From: sbhattac@wissel.GBA.NYU.EDU (Shankar Bhattacharyya)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Re: curry powder, a simple request
Date: 13 Aug 92 03:56:30 GMT
Organization: NYU Stern School of Business

In article <Bstsns.5B8@jfwhome.FUNHOUSE.COM> babs@jfwhome.FUNHOUSE.COM (Babs Woods) writes:
>In <28321@wissel.GBA.NYU.EDU> sbhattac@wissel.GBA.NYU.EDU (Shankar Bhattacharyya) writes:

>>In most Indian cooking you are not supposed to be able to taste the
>>turmeric as a separate component. I dislike intensely the taste of
>>undercooked turmeric in food. (On the other hand, I have no real trouble
>>with sliced fresh turmeric, so this must be a value judgment about how
>>curries should taste, and not really about the taste.)

>What???  Sliced???  I don't know much about what form turmeric comes in 
>in order to become the dried spice we get here, so this was a genuine
>suprise to me.  So turmeric is some sort of root vegetable, or
>something?  How is it used when it's "on the hoof", as it were?  I
>don't suppose I could find a seed/seedling/tuber source and try to 
>grow it up north here, could I?  9When we finally find a house, I'm
>setting up a greenhouse.)  If not, where would I look for it in an 
>Indian grocer's?  What does it look like and how do you keep it fresh? 

Turmeric is a root. It looks like skinny ginger, and is very much smaller
on average. The fresh root is moist in the same sort of way  that ginger
is, and has a texture rather like baby ginger, perhaps a bit tougher.
People use it in that form for medicinal purposes, not typically for
cooking, although it's not unheard of, by any means. If used that way, it
gets ground to a paste on a stone slab, with a stone pestle. I use the
store-bought powder.

I have no idea whether you can grow turmeric here. I don't recall having
ever seen a plant, so I can't offer any more information.

I assume you can buy it in the Indian stores. If you do try to get it, make
sure you are getting the fresh root, not the dried product. If you are
going to buy it dried, what the hell, you might as well get it ground
already. You do not want to powder dried turmeric for yourself. It will
make a mess. The fresh root, sliced, sometimes gets served up at breakfast,
often with a little honey, as  "a tonic, good for the blood".

Also, what do you want to go growing this for? No offense, but some stuff
you just go to the store and buy. Besides, most American kitchens don't
have the sort of grinding equipment needed to grind the fresh root to a
satisfactory paste on a small scale.

>>You often wind up with that taste if you add turmeric late to a dal, and I
>>would unambiguously class that as a failure.

>I will keep this in mind for when I make dahls, thanks.

Don't go taking me too seriously here. I'm cheerfully bigoted about stuff
like this. You have to remember that there are 850 million of us, just from
India, all entirely sure we each have the one and only truth on the subject
of how dals and curries should taste. And if you add in the people of
Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sr Lanka, and a couple of our small
neighbours, as you should, you are talking about a billion or so opinions,
many mutually exclusive.

And I know damn all about West Indies cooking.

>>I will grudgingly concede that what I have said about turmeric may be
>>simply my opinion. However, my basic inclination is to claim that this is
>>written. In stone.

>Hm?  Oh, excuse me, Shankar.  I was watching you sign your name in that 
>stone tablet.  Nice technique you have, there.

Shhhhh. Don't let anybody hear you say that. I'm going to claim that God
did it last night. And if that doesn't work, I'm going to claim that I was
just taking dictation from him.

- Shankar