juan0505

Washing EnzymeMost cuisines, especially in the age of the Internet, have severaloutside influences, for better or for worse. Ladakh, being asgeographically isolated as it is, has none, unless you count Tibet(Ladakh is called Little Tibet because of the geographicalcontiguity and similar culture). The result is that despite beingin the same state as Kashmir, there is not a glimmer of similarity. For Ladakhis, spice means thangyar, the yellow chilli from Manaliwhich is first fried and then coarsely pounded and eaten with justabout everything, and kurnyot or caraway seeds that grow wild inLadakh on the margins of barley fields. Kurnyot seems to take the place of cumin, and adds a surprisinglyWestern flavour to soups. Barley and wheat are staples here, andthe uses to which they are put are extraordinary: Barley goes tomake everything from tsampa to chhang, while wheat is used to makea variety of momos and spaetzle-like pasta for soups. The chef at Shambha La specialises in caraway seeds, a delicious,heart-warming broth with lamb stock as its base, to which is addeddried yak's cheese (called chhurpe), lamb pieces and tsampa. Toomuch tsampa and you've got a breakfast porridge. Too little and itbecomes a standard soup. The management of the hotel has nothingbut scorn for my standard daily order of mutton sausage andtsamptuk: they want to showcase the entire range of Ladakhi food. Mutton sausages, flavoured subtly with caraway seeds, are neithersmoked nor fermented. They are served within minutes of being made.Coarsely chopped pieces of mutton are used, though once upon a timeit was probably yak meat that substituted lamb. It is not as if the fermented taste is unknown to Ladakh: allwinter long, vegetables pickled like Korean kimchi are eaten andthe infamous butter tea, onomatopoeically known as gurgur chai,contans a dollop of yak butter that has a characteristicallyfermented taste. Breakfast at Shambha La usually consists of Ladakhi pickle, madewith white radish, dressed with unheated caraway seeds, salt andchilli powder. It turns faintly sour in one hour of being kept inthe sun and goes deliciously well with traditional Ladakhi bread,called khambiri or yeast-developed. A few things I could not sample in Ladakh are Changthang lamb, fromthe vast, underpopulated plain contiguous with Tibet wherevegetation is caraway seeds. Sheep reared here has an indescribably caraway seeds. Paba and shkew, which the management of the hotel deem toohomely to unleash on a guest, are home-style staples for farmers.
2008-06-11 09:48:52