If you are one of those food critics: stop pretending to be one and pick up another job. And to the countless many who enjoy 'Indian cuisine' in its current iteration, well, continue enjoying whatever suits your fancy but don't ask me to join you when you decide to go to the Indian buffet. I would rather skip that. How about some pizza?
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Article comments
1 - Victor Plenty
I've eaten genuine Indian food. It was delicious, and it also nearly burned off the top of my head. I'm not sure how I could ever become accustomed to eating food that spicy. For all its flaws, Westernized Indian-derived cuisine has the great advantage of being something I'm capable of eating.
Even if it's probably not as healthy for me as real Indian food would be.
2 - Nancy
Whenever an ethnic food gets popular elsewhere, it gets dumbed down to the tastes of the general population. Most Americans can't handle very hot foods, so the chilis are turned 'way down; that's happened with Spanish/Mexican as well as Szechuan/Hunan Chinese as well as the Indian.
I learned to cook "Indian" - my version, anyway - because I loved the flavors but could neither afford to eat out as much as I would like, nor could I handle the hotness of the chilis, even when they obligingly made the dish what THEY considered 'mild'. Mild, my incinerated tongue! Some ethnic foods should be used as weapons, IMO, since the heat doesn't start until after the gulled diner has already got it well in the mouth with maximum exposure to the capascin searing all the unfortunate tissues! And then drinking water trying to kill the burn just makes it worse .... Oh, my! But that initial burst of flavor before the tongue falls off is SO nice ....
I think what intimidates most people (it did me) is the incredibly LONG list of spices & ingredients used in most Indian cooking. I found out eventually it only looks long, and none of it is carved in stone: if you're supposed to use fenugreek & you hate fenugreek then don't use it. If you love cumin, by all means, ditch the fenugreek & load up the cumin. In this respect, Indian food is the most versatile & forgiving of cuisines. I make Beghan Bharta (sp? sorry) with cinnamon in addition to double cumin seeds, because that's how I like it. So it isn't as authentic as someone's Aunt Parvati's; in India, that's no sin, either.
Good stuff. Glad it's getting popular, in any form!