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The three fingered gourmet...

posted on Monday, August 25, 2008 12:15 PM

Everyone I talk to tell me that eating is a sacred ritual. Tell me I said, and so they did. Just as the cook bathes before entering the kitchen so the diner is expected to spruce themselves up before they sit cross legged on the floor on a mat in front of a platter. Depending on the occasion (and the family’s wealth) bell metal, marble and on very special occasions silver thala bati (platter and bowl) was used as dinner plates.

In West Bengal custom demands that an empty plate is not placed before a diner. Around the upper edges of the platter, salt, whole chillies, a wedge of lime and small portions of appetizers – usually bitters in summer and brinjals fried in spiced batter in winter is served before hand. The food is served in bowls of different sizes arranged around the plate beginning with the dal on the extreme right ending with the sweet on the left. Since the meal is eaten with the right hand, the glass is always placed on the left. In the real India the manner of serving may have altered but the sequence of courses has not.

I notice that the best chefs time their rice within minutes of serving straight from the pot to the platter with the precision of a high-tech cooker. A teaspoon of hot ghee follows to bring out the full flavour of the all important first mouthfuls. The appetizers are eaten first – fried spinach, julienne potato chips, tiny fried wait bait or dal boris – mixed with a little rice and a dash of lemon juice. The items are rotated – bhateys or poras of potato and brinjals and in season, roasted jackfruit seed. The diner does not help himself. The cook comes around with a dish at a time and fills the bowls around the top of the platter from right to left with dal, ghonto - a hot of vegetables and spices embellished with crushed boris or topped with fresh grated coconut. Then follows maachher jhole (fish stew), mangshor quorma (meat curry) and ambole chutney served on a stone bowl. Doi and sweets come last.

Hand and mouths are washed and everyone sit in the boitakkhana (drawing room) for a paan served in an ornamental daan.

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