A Denial

To all those who had queries ref: my whisky blog.

1. NO. I am not a secret drinker. Not a drinker at all.

2. No. I do not have a 'stash' of whisky hidden in my house.

3. No. I don't prefer whisky to other liquor. I do not drink any liquor at
all.

4. The last time I drank whisky was Christmas 2007. One sip of
Glenlivet from Ranjan. That's it.

5. The post was not meant to be offensive or condescending. Nor
was it a lecture. Apologies for trampling over your feelings.

6. The rum and coke syndrome is only for youngsters and teenagers.

One admission.

I maintain whisky is a dignified drink. I probably learnt about whisky
from my Dad.

.... of lassi and of ghol .....

A friend asked me to write on lassi and ghol. I offered to send the recipe (so to say) by email. My friend insisted it be a blog.

So, now I do blogs on request. Ha Ha

This Ghol business is very dicey indeed, because it is a very Bengali ( and therefore, regional)concept, where the amount of curd required to make the ghol can vary from a little bit to a fair amount depending on individual taste. Moreover the art of making thick curd is not really known to Bengal. Simply because buffalo milk (very thick creamy milk) is not popular in Bengal.

The idea of ghol is very simple . A bit of dahi, a fair bit of sugar, a pinch of salt stirred together with iced water and the ghol is ready. My aunt-in-law.... a pucca ghoti makes something called doi er shorbot. This stuff is delicious and really refreshing. Doi er shorbot is a little thicker than ghol. A little less sweet, a bit of salt and a good pinch of gondhoraj lebu. Really ,this is heavenly on a hot summer afternoon after I have braved the traffic to get to her old and beautiful house in Bowbazar.

The ghol and the do ier shorbot probably came from East Bengal where the Portuguese, and later the Muslim culture called for a burhani after a rich rice-based meal.

The lassi is quintessentially a drink of North India. Be it Punjab, be it Uttar Pradesh or even Haryana, lassi is a household drink. The area is rich agricultural land with a propensity of milch cattle breeding. Moreover it is extremely hot and dry in summer. The milk (quite a high production), does not keep fresh for very long. Rabri, khowa, ghee and other milk products are made from fresh milk, just as much dahi is made. From dahi is made mathha (buttermilk) and lassi.

The art of making lassi is best known to people native of Punjab. Thick creamy Bhains-ka-dudh dahi is put in a lota. This is churned with a wooden ghotli ...... by hand. This churning is the real art, because the dahi has to liquidise, but not separate into whey. Sugar is added and the entire drink is poured into tall metal glasses, frothy at the top, and thick and creamy underneath. There is nothing....really nothing to beat a Punjabi lassi, made in a village in Punjab, by a buxom Sardarni, served by the pretty young daughter.The lassi is equally popular in Uttar Pradesh, and also in Rajastan. The UP lassi is perhaps a little less thick. There is a shop on Gowdhuli, Banaras, where they serve very,very good lassi, with a piece of cream on top. This is typically UP. Punjab will not have anything but the froth on the top. Rajasthan most often adds a pinch of salt, or sometimes methi. Tastes alright, but I'd vote for the Punjab ki lassi or my favourite Banarasi lassi.

Lassi today is an ubiquitous drink available (from Kashmir to Kanyakumari type) everywhere. Best to avoid the lassi in South India though. It's watery, sour and tastes like nothing on earth. Bangalore, Goa, Chennai etc has other stuff to offer.... Vijay Mallya has done extremely well in the South !!!!

Mathha is another drink which should feature on this post. it's buttermilk or whey or call it what you like. It is popular in North India and is really more effective against the summer heat. The Chhaach of Gujarat and Rajasthan is a close relative of the mattha. Chhaach is tempered and is spiced.

The essential thing to remember in making lassi or ghol is NOT to use an electric blender or mixer. The right thing to use is a lota and ghotli (a wooden rod with angled arms) which can churn the curd but does not make it a homogenised liquid. Lassi made in an electric blender is hardly the real stuff. By the way, in 1998, Sanjoy and I bought lassi for all of us.... kids and driver and all.... on the Chandigarh Highway. The lassi was being made in a green and white Kelvinator washing machine and was being sold in buckets. Rs 20 for a bucketful. Pretty good lassi, too.

My mother (fearing my frequent heat stroke attacks) always had mattha and lassi and nimbu pani ready for me. Infact, in summer I ate very little during the day ..... the home-made dahi based drinks and keri-pani and fruits kept my hunger at bay. In winter (fearing asthma attacks) Ma had me on an Ovaltine and milk diet. Both diets were appreciated by me. It meant pampering and extra attention. I could "create" for hours anytime there seemed to be a deficit of the motherly attention.

