Food talk
Slice of Greece

Dolma, a light and healthy snack that can be prepared in a jiffy, writes Pushpesh Pant

Whenever you bite into a juicy humongous raan sikandari, does the thought ever cross your mind that the dish that celebrates Alexander the Great has no relationship with the Greeks? Such fakes aside, we have, for years, been flummoxed by the absence of Indo-Greek recipes.

After all we have had millennia-old cultural contacts with that ancient civilisation and the historic encounters have spawned the stunning Gandhara School of Art. Some of the most exquisite Buddha images belong to this genre. Then there is theatre — the curtain is referred to a yavanika in Sanskrit — a give away that it is an import from the Ionian islands. Tibb, the traditional system of medicine brought to the sub-continent by Arab seafarers, has the prefix yunani (Greek) and historians tell us that the mlechchas who came in the wake of the legendary commander were accorded the status of honorary brahmins recognising their exceptional knowledge of astronomy.

It is surprising in this context how little has been the interaction in the culinary realm. This is even more intriguing when we pause to ponder that there are strong natural affinities between our palate and theirs. Indians and Greeks both are partial to what are termed Mediterranean vegetables — tomatoes and eggplant. Though they, like the Italians next door to them, have a weakness for olive oil, they, too, love sesame seeds (good-old til). Rice, bulgur (daliya) and chickpeas in one form or another are an integral part of many recipes and the seasoned dips bring to mind our own raita.

All in all, be it the balancing of meats with veggies or the delicate use of oriental spices as opposed to Western herb, Greek food has a pleasant personality that to our mind should appeal to Indians across the land.

Moreover, many of their starters make wonderful summer items — delicacies that are light, healthy (read nutritious), can be prepared in a jiffy and enjoyed cold. The dolmanthes that we sampled the other day at the Capital’s Greek eatery Greek to Me are an excellent illustration of this. As an interesting aside we may mention that a friend from Uzbekistan prepares a close cousin — less subtle and more substantial — and calls her creation uluptse. More about that some other time. Enjoy the dolma for now. And be warned, we shall be talking Greek for a while.

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