Among a lot of my relatives, I am known as ‘The guy who shows up at our door once in a while and asks if we have anything interesting to eat in the house’.
I have been asked many times that what do I mean by ‘something interesting to eat?’ I have never been able to come up with the answer. In American loose terminology one can say that I might be talking about ‘snack’ or ‘desert’ etc. But when I really thought about it and actually came up with few things I might consider ‘interesting to eat’, they could hardly be categorized as snacks or deserts. Why? Because there is so much labor and delicate processes involved (not to mention their traditional cultural popularity) that I couldn’t simply label them as snacks or desert and live with a happy conscious. Here are few (but not limited to the list) things:
[list=1]
[li] Rasmalayee - Soaked in light milk, with no hard lumps inside.[/li][li] Rasgulay - (not the ones decoratively put on the shelves. I am talking about the ones that are kept dipped in light ‘sheera’, a light mixture of water and dissolved sugar)[/li][li] Gulab jaman - same as above. Light brown, not overdone, just rightly sweetened in light sheera.[/li][li] Kheer - Don’t even think about calling it rice pudding. The best is the one that has a very light brownish color.[/li][li] SawaNyaiN - Another dish that can be served in multiple ways. Have them fresh, warm with milk and sugar on it or cook them with milk. Or even have them with yogurt and sugar on it. The last one is my most favorite one among the three.[/li][li] Gajjar ka Halwa - My mother used to literally lock it up whenever she would make as my brother and I used to steal and eat up others’ share as well.[/li][li] Gajraila - This one, I am not even gonna talk about. Have you ever had it with yogurt after keeping it refrigerated overnight? The phrase ‘home sick’ perfectly applies to me at this very moment.[/li][li] Irani Halwa - My mother used to make this particular dish. It’s like the regular halwa except a lot better. It’s medium brown looking halwa and I believe it is made by first simmering the sugar in ghee ‘till it turns brownish and then adding sooji to it. So it ends up having these sort of crispy lumps as well as regular halwa formations.[/li][li] Pateesa - Another great confection. With desi ghee and extra crispy, very thin layers… best if comes fresh.[/li][li] Falooda - Western world has no clue what it’s missing. In 1997, when I went back to Pakistan after 5 years, the very first question I asked my brother-in-law after coming out of airport building was ‘Can we go and have some falooda?’ During my two month stay back then, I went to Ichra/Faroze pur road in Lahore many times just to have falooda.[/li][li] Poray - Sooji poray on a rainy day… One can’t go without the other, that’s all I’m gonna say on this topic.[/li]
[/list=a]
I know I am missing a lot of ‘intersting things’ but this is what I can come up with at this moment. You know, I’ve been living in US for past 8 years now and the desert here isn’t just the same way sweet as our dishes. There is something fundamentally missing in the sugar or the way of making things here. You just can’t get that sort of sweet feeling and taste that you were used to back home.