Taking The Long Way Around: The Quiet Charm of Lentils

Slow-cooked Maash (Urad) Daal (White Lentils). Photo by Mir Elias. Copyright 2015

"That the longest way is the most efficient way, / The one that looped among islands, and / You always seemed to be traveling in a circle / And now that the end is near / The segments of the trip swing open like an orange. / There is light in there, and mystery and food. / Come see it. Come not for me but it. / But if I am still there, grant that we may see each other." 

"Getting to know you, / Getting to know all about you. / Getting to like you, / Getting to hope you like me." 

No, I've not been on a walkabout but it sure feels like it since my last post. I've become an aunt again after 12 years, graduated from yet another academic program, visited a country I've never traveled to before, applied for my first arts grant (for this blog), started studying in depth regarding a topic that'll lead to yet another rite of passage in the near future (I hope!), and am looking forward to a milestone birthday with more joy and less trepidation. To paraphrase my favorite Ashbery poem quoted above
-- I know the end is always near but I hope it'll remain sufficiently far until it's time so I'm going to take the long way around (with your indulgence) to get to my point.

At home in the US and abroad, this has been a summer of turmoil and change -- in Europe with the "Grexit" crisis revealing the naked ideologies that formed the EU, in the Middle East with the potential Iran nuclear deal providing a hairline crack of light shining through previously closed doors, the landmark case in the US making marriage equality the law of the land, and the walking dead of racist terrorism (only never to be labelled as such) rearing its head in Charleston, South Carolina, to name a few of the headlines that, in typical media myopia, pushed aside the news from Syria, Burundi, Yemen, and so on, and so on. But, what does the news (almost always bad and rarely good) have to do with a food blog?

The personal is certainly political, but for someone like me, the political is personal too.  I started this blog with an aim to demystify the “otherness” of people like me and, in my case, through sharing the far flung cuisine of the Islamic world (found in places as diverse as Latin America and the Caribbean all the way to China), to bring about a greater understanding within and outside Muslim communities (whether secular or observant) and (hopefully) to encourage a virtual breaking of bread together. While I don’t wish to overstate this point, through this virtual breaking of the other's bread, this blog is my minuscule part in stemming the tide of violence based on perceived and actual difference that is leeching its way across our nation and many other parts of the world. 

Lives cannot be understood through facts alone and history is imperfect in the telling and retelling (including, the "historical facts" I sometimes link to in this blog). Storytelling, on the other hand, especially of the non-linear variety and including the poetic form, allows one to exhume and bring forth the feelings underlying our personal, social and political values, thereby making them available for others to access today and in the future. Once such feelings are accessed, familiarity will breed greater understanding and lead to changed attitudes (one can only hope!). 

Similarly, to eat the food prepared by someone, or based on someones carefully detailed recipe, is to know that someone (in good ways, but in bad ways too, e.g., if some aspect of the recipe indicates a lazy disregard of an ingredient or process) in ways that is not possible to know them through a casual encounter. The taste of their food (as with honestly expressive art in the case of talented artists) is the key to an intimate insight into the very soul of a person that they would never reveal to anyone but their most loved ones. 

The recipe I picked to exemplify this point involves cooking a particular kind of lentil (lentils share a long history with human beings) in a way that is a little different from the usual way that lentils are prepared (usually as a soup of varying thickness depending on the type of lentils). The recipe is my mother-in-law's recipe for maash (urad) daal (or white, split lentils) which she handed down to my husband. Never having met this wonderful lady in person before she passed away, I know her through our brief, warm exchanges by phone, and the taste of her simple yet sublime dishes as replicated by her son. Tasting these dishes is a way I've come to "know" them both in my own fashion as I mention above. As for their Slow-cooked Maash (Urad) Daal recipe, the spicing is subtle, the cooking process is slow and the delicate end product, at least for me, is dappled with both light and mystery, which makes me hope that we may all see each other -- mother, son, daughter-in-law, wife -- in another life.

Before we get to the actual recipe, I'll end with a quote by Ta-Nahisi Coates from his brilliant Letter to My Son about the experience of Black otherness in America: "I did not tell you that it would be okay, because I have never believed it would be okay. What I told you is what your grandparents tried to tell me: that this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must find some way to live within all of it."

In dealing with the violence (whether in words or action) against all the "others" of this world, this blog is my way of trying to find a way to live with some measure of optimism within all of it. 

I hope you too find your own way to do the same. I leave you with this song "Cry No More" by Rhiannon Giddens and with my mother-in-law's and husband's recipe for Slow-cooked Maash (Urad) Daal.

Own your otherness, don't let it own you.

Slow-cooked Maash (Urad) Daal

Servings: 6-8
Cooking Time: ~ 1 hour

• Two cups maash (urad) daal
• 8 cups hot water
• 2 cloves of garlic (crushed)
• 1 inch piece ginger (sliced into thin discs)
• 3-4 whole dried red peppers
• 1-1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• Salt to taste (about 2 teaspoons)
• 1 onion (peeled and sliced finely)
• 1/4 cup regular oil and ghee mixture (enough to generously fill the bottom of a saute pan)
• Cilantro, slivered ginger, limes and fresh chili peppers for garnish

Ginger, Garlic and Dried Whole Red Pepper. Photo by Mir Elias. Copyright 2015

1.  Boil water. 
2.  Add daal to a deep nonstick pot. 
3.  Add hot water (5 cups). Give it a stir (do not stir stir the lentils more than I recommend here). After the water comes back to a boil, skim off scum from the top (you will need to do it 2-3 times, and give it another stir once during the last stir to get all the remaining scum). 
4.  Add garlic, ginger and the red pepper. 
5.  Add hot water very little at a time if needed, stir another time gently and cover. 
6.  After 10 minutes, add salt, stir once more gently and cover. 
7.  Then let cook until the lentils are soft (but with each individual lentil still holding its shape) and the water all absorbed (about 30 minutes, but check carefully, e.g., by dipping a fork into the lentils, without stirring to see if the water has been absorbed at around 20 minutes). Only add hot water if absolutely necessary.
8.  In the meantime, caramelize onions in the oil/ghee mixture by frying them in a separate pan and stirring consistently to avoid burning. Separate the onions from the hot oil and spread the onions on a paper towel so that any excess oil is soaked off. 

Caramelized Onions. Photo by Mir Elias. Copyright 2015.

9.  Heat the oil in which the onions were caramelized if it's become lukewarm. Spread out the daal in your serving platter, crumble the caramelized onions on top and around and pour the hot oil on top (it should make a sizzling sound as it hits the lentils) before serving. 

Serve with rice or roti and the previously prepared garnish of fresh ginger, green or red chilies, limes and cilantro leaves.

Ginger, Cilantro, Limes, Fresh Chilis. Photo by Mir Elias. Copyright 2015.