There are other summer drinks. Nimbu Pani (best made at home, but the old lady at Lalbagh palace is very near it). When I was very young Ma used to take me to Sita Chaudhuri's house. I had a kalojam er shorbot once, and on another occasion a falsa shorbot. I have never had these two very exotic shorbot ever. I tried to make it at home....didn't taste the same. I make aam-dudh for my childen at home. They love it. The Western Indian concept of aam-ras is also very cooling. The Bengali aam-pora-shorbot has no equal. It should ideally be made by scalding the small raw mangoes in the coal fired stoves. Another Bengali drink is the Bel er shorbot or paana. Good if it is made well. Somehow, I am not too fond of it. In Bihar they make an essence of Beli flower and add it to chilled sugar-water. Very good and very cooling. Watermelon can be crushed and made into a cool and refereshing drink. Unfortunately my family does not like watermelon in any form. All over India, mint (pudina) is used for a summer drink. I cannot comment on this. I hate mint.

Sunita, in all her wisdom, picked me write about the ghol and the lassi.I strayed. A lot more could have been written, But I'll keep it for another post...some othe day. I have not used italics for regional language terms. This post is meant to be regional.Let it remain so.

I include here a poem by Shantam which was published in the school rag. It's called "Sherbet Dreams". Its too small a print . I could not do a good job ofthe scan-image-copy. Perhaps Sajani can make an attempt to read it.

Hmmm. What's happening?

I like sweets. I love sweets.

Sunita does not.

Yet she goes to Sri Hari to buy paneer and ends up buying mishti.

She actually makes a trip to Spencers for Monohara.

Catching, eh?

Infectious.

Two Nuggets of Gold and a Mishti

Here are a few nuggets to be found rarely, very rarely in Calcutta. The nuggets are not native to the city, and not too many people know about it. Though not indigenous they have survived the test of time. How they came to the city requires research (which I have not done). This is just a off-my-head post.

Nugget One

There is this this little shop in Park Circus. I do not know the name of the street. The shop is probably called South Indian Cafe. The road is a small lane...next to Queen of the Mission School.

The road curves and enters Circus Avenue. Anyway, explore a bit and you'll find it. This an ordinary, no-frill shop selling South Indian food. Their USP is the Appam-Stew. I do not know of any other place in Calcutta that serves this very unique Malayalam dish. May be the five-star hotels do. But this little eatery takes the cake.

Appams are small bowl shaped thin pancakes, with a small fluffy roundel of yeasty stuff in the centre. They are golden and crispy at the edges, and soft and fluffy in the centre. Appams are made from fermented rice flour and coconut milk. Essentially they are quite bland and insipid and goes with a vegetable or meat stew. The stew is delicious. A medium thick broth with soft meat and a few pieces of vegetables. Appams, in this shop at Park Circus, is also served with jaggery (only in winter).

Appams are native to Kerala, though Tamil Nadu and Karnataka has variations of it. To those who have schooled in boarding schools in the south (Blue Mountain or SHY, Yercaud or BCS, Bangalore......remember 'whoppers'?). The self-same stuff.

Really worth a trip.....these appams.

Nugget Two

The Gurdwara at the Elgin Road-Harish Mukherjee Road crossing has a Dhaba nearby. I think its called Balwant Singh's Dhaba. They serve 'Dudh-Cola'. Completely unique drink. Safe. Chilled. Delicious. As the name suggests it is a mixture of milk and Coca Cola. I have never come across this in any other part of Calcutta/India/the World.

Dudh Cola is not too thin, not too thick, not too creamy, just rightly chilled.........a 'wonder-full' drink on a wonder filled late night drive. It's made by the jug. You cannot get a single serving.

Ambrosia???........weeell,......near enough !!!!!!

The Mishti

The 165 year old shop of Girish Dey and Nakur Nandy near Hedua Park off Cornwallis Street is known to every connoisseur of sweet. And Calcutta has many such connoisseurs.....lots.......millions of them. Gour-Nakur makes Paradise, Jalbhara and many other types of Sandesh. Their trademark mishti is the 'Monohara'. Monoharas are soft sandesh with a remarkably thin coating of sugar syrup. These are about golf ball size and one requires special 'chena' (cottage cheese) to make it.

The sweet Monohara is said to have originated in Janai village of Nadia district, West Bengal. The Mukherjee family and the Singha family (both from Janai or near Janai) introduced it to the Calcutta elite sometime in the early 1890s.

In our family the story runs that this self same sweet was a specialty and a signature mishti of our ancestral village Majhhpara in Bikrampur District of Dacca. The mishti is made from the softest chena with rose petal flavour. The climate of (erstwhile) East Bengal not being too conducive to keep the chena fresh, the sandesh was coated with a thin sugar syrup. This prolonged the shelf-life so to say, and made it easier to carry / transport the sandesh to our town house in Dacca. Locally this sandesh was called 'Chinir Pire'...... a small seat of sugar. I am told my by Dad that the correct way to eat this sandesh is to crack open the sugar coating (traditionally with the ring/rings that you are wearing), peel off the coating, eat the sandesh and not the coating.

