Five Foods I Hate to Love - Part 3

3. American Chop Suey


("Chop Suey", Edward Hopper, 1929)

At least I spared you the image of this monstrous noodle dish.

How can one love a hot mess of noodles and… ketchup?
Well, maybe you have to be Indian to appreciate this one, but I do love the bed of crispy hot noodles and stir-fried veggies, topped with a tangy, sweet and sour, ketchup and soy sauce mix (and a fried egg!). The sauce softens the noodles directly below creating three distinct noodle textures: the wet, soft, ketchup-y layer, the semi-soft, drier one, and the crispy, crunchy bottom layer. Delicious, I tell you!!

A staple in every Chinese restaurant in India, this can only be a disgraced, third-degree relative of anything in China or even America. The American version served in the painting above presumably contained ground meat, and seems like a different creature altogether.

Chinese food is wildly popular in India, and mostly consists of this more-Indian-than-Chinese variety of dishes that would thoroughly confuse any Chinese or American, or, frankly, anyone who hadn’t grown up with them! Hakka noodles, veg Manchurian, chili paneer and chicken lollipops are some of the names that will bring a nostalgic smile to the face of any Indian who lives abroad. Mmm…. maybe it’s time for an Indian-Chinese potluck?

Five foods I hate to love - Part 1

Alright, the fashion-intermission is over (for now). Welcome back to the main show: food.

Today I’ve got something that will make you cringe and laugh and maybe feel ill. Five foods that are wrong on so many levels, but right on several other, more primal ones.

Anna tagged me for this meme (why does this word feel so new if it was coined in the year of my birth by the notorious Richard Dawkins?)
I’ll pass on this “unit of cultural information” by tagging Philippa, and share my list with you.

1. Instant coffee

I’ll start with the #1 offender.

I realise I’ll get the least sympathy on this one. My husband, for one, has completely phased this out of my life, but I still miss it some days. The reason I love this goes WAY back. Back to summer holidays in Delhi when we were allowed one cold coffee at the end of a long day playing in the hot sun.

We spent most summers at Vijay-Uncle and Phool-aunty’s house in Bharti Nagar (walking distance of our beloved Khan Market). I don’t remember being indoors much – we spent most days playing outside, and making hot, sweaty messes of ourselves. And even though I wasn’t big enough or fast enough to make much of a mark in the games outside with my older cousins, I still earned my cold coffee when I came indoors, just like everyone else. I loved the democratic ‘all children were equal’ philosophy of my uncle and aunt, which went well beyond the cold coffee and always made us feel like we had an extra set of parents. Of course, that also meant that we were fair game for the disciplining and rules that their own children had to follow, but that was a small price to pay for being held so dear.

And the cold coffee! Cold milk, sugar and Nescafe shaken up until it frothed and foamed. I cannot describe how amazing this was. Even more so when you consider all we were allowed to drink at home was Bournvita, a disgustingly nutritious concoction that we loathed and was always served HOT (don’t be fooled by Cadbury’s marketing – this stuff is nasty).

Coming into the cool, dark living room after being out in the Delhi sun all day, and drinking this cold, sweet drink – that’s what life was all about!

Now, I may not have convinced you yet, and that’s probably for the best. But I will tell you that my study-abroad friends in London teased me about it no end and then started drinking it every day. Right, Steph? (She christened it the 'ultra latte'.) And my roommate in Boston, the infamous N in Knyler was an early adopter too.

Don’t knock it till you try it (and wait until it’s a hot summer day before you come asking for your money back)!