Cuisine is only about making foods taste the way they are supposed to taste --- Charlie Trotte
During my recent trip to Udaipur this winter, I became avidly keen on trying out the local Daal Baati Churma, a much savored and popular dish of Rajasthan,and fairly uncommon in most other parts of India. Upon interrogating the locals of the whereabouts of the most authentic version of the aforementioned dish, my husband and I landed in Natraj Restaurant, unbenowst to the world at large, but a rage amongst the locals, and a name that makes even the most nondescript autorickshaw driver glint in seeming recognition of the sublime treatment meted to a salivating palate. We alighted on the auto and it putterred and sputtered off on a bumpy ride towards our destination, meanwhile our driver giving us the low-down on the details of what to expect, amidst other casual converstaion.
"Aapko Udaipur kaisa lag raha hai?" (How are you liking Udaipur?)
"Accha hai, kaafi sundar aur aithihaasik hai" (We like it, its beautiful and historically intriguing).
"Ji, Isko hum Venice of the East kehte hain. Door door se log aate hain. Bahut pyaara shehar hai." (We call it the Venice of the East. People come from all over here.)
I couldn't help but smirk at the inherent allegience of the auto driver to his town, something that I recall having missed from most of the autowalahs in Delhi. If only he was poster boy for the tourism department of Udaipur. This was the fifth auto driver who had sung La De Daas about Udaipur to us. I enjoyed every minute of my conversation with them, but only wished I had a penny for their words of praise, for there was no real need to sell the city to us - we were already there.
"Aap kahan thehre hain?" (Where are you staying right now?), he interrogated curiously.
"Hotel Pichola Haveli pe - Bagor ki Haveli ke bagal mein." (At hotel Pichola Haveli, near Bagore Haveli), we reported.
"Wahan toh roz Dharohar jaise dance groups ka music ya dance show hota hai. Wahan tourist log bhi art aur craft khareedne bahut aate hain." (There's a lot of famous dance groups like Dharohar who perform there regularly. Its also a good place for tourists to explore the arts and crafts).
"Ji, kafi raunak rehti hai wahan par; galiyon mein bhi bahut chehal pehal hai" ( Yes, the place is rather busy and bustling with life), we concurred.
"Aapne aaj kahan kahan ghooma?" (So what places did you visit today? )
Fine conversationalist he was, our man.
"Ji, aaj hum Fateh Sagar Lake gaye, City Palace dekha, Lake Pichola aur sunset point." (Fateh Sagar Lake, City Palace, Lake Pichola and the sunset point.)
"Aapko Pichola lake mein boating karni chahiye. Jag mandir tak. Jag mandir bahut famous temple hai. Wahan Raveena Tandon ka shaadi hua tha." (You ought to go boating in Pichola lake, till you reach Jag Mandir - the famous temple where Raveena Tandon got married).
Was it deja vu again or was this yet again the nth auto driver who didn't abstain from blurting the fact that Raveena Tandon got married at the Jag Mandir at the mere mention of the monument? I had enough evidence to believe now that Jag Mandir was not what it was because of any of its rich historical or architectural importance, but simply the trademark symbol of a top Indian filmstar's choice destination for holy matrimony. However, given that filmstars in India who play leading heroic roles are icons of national infatuation and bestowed an almost demi-god status, common rhetoric built around their movements in a manner of reverence more pious than that revealed by - say, daily tabloid gossip - didn't quite come as a new revelation to me.
"Natraj restaurant yahan ka sabse famous restaurant hai. Aapko Baawarchi bhi try karna chaahiye." (Natraj is one of the most famous restaurants here, and you should try out this other one called Baawarchi).
"Hmm", I nodded.
We reached there, promptly got off the auto, thanking the driver for his incessant commentary and set afoot into Natraj.
Not far from a typical dhabha-style restaurant, Natraj could have passed off to the innocent bystander as yet another regular eatery hidden in the narrow alleys of Bapu Bazar near Lal Ghat. It had faded paint peeling off walls, an army of square looking wooden table and chairs awkwardly arranged in the most isotropic fashion to accommodate the maximum number of people per square footage, and was rampant with unkempt worn-out, barefoot yet brisk walking waiters carrying thalis and other heavy culinary artillery in both hands, and finger-licking medium-bellied patrons sizing up their generously apportioned utensils filled to the brim with copious amounts of fresh and mouth-watering grub, hot chapattis and buckets of fodder. The white tube lighting, though dim and poor in incandescence was rather gnawing to the eyes and a bit of a sensory overload. We took our seat to wherever we were ushered and promptly ordered the item on the menu that was the sole objective of the undertaking that evening.
