Rasam

Rasam. The brothy soup has almost no substance but more blast in the mouth than any dish I know.  Salty, spicy, sour, umami in equal proportions--the flavors converge and ignite. An Indian friend ordered it in a South Indian dosa restaurant years ago and I thought it too hot, but my taste buds have grown up, and now I ask for it, hoping even in North Indian restaurants where I know it would be out of place.

When I do get a chance to eat rasam, I approach it seriously.  This is not a comfort cup to sip casually like miso. I pause after each spoonful, catch my breath, and down some water or lassi, but to little avail. The fiery, tangy taste has seized my mouth. All I know is I’m distinctly uncomfortable and craving more.

I didn’t want to divide the archetypal taste into ingredients, but then I decided to try cooking it. My homey Indian cookbook called for tamarind, tomato, coconut, chile, black mustard, and an earthy yellow lentil called toor dal.  I trekked to a Berkeley Indian grocer, picked up the toor dal, followed directions, and blended it smooth, but the alchemy did not take place.  I tasted spicy and sour and salty and savory, but the flavors seemed lopsided. They would not ignite.

I'm not sure I want to know the secret. I like to be presented with a bowl of perfect synthesis.

Enough time to cut fruit

The time I felt luckiest on my trip to Hawaii was the half hour I spent puttering in the kitchen and cutting and arranging pineapple, papaya, apple banana, and cream apple.  The baby was sleeping, my husband was surfing, and my in-laws were coming over later to make us brunch.  I had finished all the chores I could think of. So I set about cutting the baby pineapple from the farmer's market, which turned out to be intensely sweet and tangy, almost excessively flavorful.  I did not neglect to sample. By comparison, the "strawberry" papaya was cool and quiet, but I liked the melting texture.  The apple banana seemed only slightly more firm and tangy than a regular banana, but the cream apple disconcerted me: milky, fibrous flesh with embedded gelatinous slivers that encased hard seeds. It didn't matter: the treat was not the taste so much as the encounter itself.  As I ate and cut and arranged layers of bright slices, I felt free, a consciousness exploring. I was alone but not lonely, working but only for pleasure. What I offered my family would be a pure gift.