TIMES ONLINE
From The Times
May 18, 2006

When it comes to vegetables, variety
really is the spice of life

Carrots deserve more than just boiling water

Joanna Weinberg

A recent trip to India was not consciously a foodie one. It was, in fact, a walking holiday in Uttaranchal, in the foothills of the Himalayas; the rolling, green countryside underneath the watchful gaze of Nanda Devi, India’s largest, snow-capped peak.

The families we stayed with in their whitewashed farmsteads were all subsistence farmers. Each day we’d pick our way along winding paths and across streams that fed small terraced patches of wheat, potato, spinach, cauliflower, onion, garlic and coriander. We’d pass children fishing with their hands — screaming with excitement whenever they caught a fish — and girls in flip-flops herding goats over rocky terrain.

Every evening we’d sit outdoors around an open fire and watch the evening meal being prepared. Since each homestead consisted of one extended family, everyone ate together at one sitting. With the grandmother looking after small children and the parents out working in the fields, it was mostly the grandfather who did the cooking.

The kitchen was an unpainted mud room with a small fire in one corner, assorted pots and pans, a chapati stone, and a variety of spices: cumin, cardamom, chilli powder and garam masala. Out of the kitchen each night came the most wonderfully varied vegetable curries I have ever come across. There would be at least two fresh curries from the ingredients grown on the family plot, as well as dal, gram (chickpeas), rice and chapatis. We feasted like kings: chapatis stuffed with potato fried in cumin for breakfast, dal spiced with garam masala and garlic enriched with a little clarified butter at lunch, seemingly endless varieties of fresh vegetables with different spices for dinner. Unlike so much food in Indian restaurants in the UK, everything tasted so different: sometimes fresh, light and spicy, other times comforting and replenishing.

As we sat on a blanket at lunch in a rhododendron grove on our last day, it occurred to me how unimaginative we are with our vegetables at home. We bung carrots or green beans in a saucepan or steamer, guiltily buttering them a little for a treat, and put them on the side of whatever else we are eating. Looking out over the terraced hills, watching the farmers, I had never felt so connected to the production of food. It seemed to me that vegetables deserve a bit more imagination. Each one is a little miracle, and their flavour, texture and sheer variety should be celebrated.

I made a solemn vow to feast on them more often. Tonight, perhaps, I’ll grill aubergine with sesame, honey and soy, or I’ll stew chickpeas with rosemary and garlic and roast new season’s asparagus. Tomorrow, maybe, I’ll grill spring onions until they’re blackened and floppy, and make a tomato salad with broad beans, fresh peas, mint and parsley. Then I’m going to sit and look at my photos and pretend I’m in a shady grove with a stream trickling past, and that the sun is shining, while two boys catch a fish with
their hands.

• For information about the Shakti Village Walk, e-mail info@mahoutuk.com

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