Villainous Vegetables

I am essentially a vegetarian, and I like most vegetables. I like fruits better, but will eat (or at least make an attempt) any vegetable. However I draw the line at karela or even the uchhe (a la Bengal). I think they are of the same genre. With its thick warty skin the karela is ugly and somehow reminds me of a frog. The uchhe is no better, Both are bitter and though I don't like the bitter taste, I can have the bengali titar daal, but I absolutely hate the karela. In any form. I like shukto. Only when I prepare it....... with the minimum input of uchhe or karela.Unfortunately the karela features everyday in our family ..... dinner or lunch. Even the children eat karela.

The next on my list of most hated veggies is the pumpkin (kumro in Bengali). It's squishy and sweet and slightly fibrous. Yucky ! Thankfully my family does not like it either. The Assamese call it ranga lau and add almost equal proportion of bhut jalokies to make a fiery curry. This curry is eaten with rice. Pumpkins ...... I do not eat.

The other vegetable on the 'no no' list is the tinda. This is a squidgy gelatinous stuff which is very popular in North India. I cannot have tinda in any form. My mejdimaashi (when she was in New Delhi) tried all kinds of tinda preparations on me. All of them failed to seduce me. She used to stuff tindas with a fish paste and bake them with a cheese topping. Called it by some fancy Spanish name. End of the day, they were still tindas. The only time this very favourite maashi of mine rebuked me was when I stoically refused this fish-cheese camouflaged tinda. She said I was 'too strong headed' !!!!

Otherwise, I maintain a very catholic taste where food is concerned. I am not really 'strong-headed'..... not where food is concerned.

Once when I was refusing to eat karela at the lunch table, my parents mentioned that we should be catholic regarding food habits. I was perhaps five years old at that time and did not know the meaning of the word 'catholic'. Dad explained the meaning. Adding that we are likely to be eating communal food most of our lives ..... at School, in College, in our canteen when we started working, and also in prison/jailkhana, should we ever took to stealing and our profession took us there!! My sister and I listened in wonder.

I tried the same line with my children. This time with the kumro being the bone of content. I wanted to pull the 'catholic' and the 'jailkhana' line on them. They retorted at once "Oh, but we are Catholics. We go to Catholic Schools. We go to Church. Perhaps you should tell Baba. He works in a non-Catholic office. Baba, eat the kumro !!!!"

Folks, today there is karela AND kumro for lunch !!!!