Sunil Sethi: A lexicon for Indian foodies

AL FRESCO

Octavio Paz, the late Mexican poet and diplomat, once wrote a splendid essay comparing the gastronomic traditions of Mexico and India. Beginning with the premise that the chilli was a comparatively late import to India, most likely introduced by the Portuguese in the 16th century, he asked if it had arrived through the Philippines, Cochin or Goa. Another food probably of Mexican origin, he argued, is the fruit Indians call chikoo, which is called chico-zapote in Mexico, and in fact is also known as zapota in parts of south India. And what of certain types of curry, the south Indian mola, for instance, which both in etymology and flavour, is similar to the Mexican mole, derived from the word muli, which means "sauce" in Nahuatl (Mexican language).

Starting with food, Paz takes off into the deep byways of old trade links between India, China, and "New Spain"""why, for example, is the saint of Peubla still worshipped as China Poblana? Like his fellow Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, Paz uses the origin of food to establish the world as a highly globalised place long before its current phase of hyper-connectivity. Why should Indians feel nervous about McDonald's or KFC, Prof. Sen asks, when so much of Indian cuisine""from tandoori food to Bengali sweets""originates in the Northwest Frontier, Iran, Turkey, and Europe.

Madhur Jaffrey, the food writer, once gave me an excellent disquisition on the inter-relationship between cooking vessels. How closely the Indian karai is related to the Chinese wok depends on which country was first hammering metal into similar shapes to cook a particular type of dish. In her travels in Asia, she was fascinated by the close kinship between many Indian and Far Eastern cooking utensils.

Like language, food is a constantly evolving idea. What good use are cooks if they can't cook up something new? Antonio Armellini, the present Italian ambassador to India, explained the other day that the popular Italian dessert tiramisu is not a traditional pudding at all""it was invented by an enterprising Italian chef in New York after World War II. Just as the north Indian sweet Karachi halwa was created by a halwai from Karachi who set up shop in Bombay after Partition.

Down the years, I have badgered chefs and gourmets with such questions and it sometimes surprises me how ill-informed they are. Never mind; some help is now at hand. My old friend Deepak Nirula, a knowledgeable and trained caterer, and one of three brothers who own the restaurant chain, has privately published a clever dictionary of food. It is called Index: A Lexicon for the Indian Gourmet""a sort of Hobson Jobson for foodies who want to know more about what is on their plate. It alphabetically lists several thousand entries to do with food in 13 Indian languages, all cross-indexed at the back, from Bengali to Malayalam, and throws in a large number of Western and Far Eastern terms as well.

I knew, for instance, that beer was made from hops but not that "it is only the dried female flower of the vine" that is fermented for the brew. Whereas ling is a variety of water chestnut grown in China, Korea and Japan, linguic is a "Portuguese pork sausage cured in brine, seasoned with garlic, and spiced with cinnamon and cumin". I assumed that only exotic hotels or restaurants were called Mirabelle until Deepak's guide informed me that it is also "a small, sweet, golden-yellow plum with a very penetrating smell". On and on goes the list, a diverting handbook for people who like to dream about food.

Alas, Deepak Nirula is one of that rare breed for whom work is its own reward. He seeks no public acknowledgement. His lexicon, now in its third edition, is published strictly to be given away to friends. It is therefore neither priced nor available in the bookshops. But if you are truly resolute about knowing where what you eat comes from, you could write to him at deepaknirula@vsnl.com .