Amongst the bounty I scored were ears of sweet corn, plump cherry tomatoes, long purple eggplants, a golden orange squash (disappointing – tasted just like yellow squash), green and red bell peppers and local plums.  Two ears of corn went into this quick creamy corn and potato soup.  The other two ears I curried then roasted with cherry tomatoes and tossed with fluffy whole wheat couscous.

First, remove the corn from the husk then cut the kernels from the cob.

Next, make the  curry butter.  Melt two tablespoons of butter and then stir two teaspoons of curry powder into the butter.

Dice a small red onion.  Toss in a mixing bowl with the corn and half of the curry butter and mix with your hands or a spoon until the corn is well coated.  Spread the corn/onion mixture evenly in one layer on a cookie sheet.  I wanted to save time, so I used half of the sheet for the corn and the other half for the cherry tomatoes.

Cut two handfuls of cherry tomatoes in half, toss with a little olive oil and place in a single layer, cut side down on a parchment paper lined cookie tray.  Shower the corn and cherry tomatoes with salt.  Then place in the oven on medium broil for about 5-10 minutes until the tomatoes are lightly browned and melted.  The corn and onion mixture should be lightly browned.

Cook about two cups of couscous according the instructions on the package, but substitute the remaining curry butter for regular butter (add it to the water used to cook the couscous).  After the couscous is cooked, fluff with a fork then gently fold in the roasted corn, onions and tomatoes.  Add salt to taste and garnish with fresh cilantro.  Drizzle with about a tablespoon or so of lemon juice.

Serve hot.  Fed two hearty portions to two very hungry adults.  May not be an accurate representation of serving size…did I mention we were hungry?

Has this ever happened to you – a friend tells you that they don’t like curry.  BUT, they reassure you, they really want to like Indian food.  It’s just that – well – they don’t like curry.  So they enlist you to go out for Indian food with them to help navigate the menu.

I would love to help my friends who confide their curry woes to me, but I have no idea what this means.  Mainly because I don’t know what curry is.  Do you?

Curry could be Thai curry, Malaysian curry, Trinidadian curry, Balinese curry – or apparently Indian curry.  What is Indian curry though?  Is it a coconut based Goan curry?  Is it a reference to South Indian kootu, a lentil and vegetable dish?  Is it the creamy tomato-onion liquid of North Indian mattar paneer?  Chicken tikka?  Is it a reference to ubiquitous yellow curry powder?

When I heard about Curry – A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors by Lizzie Collingham, I thought it might be my chance to finally understand “curry”.  Having now read the book, I couldn’t tell you in 15 words or less exactly what Indian curry is but I think that’s the point (or so I’m telling myself).

I did learn a lot of interesting facts about Indian food and how it’s been influenced over the years by the Moghul empire and then by various colonial conquerors ranging from the Portuguese to the English (this makes for impressive dinner conversation – if you dine with people who care about how the Portuguese invented vindaloo).  Here’s some of the more surprising things about Indian food that I discovered:

1. Chai, Indian spiced tea, is not authentically Indian.  Tea was introduced to India by the British but there was so much resistance to taking up the tea habit, that the British had to stage tea demonstrations in homes throughout India.  Of course, the British were horrified by the way Indians bastardized tea with loads of milk, cardamom and other spices.  If only they they knew about Starbuck’s chai tea latte and Oregan chai in a carton.  By the time tea was introduced, Arabs had already corned the hote beverage market in the South with coffee plantations (For me, this was an “Aha!” moment.  As in, aha, this is why Rajat’s North Indian family whips up chai daily while my South Indian family opts for coffee).

2. Tomatoes and potatoes aren’t indigenous to India and Indian food.  Forget potatoes – just think of all of the Indian dishes that use tomatoes (mattar paneer, aloo gobi, chicken tikka, vindaloo, sambar, rasam…).  I can’t imagine Indian food without them.  But according to Collingham’s book, it’s true. And given her lengthy, detailed bibliography at the back of the book, I’m very much inclined to believe her.

