Category: More

Seafood- now that is something a lot of people have a number of opinions on. Some like shell-fish, some don’t. Some are allergic to prawns and then there are some who are awkward and grossed out at the idea of eating an octopus. If you can be daring to test a variety of tastes for the sake of enjoying a gastronomical delight, seafood is not a bad option. Technically it includes every type of sea-life which can be cooked or eaten as food according to us, homo-sapiens.

It all first started in Israel a long time back. Basically it was one of the first few methods human beings used to cook and consume food. I am talking of something later than the Neanderthals. The ancient river Nile was full of fish and the ancient Egyptians, as described in tomb scenes, learned ways by which they could capture various wild seafood varieties. In the Greek islands, during the period of the Ancient Greek Civilizations and on the coast, fresh fish and seafood (squid, octopus, and shellfish) were common. In medieval times, seafood was less prestigious than other animal meats, and often seen as merely an alternative to meat on fast days. Still, seafood was the mainstay of many coastal populations. People were too obsessed with the Meat, you see. However, in today’s day and age, in the modern era seafood is a type of cuisine spread all over the world and attracting millions of foodies, like me.

I am a student from Jadavpur University in Kolkata. My friends decided to surprise me by giving a special treat at a new sea-food joint in the city. It seemed like a normal day at college, doing classes and complaining about the weather. It seems like such a British thing to do, “Oh, the Heat!!”, but who can criticize, we are all English majors. All of a sudden, I was whisked away on a bus to a part of the city named Sarat Bose Road. It is considered one of the primal hubs for cheap and student-friendly restaurants in town. It owns most of the better places near the vicinity of the University and we are frequent visitors. The place, named ‘Ecstasea’ (not the drug, got the pun?), is a very small place which boasts of the best sea-food in town. The place looks like a cupboard that you might have to enter into, to find you coat. It has orange walls and boasts of no major visual pleasure. However, the pleasure is derived entirely from something else and that is the main attraction. I am talking obviously about the scrumptious sea-food served there.

We were having a bit of a late lunch and were super-hungry. It started with fish momos and stir-fried prawn. That was the starter. The momos are basically dim-sums of a smaller variety made especially and popular especially in Bengal. It originated in the hilly areas and have now become especially popular as a snack or starter. The filling of a momo traditionally is pork, but today you can fill it with any kind of meat. I like pork moms a lot, but the fish that this restaurant stuffed into these moms were scrumptious as well. They were marinated fish which had been cooked for quite a while and hence, had a particular sea-food flavor. The prawns were simple, freshly sautéed and stir-fried. It looked great in those white porcelain plates and I don’t need to elaborate on the taste anymore or I’ll get repetitive. There is just so many ways to describe goodness.

The main was course was special. We went there late and emancipated and hence it took us all of 2 minutes to order almost everything on the menu. We ordered Squid in garlic sauce, crab in teriyaki sauce and octopus, the dread and highlight, in schezwan sauce. The menu there is simple, without a huge fanfare but also quite easy to decide from. First came the asparagus and chicken stir-fried rice, which we had ordered. It came with the crab. My friend, Ranita had not crab many times before and could not find a way to chew it hard enough that she could only get the meat. Me, being the exceptionally voracious eater that I am just chewed the legs so much that only the meat was inside my mouth and the shell was the powdered, dusted remainder. I advise anyone in my position to do the same. The squid is much easier to eat and has a spicy, eggplant flavor. It tastes good with some chicken and even on its own. The last thing, the thing I would taste the first time was the Octopus. It was AWESOME! It was in schezwan sauce, which on its own is a marvel in its tangy and spicy feel. I would like to put a disclaimer and say that, you should not imagine huge tentacles and slimy heads on a plate here. The Octopus is finely chopped and heavily cooked. It has a rubbery feel in the mouth and tastes quite similar to lamb. However, it tastes a bit like Shrimp as well. It ate it with the Stir-fried noodles and it really was great. I liked it the best of the lot among the already unique items. The thing is, you didn’t get a lot of sea-food unless you paid a hell of a lot in Kolkata. But in these last few years, amazing new joints have opened up at great rates which enable us students who live on pocket money and odd jobs to sustain ourselves and also enjoy the perks of living in a big city.

