Those long-neglected tastebuds....

I must confess to being blessed in that I have experienced 2 extremes of culinary transport in the modest duration of my life: an ineffable euphoria at one end, and complete apathy at the other. AS usual, the former has become the stuff of my dreams; never mind that opportunities to relive it all(bowdlerized perhaps) do present themselves occasionally.

I love good food. I love eating it, getting my hands into it, cooking it, smelling it, looking at it, commenting on it, thinking about it, you name it. And I enjoy every delectable morsel of a tempting platter with utmost abandon. No dish is irredeemable in my opinion, with a discerning eye and a loving touch, even the basest of tastes can acquire respectability. Why, even the staid idli can inspire spontaneous poetry if the proportions are right, if its warm succulence permeates uniformly throughout its body, if it yields shyly to the parting touch, (and not disintegrate promptly) and importantly, if it is accompanied by an appropriate concoction that tingles, no, skewers the tastebuds. As far as chutneys and sambars go, the hotter the better.

And how am I qualified to hold at (some) length on the merits of Indian cuisines? For starters, I must have traversed a fair portion of the wide spread that represents such an integral part of an Indian, fast-foods and takeaways notwithstanding. I have had Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil(duh!), Telugu, Malayalam, Marawadi, Bengali and some other obscure and swoon-inducing preparations during my travels (read:transfers), spanning the entire spectrum from the smug, rich ghatia to the kara kuzhambu, the classic jalfrezi to the shahi tukdas of the imams, the beach-side milagai-bajjis to a mind-boggling crackerjacker of a vegetable hodgepodge I once had near Indore that set off a million bells ringing in my ears(sigh!). My discerning and highly exacting tongue has given my mother nightmares, deconstructing a carelessly put together dish to pinpoint its deficiencies, so much so that my official title of official family taster is well-deserved, if somewhat snide. I do get to polish off substantial helpings of veggies(yum! dig 'em) in the process, though.

Not to say that the perfectionist critic is an utter turkey in the kitchen himself. On the contrary, I make myself very useful at home indeed, and the success of many a get-together(food!) is directly attributable to my indispensable presence at the flameside. I can make a mean au gratin, a delectable chocolate cake, stuffed capsicum that would make you cry, and the basics of course. Say what you will, it is quite something else to savour the fruits of your exploits, even if some of those meet a rather unsavoury end, whereupon they are ingloriously consigned to be partaken by the self, for want of delirious admirers.

So where does my obssession with the palate stand vis-a-vis hostel life? Nowhere, sadly, except that once in a while, an insufferable yearning shatters the veneer of cruelly-imposed temperance in all matters gastral, and I inveigh bitterly against the (admittedly)adequate but completely uninspired and bland-enough-to-be-incapable-of-irritating-the-eye-if-poured-onto-it mess food. Even the occasional foray into a nearby restaurant leaves one underwhelmed. How does one remonstrate with the chef over an over-indulgence with green pepper or a niggardliness with fat? Some things just aren't the same. So when I survey a well-stocked kitchen, with a couple of beaming, helpful hands at my side to do the menial, I rub my hands in glee.

Let the imagination run amok...