Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [78]
Bill asks Anand, “Do you have formal culinary training?”
“No, I learned to cook by experimenting with food as a child.”
“Just like me,” Cheryl says.
“I would like to go to the United States to school,” Anand admits shyly. “I’ve researched the Culinary Institute of America and the chef ’s program at Johnson and Wales University. I dream about becoming a food writer, but my friends laugh at the idea.”
“Go for it,” Bill tells him. “Don’t listen to naysayers.”
For our dinner at the History Café, Bill orders a beef version of vindaloo, a Portuguese inspiration modified over time by Indian cooks. The hot, spicy sauce features freshly ground red chile and cloves, made tangy from a sour fruit called kodumpuli, or gamboge. Cheryl gets a green chicken curry known as kariveppila kozhy, containing cubes of chicken cooked with cardamom and tamarind. It reminds us of a Thai green curry without the basil. The paratha and naan breads on the side round out the meal perfectly.
The next morning, dismounting carefully from our high four-poster bed onto the coir (coconut fiber) floor mats, we go out to our ocean-view balcony to read the English-language paper hung on our room door in a pouch handmade from old newspapers, a crafty recycling touch. The sea traffic is heavy at this hour, providing a parade of harbor ferries, big commercial barges, container ships cruising the distant depths, a freighter that seems almost in touching distance, and lots of small fishing boats with flat nets, which are dipped into the water repeatedly to haul up accumulating catches.
Right down the shore, groups of other fishermen operate Kochi’s famous Chinese nets, the most photographed sight in the city. Erected between 1350 and 1450 directly on the edge of the harbor, the heavy, teak contraptions rely on a manual pulley system of cantilevers and counterweights—involving bamboo poles, stones, and the arduous labor of several men—to sink large nets into the sea and raise them out again. To get a closer look at the work, we walk along the coast, stopping to watch various teams in different stages of the process. “As rudimentary as it looks on the surface,” Bill says, “it’s a pretty sophisticated system.” In a small outdoor market, vendors sell whole fish just hauled up.
Back at the hotel for breakfast, both of us get sweet lime juice to drink and a plate of papaya, pineapple, and chickoo, a fruit that looks like a tiny potato and tastes like a sugary pear. Cheryl follows with uppama, a local favorite made with rava, a couscous-type grain, mixed here with black mustard seeds, turmeric, curry leaves, broken pieces of dried small red chiles, peanuts, and vegetable bits. Bill opts for uthappam, a thick rice pancake prepared from slightly fermented batter, common in Kerala cooking. It comes with sambar, a spicy, soupy lentil concoction, and a southern-style masala, a relish of onions, tomatoes, and herbs rather than a northern Indian dried-spice blend. Fresh coconut chutney enhances both dishes.
In the historic Fort Cochin area of the city, where we’re staying, tuk-tuks (also called “auto-rickshaws” and perhaps better named “auto-ricochets”) provide most of the commercial transportation on the narrow lanes. Bill hails one after breakfast to take us a couple of miles to the Mattancherry business district, site of the Pepper Exchange, the Dutch Palace, the Paradesy Synagogue, and other visitor attractions. Built in 1568, the synagogue sounds fascinating, but it isn’t open today. Spice shops and warehouses