Upma – Are You A Homecook?

I have a problem with the term “home cook”. Does it refer to someone who cooks at home? If so, I suppose my dad qualifies: he’s an expert at peeling carrots as well as burning bagels. Granted, he just eats said carrot raw. I mean, that thing isn’t a recipe ingredient. Also, too impatient to wait for the toaster, he balances a frozen bagel over the stove, charring the outside just enough to soften. He just wants something…anything to eat while he reads the paper.

In colonial times, people cooked out of necessity. There wasn’t anyone else around to make food for them. More important, they were close to the food source: pigs, fish, fruits and vegetables…orchards. Frankly, though, I doubt they savored braving the freezing dawn air to milk the cows, purify the maple syrup, churn the butter, press the apples into cider, or whatever else you do on a farm. If someone opened a takeout Chinese place down the cobbled road, there’d be a run on dumplings.

So were the settlers home cooks, or did they cook out of necessity? In the last century, we’ve been moving away from cooking. Food is prepackaged, pre-frozen, pre-fried, pre-dried, pre-sliced, pre-diced, pre-jarred, pre-canned, pre-rolled, pre-squeezed, pre-shredded, and the price is right.

Yet, the thought process is warped. A whole chicken with some side will feed a family for a reasonable cost and minimal labor. Though we’re obsessed with people who cook on tv, studies have shown that we cook less than ever.

So where are the home cooks? And I’m not talking about hipsters in Brooklyn who butcher pigs on their rooftops. I mean the family that cooks together every night, that enjoys putting together a bunch of ingredients and laying out a simple meal-people for whom it’s in their DNA. If you choose to make spaghetti with meat sauce from scratch a few times a week, you’re a home cook.

First generation immigrants have us all beat. They cook out of necessity, but also because they’re steeped in the tradition of the home country, where you can’t hop to Walmart, where families live together, and every grandmother plucks recipes from a copious mental cookbook.

I had an acquaintance whose parents were South Indian. The house was fragrant with toasted spices, curry leaves, and baking naan bread. Lunch was homemade chapatis (round flatbreads) with a simple cauliflower curry and mango pickle: scoop up the curry with the bread, add a little pickle. Dinner was whipped up in perhaps a half hour: baby eggplants stuffed with a curry mixtures, sambal (a delicate tomato chutney), yogurt rice (basmati rice with cashews, lemon and yogurt), a variety of dals (dried legumes stewed with ginger and spices).

Breakfast was dosai (a thin, crispy, torpedo-shaped pancake rolled around a mild potato, cabbage, or other curry. But most of the time for breakfast they ate upma. Upma is essentially cream of wheat, but like all Indian food, it’s layered with complex flavors. You fry cumin, mustard seeds, ginger, onions and tomatoes, add water, add potatoes, simmer, stir in the cream of wheat and season well with salt.

Make upma. For breakfast, lunch, dinner. It’s real home cooking.

Upma
(Note: this is an approximate recipe, jotted down on a stained piece of notebook paper, lost, and semi-recovered from memory. It’ll work out but it’s mainly by eye so pay attention. Read the recipe for moral guidance.)
Serves 4-6

2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons urad dal
2 tablespoons black mustard seeds
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
1 ½ inch piece of ginger minced
1 medium onion, diced
3 small tomatoes, diced
½ russet potato, diced
Cream of Wheat (see recipe)
A few chopped green chilies
Salt

1. In a medium pot over medium heat, add the oil and spices. When the mustard seeds pop, add the ginger, stir until fragrant, then add the onion and tomato. Stir well.
2. Add enough water to cover. The amount of water you add determines the amount of upma, but don’t add too much, as the upma will lose flavor. Add the potatoes and simmer until cooked through.
3. When the potatoes are done, slowly whisk in the cream of wheat. You’ll probably need less than one cup. You want it to be sort of soupy, not too thick. Season with plenty of salt and serve hot.