On 23/11/2021 11:35am, Mamta posted:

Hello Andrew

I think that garlic is a recent phenomenon in Indian cooking. People of my parents generation, and many of mine ( I am in my seventies), did not touch garlic. My grandmother wouldn't allow onions and garlic in her kitchen. In my parents house, garlic was never even bought. Even onions were rarely used in vegetable curries. We had it in salad, but not often in cooking. We were a vegetarian family.

As for green coriander, many people actually feel sick if they eat it. My husband and one of the daughters are two such people. However, they are fine if it is added during cooking and not raw, as a garnish. You can of course have food without it, I usually do, but have to admit that it gives a nice taste even when it is added earlier during cooking stage. It is not that I am trying to get them to eat something they don't like, it is that it is not always fair to deprive everyone else of something they like.

After saying that, I will never disguise it and make them eat it that way.

Same goes for cumin. You can use other seeds for tempering like mustard, nigella, fennel, fenugreek etc. for 'tempering' foods. Roasted cumin is good in certain spicy street foods and Raitas, but a portion can easily be kept aside for someone that doesn't like it.

Cooking is all about the freedom to do what you want to eat, except in occasional circumstances.

Mamta