3. Collingsworth also traces the journey of Indian food to America.  Indian food in America was first served alongside what else but enchiladas?  The first Indian immigrants arrived from Punjab in California and joined the agricultural labor community which resulted in a number of Indian Mexican marriages.  Really, who knew?  I didn’t.  Which is perhaps why I found this book fascinating.

I had only a few criticisms of this book.  For starters, I get the sense that Collingham is much more of a sociologist-researcher-scholarly type than she is a lover of food.  The book mostly reads like a grad school dissertation (albeit the only grad school dissertation I could ever muster sufficient interest to read) than a foodie guide through Indian food.

I was also looking forward to the recipes that I saw scattered throughout the book.  I got the impression, however, that most of the recipes are more about their historical and scholarly value than actual usability.  I don’t see myself measuring out a six “chittacks” of lard to make vindaloo (for a number of reasons), and I am guessing that Collingham didn’t recipe test these herself.  So it’s not really meant to be a cookbook, but I will probably try to modernize at least a few of the recipes.

Finally, Collingham’s research seemed to taper off towards the very end (though who can blame her after tracing Indian food through centuries) when she cites Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake to describe the availability of Indian “foodstuffs” in America.  I’m pretty sure The Namesake is set a number of years ago, so it’s not telling of today’s availability.  She goes on to describe how Lahiri taught herself to cook Indian food and generalizes that most second generation Indians in America “have failed to acquire the knowledge of how to make many of the elaborate dishes their parents were used to from home.”  Umm, hello?!

Overall, I learned a lot about Indian food and its origins from this book and found it to be really interesting to read as it goes from one fascinating factoid to another.  And in the end, Collingsworth reaffirmed my thoughts on curry by noting that “curry” is a European concept brought to India and that no Indian would refer to her food as “curry.”

Do you ever come back from vacation with memories of a dish that you ate during your trip and then try to recreate it at home?  I have at least 3 dishes from our last trip that I’m trying to deconstruct and recreate.

Sometimes it can be cumbersome to vacation as a strict vegetarian, but on occasion, when you have chefs who really embrace the challenge, it’s a lot of fun.  During a recent trip to the Virgin Islands, the chefs at our hotel, Little Dix Bay in Virgin Gorda, treated us to a four day culinary adventure in their efforts to accommodate our vegetarian diet.  Among their creations was an appetizer of an open face warmed tomato topped with a spicy Trinidadian curry and set atop a bed of fresh arugula.  The tomato was explosively juicy and the arugula a fresh, tempering to the fiery, yellow curry.  

After dinner, when the chef came out to ask how we enjoyed the meal (though our licked clean plates must have been a good clue), we told him how tasty yet simple the tomato salad had been.  I tried more than a few times to get the curry recipe out of him.  He didn’t budge.  I thought maybe it was due to a language barrier, so I tried again, this time guessing at a few of the spices.  I only got him to confirm that the curry was yogurt based, incorporated turmeric and chili powder and was Trinidadian.

Back home in New York, some obsessive google searching brought me to a few different recipes for Trinidadian curry spice blends.  This is one of the few times I’ve made my own spice blend.  It requires an up front time commitment if you decide to use seeds, which need to be ground.  It was worth it though because I got to use up a lot of my “seed” spices and, even if you just blend powdered spices, your curry powder is arguably fresher than store bought packaged curry powder.  I also like being able to taste a little pinch of the blend at the end and adjust it for spice and heat per my liking.

That being said, I won’t judge you if you don’t want to blend your own spices.  Just substitute curry powder!

I used this recipe to make my Trinidadian Spice Mix. It makes enough to fill a small jar, so you’ll have plenty leftover.  I omitted the star anise because I didn’t have any and didn’t want to add yet another ingredient to my spice cabinet.