Where there's heat... get INTO the kitchen

...

It’s a curious thing, heat. 

We want it for comfort on a cold winter’s day.  We embrace it on a stunning white-sand beach in Mexico.  We dread its yearly return when it slides down the California mountains like the Devil's own breath, whipping up raging forest fires along it's path.  We take it for granted when we wake up each morning.  

And we LOVE to eat it!

I Googled chilli peppers and got over 6.8M hits in less than a nano second.  I don't think there's a place on the planet which doesn’t have it’s own version of the chilli pod or peppercorn. There are whole cultures whose identities are closely entwined with the heat of their cuisine.  Men folk back home gather at Tom’s Tavern to challenge one another to prove themselves by ingesting a host of different hot-sauces collected from around the world (silly gits).

Growing up in north eastern America, we aren’t as culturally bound to the heat like other regions of the country.  Our forefathers in the north didn’t come from old-world hot spots like Spain, Africa and Asia.  Our German, Polish, Irish, Italian, Dutch or Scandinavian ancestors were more about slow stews and hearty field-hand fare.  If you were to move towards the south and west and you’re moving into regions influenced by Creole, Cajun, African and most especially to the west, Mexico whose flavours were influenced by the Spanish.

And so coming from a heat-timid background, when I arrived in the UK my tastes and senses were naive, (to put it mildly – See? See what I did there?).  When I first arrived with my suitcase of personal history, all I could taste was HEAT!!! in even the most mild of dishes.  It took time to appreciate the subtle depths and layers of sizzling pleasure one can achieve from these little red flavour bombs.

Another PBS television chef whom I admired greatly was Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet.  He was passionate about world travel and brought much of his life experiences to the table.  Not just in the dishes, but by the sharing of stories about the generosity of the people who opened their kitchens and lives up to teaching this funny looking gray-bearded Methodist Minister about their day to day sustenance.  The most compelling lesson I took from him was this… In order to learn about a culture, start by learning about their food.  And it’s really very true.  If you study a cuisine from anywhere in the world, you begin to understand their environment (what they eat, indicates what they cultivate which in turn shows what natural resources they can draw on which in turn gives you a larger idea of the environments they live in, etc.).

So I began my culinary love affair with the world in earnest here in the UK.  And I selected India as the first place I wanted to learn about to create their amazing dishes.  I did this by persuading my dear husband to take me out to dinner, as much as possible, to as many Indian restaurants as we could find – not a bad life that, lol.  My Indian journey began through their menus and imaginative flavours.  The eager waiting staff who didn’t mind the endless questions I’d ask about each dish gave me a lot of insight into how to craft a truly lovely meal.  I enjoyed many creamy kormas giving way to the roar of a pungent rogan josh.  

Tasting lead to learning which lead to cooking which leads me to here.  And the knowledge that when things are getting hot, it’s time to head into the kitchen and be sultry with your spices and lavish with your love.  For cooking as a gift to someone is an act of love, it’s a feathery kiss on a fork and a spoonful of embrace. xx