[traditional Indian music playing]
Exotic and mesmerizing, India is a land of complexity and contrast.
A vivid tapestry of people's languages and cultures.
Among the oldest civilizations on earth, Indian culture has evolved over centuries,
absorbing ideas from the Greeks, the Persians, Arabs, Moguls, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and of course — the British.
From the Moguls, Northern Indians learned to make rice pilaf and biriyani,
an elaborate layered dish of rice and meat.
The Moguls' refined cooking became the palace cooking,
and the dominant influence in the North.
In the tropical South, the food is hotter and seafood dominates the coastal towns.
The treasured fruit of the coconut palm yields coconut milk for curries
and coconut water for Toddy — a fermented beverage.
From north to south, India offers an endless varied feast,
befitting its varied geography and multicultural heritage.
Together, we'll uncover the essence of the Indian kitchen,
as we learn from tandoor masters, market vendors, and specialists in biriyani and dosa.
In this vast country, with its well preserved regional cooking and agricultural abundance,
we will never lack for extraordinary foods to taste.
The preparation of any good Indian meal begins at the market with a trip to the spice stall.
There, Indian cooks purchase the cardamom and the clove, nutmeg and mace,
mustard seed and cumin seed that perfume the Indian kitchen.
Roasting spices and pulverizing them,
or popping spices in hot oil,
are among the techniques that Indian cooks use
to draw out the fragrance and to add depth to their food.
At the Cochin Market in the lush tropical state of Kerala,
many of the spices are locally grown.
Imagine how fragrant your food would be
if you had access to freshly harvested and dried peppercorns
and cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamom.
The lacy outer covering of the Nutmeg,
what we know as mace,
is almost always sold ground,
but not in Kerala.
There in the Cohin Market,
you'll find local mace in its unprocessed form.
A rarity and a beauty.
You'll also see whole fresh cacao beans,
the foundation of chocolate,
fresh beetle nuts and black salt,
a tangy dark salt with a smoky aroma.
Cooking teacher and cookbook author Julie Sahni
knows the secrets of all these spices and how to blend them and how to unlock their perfume.
Leading a Culinary Institute of America tour of India,
she is our guide at the Cochin Market,
where we'll learn about Indian vanilla
and about Indian diners favorite digestive.
[Julie Sahni ] This paan making is a very visual thing,
and people stand there, and they.... And the guy will ask, "what do you want?"
It doesn't matter whether you have the $100, $150 a dinner.
Italian, French or Chinese,
You want to end with a paan if you're in India.
This is the soul of India — paan.
It doesn't matter which religion. Everybody choose a paan here.
So, you have this. What is called the....
display side.
So, you work on this side,
and on this side you put various things.
You put lime and another thing called cacao which is [....].
And then you put other spices,
starting with first thing you put the betelnut.
This is Betel-leaf. This is Betel-nut.
And it is shaved with a special type of knife.
You make flakes with it
and you add that. Because if you have big nuggets, you're gonna take your cavity out.
You put some of that,
and then you put the rose petals that you saw in the market.
[....]
You put that and you put cardamom pods, fennel seeds, clove,
and all kinds of flavored fruits, like mango which has been preserved,
with silver line ones,
all that is kept.
You put that
and then you fold this,
and what they would do is, if anybody bought a clove,
they'll put a clove here to hold it,
and it'll be very puffy normally.
And then you take this
and you open your mouth, you don't do that....
This is not a teeth work.
This is open, aaaaahhhh.....
And put it on the side. Doug, you know that!
I have a photo to prove that.
You should have seen his cheek. Like somebody boxed him.
Yeah, chipmunk, right.
You put that and you shut that person for at least 10 minutes,
because you're not supposed to chew and swallow.
You just supposed to just let it sit in your mouth,
and once in a while you bite into it,
and then you may or may not spit.
And then you.... Slowly the spices
and the other ingredients digest.
And that's how a natural alka-seltzer works.
In other words.
So this is paan.