Girish-Nakur introduced Monohara in 1980 when we ordered this for my sisters marriage. It is said that Dad went and stood at their workshop and personally supervised the 'moiras' (sweetmeat makers) making the mishti of his ancestral village. He threatened "shaesh koira dimu" if the sweets did not match his expectation. I quite believe the story.

The present owner Prashanta Nandy is still apprehensive when Dad makes his rare visit (Dad is now 88 years of age) to this quaint shop in Hedua.

Monohara is worth a special trip to North Calcutta...... braving the erratic traffic.

Enjoy ..........

Do not add ice.......

Tonight at Big Ben (Kenilworth), I came upon a great realisation. This issue has irked me always, but well, ...... live and let live has been my policy. Hence though it irked me, it never annoyed me. Today, it was different.

The issue is...Why do people drink their Scotch on the rocks...... with ice. I think it's a waste of good liquor. Funnily enough the Americans are the ones who do it more often than others. The Americans anyway have a lot to learn. They can put this learning procedure on their long list of 'things-to-learn'.

What is more, the wannabe Delhites, the corporate yuppies, the Bongs, the Diggas and the who-have-you from all over India seems to be drinking their whisky on the rocks. Rather strange, because whisky is not the correct thing to drink in these warm tropical climates. But then again, most of these affluent wannabes are cocooned in air-conditioned comfort all the time.....so never mind the tropical heat !!!

The word whisky comes from the word uisgegaugh (or usquebaugh) meaning 'the water of life'. A great tribute to a very noble drink. But when whisky is poured on ice cubes (or ice cubes put in the whisky), it freezes the aroma and the smell, and only dulls the taste/flavour and smell of the whisky. Moreover, the ice melts, and dilutes the whisky in degrees, thereby changing the taste with every sip. The last sip is therefore the most dilute, and yet warmer (no ice) than the first extremely cold.This reverse process is not what this noble drink should undergo.

Chilled whisky does not readily yield up its aromas and the addition of ice will close them down altogether.

Whisky should be single malt. Made in Scotland. Each district of Scotland has their individual brew with their highly individual taste and aroma. Tallisker (Isle of Skye) is different from Dalwhinnie (Highland) or Glenfiddich or Craggmore or JW Blue Label or Glenlivet. A single malt is the best whisky and should preferably be drunk neat at room temperature (the room temperature of the Scottish Highlands is of course 15 degree Celsius). Water.... just a little bit of water ..... may enhance the taste, but ice will surely kill it.

The blended whiskies come next J&B, Cutty Sark, JW (Red, Black, Gold), Black Dog etc. These too can be drunk neat, or with a little water. Spring water is ideal.

Irish whiskey is very different, yet very, very good. Once again, ice kills the flavour, and all good Irish whiskies like Jamieson, Old Bushmills, Tulamore Dew should be had neat, or with a little water.

The Americans ...... remember they still have a lot to learn........ make their whiskey (note the changed spelling) with maize and corn and call it it bourbon. One has to acquire a taste for it. Canadian whisky is once again different from the Scotch of Scotland. And heaven forbid, I hear whisky is now distilled in Japan and also in Zimbabwe. I hope my informer is wrong !!!!

In India whisky is considered to be a fashionable drink. The young trendsetters (no gender bias here) gulp down Indian blended whisky on the rocks, with chilled water, with a Coca Cola, even cocktails. I wonder if they know that Indian whisky is nearly always made from molasses, and hence may well be termed as rum outside of the Indian subcontinent.

A true lover of Scotch will drink his whisky with a little clear water. Adding a little water to the whisky before drinking will prevent the strength of the whisky numbing the senses and increasing the flavour and the aroma of the Scotch. The water liberates 'the bouquet' by breaking down the intensity and allowing the subtle and smooth flavour to make themselves known.

So dear tipplers, please don't chill your Scotch with ice.

Add a little water.

Drink it at room temperature.

Enjoy the 'water of life'

Above all maintain your dignity. For whisky is a dignified drink.

Fiscal Thoughts

Someone whom I know is due to retire. He is not too comfortable with the idea. His pension is meager. "I have always had money to spend...... never been poor........." quoth he.

Set me thinking......

Lucky bugger, never been poor. Hell, man, I've been battling it out for years.

I've never been rich.

Damn it !!!

Hell, Nevermind.

Further thoughts.........

I've never been poor either. Maybe I've got used to being poor. God knows.

Not rich....Not poor.

How complicated this is.

Last thought at bedtime.

I don't know what it is being rich. Nor do I know what it means being poor. I do not care a fig for either state. Money comes because I earn it.......it goes because I spend it. Period.

I have all I need, what I do not have I do not therefore need.

I sent up a silent thanks.