙂

Naan.

A Persian word meaning ‘bread’ this flat bread is popular in south and central Asia, it soon spread to Suadi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states. Well to be fair I’m and about all kinds of bread. Bread, bread, bread, bread. But I’m Indian after all, my taste buds are guilty of a little partiality. I could chew on these all day long. Plain or dipped in something. There was this one time that I came across Peshawri naan coated with nuts. Wow! I’m not the kind who has mind blowing moments very often but that day I nearly kissed the chef!

Give us this day our daily bread 🙂

– Meghna Saha

FoodLab Bangalore – is a 3 week workshop the Center for Genomic Gastronomy conducted with sophomores from the Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology in the fall of 2011. Students will examine innovation and conservation in South Asian food cultures, building on recent research of the Center (utopian cuisines, mutagenic meals) and working towards the next edition of the Planetary Sculpture Supper Club to be held in Bangalore on Nov. 12th.

Follow the conversation all week here on our Blog, join in the comments and use the twitter hashtag #foodlabbangalore to keep up to date.