Visiting a langar
February 20, 2007
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The entire meal, the ingredients, the preparation and the cleanup, all of it is donated by the community. Everyone eats together as equals, sitting side by side at the langar.
In one week’s time the Doors of Perception: JUICE round table workshops will begin in Delhi. Despite all of the tragic news that we heard today, I’m still looking forward to going. I thought I’d post some photos of the langar that I attended at the Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, the last time I was there in 2005. A langar is a Sikh ‘free kitchen’ and eating there (and working there to help prepare the communally produced food) is one of the Three Pillars of Sikhism. The practice was introduced by the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak to ensure feelings of equality amongst all Sikhs, who regularly sit down and eat food together in these ritual meals.
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Cookin’ up one heq of a lot of lentil soup at the langar
The food is vegetarian so that everyone will feel comfortable joining in and eating. Community members donate one-tenth of their wealth to the Gurdwara’s food stores. Any auspicious occasion is reason enough for a family to volunteer and work preparing food for the langar.
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Community members help roll out the chapati on a long fabric and flour covered surface
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A very dynamic chapati frying moment. The community members herd their chapatis over the enormous frying area. No oil is used.
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The best part (I think) is the dishwashing zone. In what looks like the world’s longest one lane swimming pool, but then made of marble, community members toss the dirty stainless steel plates from vat to vat, clattering the dishes and making the most enormous din possible. After the dishes have made it from one side to the other being nudged along and thrown and splashed, and all of the dishwashers are soaking wet from what seems like a really fun waterfight, the dishes are deemed to be clean and are tossed into the ‘clean cage’ where they are left to dry before being passed around for the next sitting. Exquisite visually and accoustically!
- Doors of Perception: JUICE
- the Langar according to Wikipedia
- Guru Nanak according to Wikipedia
- All about Sikhs…
debra at 2:30 | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
Dark side of the moon soup
February 14, 2007
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1000 year old egg, in a puddle of kefir and onions
I’m in love, in-loved and love my beloved as much as the next gal, but I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Valentine’s Day. (Schatje doesn’t read my blog, thank gawd!)
February is the month where the novelty and exoticism of winter’s dreary darkness has completely worn off for me. Born in the Mojave Desert and based in the Polar Circle, it is sometimes possible to be lured by others into thinking that the utter lack of warmth and light is in some way charming. Come February I’ve pretty much had it and have started cursing the fact that I didn’t follow each new year’s resolution to get the hell out of Dodge for the winter months. A nippy winter night in Occitania you can wax romantic about, but up here, the incessant greyness sans etoiles of cloud cover like a woolen blanket wrapped around your head and temperatures hovering around 8-12°C, it’s so neither here nor there.
On the bright side, the 1000 year eggs are back. They were banned for a few months to further whip up fear about the bird flu. But these jeweled beauties will be part of my Valentine Dinner which I will simply refer to as ‘dinner’ and which I will colour coordinate with the night sky…
debra at 0:00 | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us
Wild Fermentation
February 12, 2007
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My friend Anita Lozinska made these pickles last summer in Poland, where they know a thing or two about pickle making. These are perfect pickles.
A few weeks ago, a friend asked me if I believed in the theory that we should eat foods according to our blood and body types, according to our ethnicity. I laughed it off and changed the subject, trying to avoid one of those discussions where ethnicity and culture get all jumbled up and folks start saying the strangest things that set my ears on fire.
But on my bike ride home, buffeted by the cold and the rain, I could think of only one thing: a comforting bowl of sauerkraut and an ice cold glass of high fat kefir. In the cold and dreary 7, I mean 8 months of the year that is winter in the Polar Circle, I rode out of my way, in to the wind, to get some fermented food. Unpacking my bags at home, I had the most romantic soft focus vision of sinking into a massive pillow, bowl of sauerkraut in one hand and a glass of kefir at my side. Turns out that I had left the bag of sauerkraut at the checkout and I nearly broke into tears.
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Yes, I drink pickle brine. Got a problem with that? In some cultures they use it as a base for soups.
For some people that would have been a chocolate moment, but for me that was a fermented food moment. Gawd how I love the fermented food.
And what made the moment all the more tragic was that Wild Fermentation, by Sandor Ellix Katz had just arrived in the post, and reading this book on the couch with the sauerkraut and the kefir was part of a snuggly feel-good scenario in which I was going to be the star. Pity the check out space out had to ruin it all. But the glass half full in me told me that this was a lesson: start fermenting my own (dang) food (oops).
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If you like fermented foods, you will love this book.
I’ll write more about Katz’ book in the next days, but here are some images of some of the pickling I’ve been doing.
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Making pickled carrots
Raw root vegetables and certain cruciferous vegetables are simply better tasting when they’ve been fermented. I would never have eaten this many raw carrots if they hadn’t been pickled and peppered first.
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Pickled carrots and beets, ready for the fridge
Same with the beets. Raw I said.
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Red cabbage sauerkraut next to a new batch weighed down with a jar of homemade kimchi
Why red cabbage sauerkraut isn’t sold and eaten all over the world, I shall never know. In the past weeks I am responsible for the consumption of 3 heads of cabbage. I would never EVER have eaten that much red cabbage raw. Sometimes I feel cheated by the pinched Calvinism of the raw food movement.
- Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz is everything you wanted to know about fermenting foods, but more importantly, about the culture and health benefits of fermenting foods
- The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved by Sandor Ellix Katz is all about food subcultures
- The Blood Type Diet according to Wikipedia
- The Hunza Diet according to Wikipedia
- The Warrior Diet according to Wikipedia
debra at 20:28 | Comments (6) | post to del.icio.us
