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| AsiaSpa India 01 - 06 - 2004 |
| The Chill Factor |
Pack In the right diet and enjoy this summer to its fullest
Summer's here? No sweat! Here's a cool, rough and ready guide to help you make that blisteringly hot and uncomfy season into sensuous long days, punctuated by short naps and capped off by peaceful nights. Here's a Summer survival kit, the key to which is quite simply "you are what you eat". Having done three years research in the field of health and food, produced, scripted and presented the TV series Health Today, written countless columns on health and food and eight food books, I distil for you some useful, usable and cooling ideas. Some of these were originated by Noorjehan, Allaudin Khilji, others took root in traditional eating and I picked up some on my travels through the world.
Of course, we all know how that awful heat of summer can affect the body's system of internal temperature regulation and cause everything from rashes, cramps, exhaustion to heat stroke. Who on earth would want to get to this stage? "Hydration" then is the name of the game. See how ingenious we are? extracting coolness from rose-petals, mangoes, almonds, barley and more. However, cool and long sips of water through the day is the obvious first choice. I am happy to report that I share my favourite ruby-red summer cooler with Noorjehan. The queen asked her cooks to prepare a sherbet from roses, much later the hakims of Hamdard Dawa Khana made Roohafza for ordinary mortals like us. Go for the divinely summery green khus (vetiver) sharbat whose fragrance itself is cooling. Check out that heady combination-paste of almonds, rose petals, aniseed, seeds of melons and cucumbers, very aptly called "thandai". How about that sharbat ala Allaudin Khilji, that liver and spleen coolant "sharbat e badam" made of milk soaked badams and spiked with elaichi.
You can be sure that traditional, local cuisines have superb remedies for the heat. In parts of north India, particularly Bihar, Sattu is the common man's summer-cooler. Roasted barley is ground into a powder, mixed with jaggery and water. Similarly, nimbu pani or shikanjvi (lime juice and sugar) tender coconut water, panna (a drink made with raw mangoes) are regular summer antidotes.
| dos and donts |
Summer brings with it, it’s bugs and bacteria and is well-known as the “doctor’s season”. So, if one is to enjoy summer to the fullest, then it’s a good idea to remember that
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Food and water borne diseases are prevalent due to it being hot and humid, salmonella, e colli and bacteria live in 4 to 60 degrees. Therefore it’s extremely important to regulate temperatures properly.
Please follow the “rule of four”…
- Cook to proper temperatures.
- Chill well.
- Separate…cooked and raw foods, don’t cross-contaminate foods by keeping raw foods with cooked ones.
- If in doubt (about the freshness of food) throw out.
- Be extra cautious of the water you drink.
- Avoid chilled milk products outside home and definitely that street-side ganne-ka-juice which can cause jaundice.
- Finally, the build up of heat in your body, (as my friwnd the Chinese physician in Singapore says) is visible as the yellow coating on your tongue, bad breath and red eyes. How do we avoid this? I ask. Without batting an eyelid he says “eat ress”, dlink mole”. (By, now I am sure you can figure that one out!)
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All of us North Indians, have grown up on "chaas", "lassi" made with whipped curd. Add zeera powder and rock salt and you're in for a treat. The thin buttermilk which forms after curd is churned to extract butter, is not just cooling but superb for digestion. Temper this buttermilk with curry leaves, mustard seeds and ginger and drink it through the day. I love Iran's bottled buttermilk dugh. South Indians end their meal with buttermilk.
Interestingly, in very hot regions a lot of red chillies are eaten in the food, which is believed to prevent fermentation in the body. Like for instance in my friend Vidya Gajapatiraju Singh, the princess of Vizianagaram's (Andhra Pradesh) house where chillies are eaten with ghee and buttermilk. And I just love that South Indian curd-rice, the perfect summer food.
Of course, you must eat plenty of curd in summer and also seasonal vegetables. Naturopaths and Ayurvedacharyas point out that the seasonal veggies and fruits are cooling and easily digested and recommend sticking to a veggie diet.
In fact restricting non-veggie food to a fourth of one's intake is highly recommended, so that one's already
overheated system is not burdened with digesting heavy protein. Salads, then are one of the natural choices. Mix and match your own combinations, try marrying green beans with til seeds, ginger and soya sauce, cucumber with dill (suva), diced fruits with veggies...let your imagination loose. Make ingenious dressings (with beaten curd, honey and mustard) dips (with hung curd to which you can add crushed garlic) and crunch and munch your way through summer.
Since the mandate is to have plenty of fluids, soups are a soup-er boon for the soup-buff. I just love the cold soups (boil onions, carrots and a little garlic: puree in blender and chill. Same with cucumber. Add a dollop of curd when serving, maybe sliver of almonds).
Keep your starters light and fresh and slightly sharp to taste, go for my favorite Aubergine starter (after brushing with a little oil, bake aubergines in the oven, then remove skin and pound aubergines into a paste, add soaked breadcrumbs, finely chopped onion and garlic and put into a blender, slowly add olive oil and lemon juice, serve chilled on hot buttered toast triangles).
As for the main course, I find that steaming is a great idea in the hot summer months. It is a 3000 year old technique and ensures that your food retains it's colour, texture and flavour and of course it's nutrients. This is because it is a moist cooking method and uses the natural convection of heat traveling in air, steam or liquid and as a result food remains tender because of not being exposed to the direct dry heat source. Steam what you like, meats, seafood, veggies...add the flavourings (eg garlic) in the steaming liquid or in the marination or in the sauce which you put on top (ginger, chilli, soy etc).
Fruits are the perfect finale to your summer meal. Crisp deep red watermelons, luscious mangoes, sweet melons and more...summer fruits to chill out with!
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