Dal Bati Churma is the most popular item in Rajasthani cuisine. It is made of three items of bati, dal and churma. Dal is lentils - black and bengal grams sauteed with green chillies, crushed ginger, garlic, turmeric and chilli powder, bati is baked round wheat flour dumplings baked over firewood or over kandas, or cow dung cakes, as traditionally done in villages, and churma is powdered sweetened cereal. Churma is a popular delicacy usually served with baatis and dal. It is coarsely ground wheat crushed and cooked with ghee and sugar. Traditionally it is made by mashing up wheat flour baatis or left over rotis in ghee and jaggery , optionally mixed with cardamom powder, dry fruits like cashew,almonds and pistachio and flavours. It seems to have a close resemblance with Litti Chokha which is a prevalent dish in Bihar. The major difference lies in that Dal Bati Churma is stuffed with Dal and soaked with Ghee, Litti is stuffed with Sattu and almost always baked with a tinge
of Ghee. Chokha served along with the Litti, is a type of spicy mashed potato mixed with roasted brinjal.
The waiter came with our dish and placed the dal and bati and ghee-bathed churma on the table, and started soaking the bati with huge bucketspoons of more ghee right before our very eyes. All those years of zero-oil recipes and dietary-regimen cooking mantras flashed in unison at their violation before my eyes, but I managed to politely convert my squeal into a mere bemused rolling of the eyes in disbelief. As even two bites of the batis and churma were depleted, they were uniformly replenished by a ladling of a couple more untill we firmly and with wild gesticulation muttered 'bas bas' through our chewy ghee ball stuffed mouths. As we had quickly discovered with each successive helping, the more ghee that was poured on our bati, the more delectable it became. This was a determined assault on the normal, and perhaps an insidious design on mankind's part to stave off violent midnight hunger pangs for the travelers, the nomads, the ancient voyagers of the region. The only cinematic image that seemed now to invoke any sort of restraint for the addition of even more ghee to the infinitely absorbent dish was that of tiny flour dumplings swimming in a bowl of hyperviscous ghee, interfering with the perception of distance - where was the bottom of this sea of oil anyway? I could almost think of myself as being on a little boat floating on this quiet sea, looking downward to peak at the crust of an inevitable volcano thrusting up the ocean floor. I blinked loudly, overwhelmed at the idea, stared at the innocuous table and its contents for a moment, and continued masticating.
Later, upon further reading, I discovered that co
oking in this princely state had actually been influenced by the war-like lifestyle of its Rajput inhabitants and the availability of ingredients in this dry region. Scarcity of water and fresh green vegetables have clearly had their effect on the choice of staple constituents. In the desert belt of Jaisalmer, Barmer and Bikaner, cooks prefer to use more milk, buttermilk and clarified butter than water itself to make dishes. Food that could last for several days and could be eaten without heating was preferred in the old days, but more out of necessity than choice - a tradition which has carried on till date. Marwari cooking includes the distinct use of mango powder, a suitable substitute for tomatoes, scarce in the desert, and asafoetida, to enhance the taste in the absence of garlic and onions. Additionally, dried lentils - beans from indigenous plants like sangri and ker are used liberally. Gram flour is a major ingredient here and is used to make some of the delicacies like gatta ki sabzi, pakodi. Powdered lentils are used for mangodi, papad. Bajra and corn are used all over the state for preparations of rabdi, khichdi and rotis. Various chutneys are made from locally available spices like turmeric, coriander, mint and garlic.
Finally we were asked whether we would like dessert, although sweet dishes in Rajasthan are had not just after a meal, but before, during and following it. Each of the dishes are popular dessert for specific regions - Rasgullas from Bikaner, the Mawa Kachori from Jodhpur, Malpuas from Pushkar, Ghevar from Jaipur, and Diljani from Udaipur. We went with mishri mawa and Ghevar, as per the chef's recommendation. Ghewar is generally prepared in January for Makar Sankranti, in March-April for Gangaur and in July-August for the Teej festival. It is disc-shaped, and made from flour, sugar syrup and our favorite usual suspect - Ghee! There are many varieties of Ghevar, such as plain, desi ghee, mawa and malai ghevar.
As I walked out of Natraj that evening, the slow cool breeze of night time Udaipur brushed past like a silhouette of contentment. Food sure was the most primitive form of comfort. Whoever knew that the volumes of ghee downed that night could taste so much like something entirely magically different - a thinly veiled art's tongue disguised as an opulent transformation to the regulars of a ghee-eating spartan nation. In retrospect, I can now only associate the moment with an amusing anecdote from Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle:
"It’s like when you put instant rice pudding mix in a bowl in the microwave and push the button, and you take the cover off when it rings, and there you’ve got rice pudding. I mean, what happens in between the time when you push the switch and when the microwave rings? You can’t tell what’s going on under the cover. Maybe the instant rice pudding first turns into macaroni gratin in the darkness when nobody’s looking and only then turns back into rice pudding. We think it’s only natural to get rice pudding after we put rice pudding mix in the microwave and the bell rings, but to me, that is just a presumption. I would be kind of relieved if, every once in a while, after you put rice pudding mix in the microwave and it rang and you opened the top, you got macaroni gratin. I suppose I’d be shocked, of course, but I don’t know, I think I’d be kind of relieved too. Or at least I think I wouldn’t be so upset, because that would feel, in some ways, a whole lot more real."