People eat meat from habit, custom, tradition, and as a way of proving to themselves and to others that they can afford it. And they also eat meat for the way it tastes, and for protein. Habits can always be changed, new traditions forged. While nothing exactly replaces the taste of meat, there are plenty of delicious, and habit-forming, alternatives. Many long-time vegetarians, in fact, find that the flavour of meat loses its appeal over time. But what about protein? A lot of people worry – needlessly – about getting sufficient protein without meat. Two factors contribute to this alarm. The first is conditioning, pure and simple. We lived a lot of years when our nutritional “needs” were defined by beef marketing boards, and our culinary “wants” were shaped by the notion that prosperity should be demonstrated by the number of times a week we ate meat.

The second factor emerged in the early seventies, when North Americans first began to experiment with vegetarianism on a widespread basis. The predominant theory taught that you could obtain sufficient protein from a vegetarian diet, but you had to pay very close attention to your diet to achieve this objective. The theory of protein complementary (consumption of non-meat foods in specific combinations to obtain enough protein by combining amino acids) was endlessly discussed and fretted over. Today’s research indicates that North Americans tend to eat far too much protein. Current findings on the synthesis of protein within the human body have demonstrated that most people getting enough calories by eating a balanced vegetarian diet will absorb as much protein as they need.

Growing children and pregnant women have special needs and should eat foods that provide them with enough protein, vitamins, and minerals to meet their increased needs. And now, the details: proteins are made up of specific combinations of amino acids. Proteins that contain the ratio of amino acids most easily used by the human body are described as perfect or complete; meat, eggs, and dairy products each supply this kind of protein in a tidy package. (Unfortunately that package comes wrapped with cholesterol and saturated fats.) There are other ways to achieve correct combinations of amino acids, so that your body can build the protein it needs. Beans, grains, nuts, and – to a lesser extent, even vegetables and fruits – all contain some of the necessary amino acids. When these foods are eaten, together in complementary combinations at the same meal or even over the period of one or two days, our bodies store amino acids to build the protein we need.

Frances Moore Lappé broke new ground on this subject with Diet for a Small Planet (1971). Referencing medical and nutritional studies, she proved that humans could indeed absorb sufficient protein, without eating meat, to thrive. Lappé designed a comprehensive plan for combining beans, grains, and nuts to obtain the proper combination of amino acids. Her work encouraged people to see vegetarianism as a viable option, but also left us with the notion that you would need to be a dietician or a chemist to calculate the correct combinations of food categories. In the two decades since, public attitudes have caught up to research. Fewer and fewer people are wedded to the notion that meat, especially red beef, is absolutely necessary, or even healthy. Current research on nutrition indicates that we need not be obsessively careful of our diet to meet our protein needs.

Lappé revised Diet for a Small Planet in 1981, updating readers on her continuing work with food and nutrition. We now know that the human body copes quite well on its own in building proteins, if given a sufficiently varied diet to work from. Your body can store amino acids and combine them over time to meet its protein needs, so there is no need to consume precise food combinations in the same meal. As Lappé wrote in the revised tenth anniversary edition of her book, “With a healthy varied diet, concern about protein complementarity is not necessary for most of us.”

Another term you may have heard in connection with the vegetarian lifestyle is macrobiotics. Developed in Japan by Georges Ohsawa, macrobiotics is both a philosophy of living and a set of dietary principles. A macrobiotic diet consists of local, seasonal food, simply prepared. Macrobiotic principles encourage individuals to develop their own diet toward the end goal of achieving maximum health and harmony with the environment.

There are a number of ways to begin to live as a vegetarian, and one is right for you. You might begin by cutting down your consumption of red meat, or by choosing chicken and fish instead. Some people experience an overnight revolution in their thinking about food and plunge headfirst into the vegetarian way of life. Others are ordered by their doctors to eliminate cholesterol and fat.

Whatever   put you on the road to vegetarian cooking, and wherever you find yourself on the path, remember that a vegetarian diet is not a fad. It is a set of conscious choices about what you consume. You are free to change what you eat, and to re-examine those choices and make new ones, at any time. Hopefully, vegetarian meals will be a lifelong choice for you, with a lifetime of dividends. Going without meat is decidedly NOT a diet of deprivation or sacrifice. It is a world of exciting flavors, tantalizing aromas, vibrant colors, and succulent textures. These may not be the flavours or foods of your childhood. But if the tastes you grew up with are clogging your arteries, weighing you down, or just boring you occasionally, then keep reading.