Chow Mein n Pasta

“What shall we have today my Cutie-Pie? I feel like eating Chinese. Shall we order the usual Chicken Chow Mein, hot Dim sum & any refreshing beverage you like”? Hmmm…Chinese says it all. The Chow Mein is served red hot, spicy and with a generous helping of Soya and Chinese salt. The chicken is only to be seen but cannot be felt! This is Indian Chinese ladies & gentlemen; a mix of the two great civilizations. I wonder why every ‘Chinese’ in India is tarred with Soya and salted with ‘ajino-moto’, so much so that even the spymaster loses his enthusiasm! Taking inspiration from my love for noodles, I am making an attempt to enlighten the reader about the “Global Chow Mein crises” & its repercussions. I will also throw some light on the recent ‘Pasta Revolution’ in India.
As ‘Righta’ is right in Bengaluru, so is the Chow Mein in India. The only difference is that it has not lost its identity here; just the meaning. But it would be very unfair to say that the Chow Mein usually served in our country is a Chef’s worst dream back in China land. Cooking for me is the world’s most delicate art. And what makes it delicate, is our tongue and not the food itself. We have a whole variety of noodles available. In the economic sense, demand always generates supply and leads to innovation. We Indians very rarely acknowledge our talent until it’s stamped by a foreigner. Here too the case is the same. Back in China, Chow Mein has a million varieties. But what is common in them all is that they serve them as their name suggests. The aroma of the ingredient is given the prime importance. If it’s a shrimp Chow Mein then it tastes like a shrimp; if its capsicum then capsicum; chicken then chicken and so forth. We on the contrary cook it the more Indonesian way; the street-smart-spicy Chow Mein! It’s cooked on very high flame so that the ingredients do not lose their colour and more importantly they lose all their aroma in the process. It’s greasy with soya and largely unhealthy. But certainly like every other Indian delicacy, its taste cannot be contested. Even within India, Chow Mein is cooked in a hundred innovative ways. For instance, the Delhi-wala’s will not spare any dish without a ‘Paneer’ mix. It was an awful experience having ‘Paneer momos’. That really is R&D, Delhi. Again back in the Indian back office ‘Bengaluru’, you rarely get steamed momos. They rather have it deep fried; a modern version of the desi samosa for the neo-modern Bengaluru folks! But again it’s all Indian and we strongly believe in unity in diversity. So you see how rich and vibrant our democracy is!
Now recently there has been a new revolution of sorts; the Pasta revolution. And this time it’s the Italians who attracted our attention. The ‘Penne Rigate’ being the most loved pasta of all. But here again we had our scientists ready to experiment. We spared no time in developing an Indian version of the Italian delicacy; the masala pasta! In spite of the recent pasta revolution, it still remains at the bottom of my menu list. I would rather prefer noodles to pasta. Now talking of pasta, I wonder how many of us really know what it is made of. For most of us it is made of a magic material different from noodles. But the truth is that the same wheat flour is used to make our ‘Penne Rigate’; only the aesthetics differ! The crux of it all lies in the fact that whether Chinese or Italian, if it’s in India then savour its Indianness. It may not be the real thing but certainly the thing remains real Indian and real yummy. So next time when you go out to dine, make sure you make a wise choice. After all it’s your wishes that make dishes and not the dishes themselves.