Long Walks On Leafy Streets

1/14/2014 Harlan St, NW Washington, DC
Today is Pongal, the harvest festival of the Tamil people. My ancestors are from the Tirunelveli district of Tamilnadu. We celebrate the day by cooking the traditional Pongal dish made of rice and split mung beans. In Tamilnadu people also eat sugarcane on this day. The day after Pongal we celebrate the cows and bulls. We never had cows in our home so we didn’t do anything during that day.
I just cooked and ate some Pongal. It came out really well. First I cooked the rice and beans in a rice cooker and then mashed the mixture after adding butter, black pepper, salt, cumin, turmeric and asafetida. I also cooked sambar (a kind of soup with lentils cooked with tamarind and Madras curry powder) and green beans to go with it. Lately I have been cooking a lot, especially when my parents are staying with us. They are older and I don’t want my mom to be cooking three times a day, which is what she does normally.
Almost all our meals growing up were cooked on the same day with vegetables purchased in the morning, either from street vendors who went around the neighborhood or from a nearby corner grocery store. We didn’t have a refrigerator (or television or washing machine not to mention computers). Even today my mother likes to continue that practice, although we do not buy vegetables every day. When they are staying with me I cook rice and sambar and a vegetable curry in the morning, every day. It is actually a good way to start the day and provides a good routine for me during the two or three month periods that they stay with us. It is also probably healthier to eat food that has been freshly cooked.
My parents have been with my sisters Jayashree and Hema for the past month and a half and I must say my routine has become a little chaotic. I have been going to bed very late and getting up very late, especially during the holidays. Now that classes have started I am trying to get to a more normal schedule. I think it is really healthy to get up with the sun.
All that cooking has sharpened my cooking skills and increased my repertoire. Apart from the items mentioned above I also make adai (lentil pancakes), upma (spicy cracked wheat pudding), rasam (aka mulligatawny – another kind of soup) as well as the North Indian style dishes daal (mung bean dish) and raajma (red bean dish). Nicole also loves all the South Indian dishes. In fact the nearby Woodlands restaurant has become one of her favorite restaurants in the DC area.
I often cook fusion dishes – combining elements from various cuisines. One of my favorites is cooking collard greens or kales with lima beans in olive oil. I also often add tofu or tempe to many of the vegetable curry dishes that I cook, sometimes over the protest of my mother. Unfortunately she and my father have no choice except to eat them! I tell them it is healthier to have more protein and vegetables in their dishes. I feel like we don’t have enough of those. South Indian meals tend to be dominated by rice dishes, with vegetables added more as a small side dish. Although we cook lentils with many of the dishes, the quantity is often small compared to that of rice. Health experts have noted that this is behind the large-scale prevalence of diabetes in South India and are advising people to change their diet so that it is more balanced. Other fusion dishes that I cook are red beans and collard greens as well as black-eye peas and spinach all cooked South Indian style.
In Hinduism we believe that what we eat determines our character. Meat, fish, alcohol and certain foods are considered tamasic, the lowest of the mental states, signified by laziness and decadence. Sattvic is the highest state, where the mind is calm and full of compassion. Rajasic is the state where the mind is very active but not very calm. Spicy food is considered rajasic, while a food full of cereals and vegetables cooked and eaten fresh is considered sattvic. In our family we have been traditionally vegetarians. Dairy products along with rice and various lentils and beans have been a big part of our diet. From a young age I started eating less salty food. My parents always complain about the lack of salt in my cooking. After coming to the US I started to drink beer and wine occasionally but because it caused my mother much dismay I stopped it. I do eat the occasional egg. I want to avoid eating animal products as much as possible both for moral and environmental reasons. So I have reduced my intake of dairy products as well as eggs. I am told most eggs sold in the market are sterile. I try to buy the ones that are cage-free and made without using hormones and other artificial things.
For environmental reasons I have been trying to eat foods that cause less harm to our planet, such as organic and local produce. For health reasons also I strongly believe that we should use artificial chemicals as little as possible. The body is full of complex biochemical processes and it is better if we avoid anything that could disrupt those processes.

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