I can think of only one: Owensboro, Kentucky, (and its environs, including parts of Southern Indiana) where mutton is the local barbecue meat (although slowly disappearing.)
I think this is the main reason. I mean, even look at the American preference for white chicken meat vs. dark meat. The bland meat wins out. And the chicken in general is fairly neutral tasting compared with chicken I’ve had elsewhere. Same goes for the pork–it’s as if they bred the flavor out of it. Only in the farm-raised heritage breeds do you really start getting more than a vague hint of that porky gaminess. Now, I don’t know if it’s the large scale farming techniques that have created blander meat and thus steered American tastes towards more neutral flavors or the other way around, (I’d guess the former) but it seems a plausible theory.
The preference for chicken breast is, I believe, a more recent development, based on health concerns. Most children naturally prefer dark meat, from what I’ve seen.
Similarly, the blandification of chicken and pork is, in my WAG, the result of more recent adoption of livestock raising practices.
The preference for beef, pork, and chicken over lamb and goat, IIRC, originates in the historical struggles between cattle ranchers and shepherds on the plains. Until the WWII era, beef and pork ran neck-and-neck in popularity, with pork perhaps having a slight advantage. During WWII, scarcity of beef and pork spurred wider use of chicken, but the suburbanization and fast-food-ization of American society gave an advantage to beef, which far outpaced pork in popularity. Starting in the 1970s, concerns over health spurred the increase in popularity of chicken and turkey.
I once ate a Tindaloo out of curiousity and to see if I could get through it.
As a meal it was a complete waste of time for me as I couldn’t taste anything and didn’t enjoy it one bit, it was like burning the inside of your mouth with acid.
As a counterpoint I had a Korma a few weeks ago because I haven’t had one for literally decades.
That too was a waste of effort because it just tasted of blandness and coconut.
But Jalfrazi,Byriani or even Tikka …bring it ON baby.
I love Indian food (and most other spicy cuisines) but when I introduced my husband to it (he’d never had it before) my warning ahead of time was “don’t judge it by what it looks like–just try it!”
It’s funny how “what you’re used to” plays such a big role in the concept of “how food should look.”
For example, in the poll thread we have all those people saying they love biscuits & sausage gravy, and, let’s face it, I like B&G as much as the next gal (maybe more), but it does look exactly like vomit.
You can make some fantastic idlis with rava instead of rice. Toast the rava (I think it’s semolina or cream of wheat) in a pan. Dump it into a bowl. Heat up a little ghee, splutter some mustard seeds and cumin seeds if you like, then toss in some green chilis and a handful of pidgeon peas (toor dal). Dump the mixture into the rava, then mix in some yogurt until you can make patties. Form the patties and you can steam them in a regular bamboo steamer if you have one. I used to use one until I got a pressure cooker with idli molds.
I like the rava idlis much better than the beaten rice - they’re far less boring.
Thanks for that reminder, I’d forgotten that weird but somehow gratifying sub-sub-sub culture of barbecue. Though I’m hoping they actually use mutton mutton – I remember visiting New York, where Kean’s Steakhouse (highly recommended) still lists a mutton chop on the menu; I ordered, enjoyed, congratulated myself on my manliness – then was disappointed to read a while later that, yeah, even they can’t get people to stomach real mutton (or can’t find a supply, or both), so it’s really just a big lamb chop dressed as mutton.
Back on topic: this one’s speculative, but esp. as to curries, maybe some Westerners just can’t figure out where to put them mentally. They’re sort of like a main dish, sort of like a stew, sort of like a gravy, but not really any of those exactly. Westerners assume they’re going to eat a main dish with a fork, unless it’s a stew, which you’d eat with a spoon. I don’t think most of us are accustomed in everyday usage to having to find a carrier for our main dish or stew. So any curry dish is really a curry-rice (or bread) bowl. Too, Americans are a lot less accustomed to eating lots of rice with most/all meals than most Asians are.
Some of this is personal – I just don’t like rice much at all, and while I’ll tear off a chunk of garlic naan or two, I’m not willing to eat enough bread to soak up a whole portion of curry. (I solve this by being the jackass who’s slurping the vindaloo gravy directly out of the dish with a spoon).
God this thread is making me hungry, I love Indian food because of the complexity of spices. This IMO is what turns people off. Oh and if you go to a cheap Indian outlet you get cheap food and that taste can vary widely.
Cheap ingredients don’t help. Steam tables where food may sit for too long and where thrifty immigrant owners may be tempted to mix new batches in with more elderly batches rather than throwing anything to waste don’t help. Buffet culture (quality under quantity in all but the most fancy places, not just in Indian cuisine) doesn’t help. MSG (I’d never heard/thought about this, but a Chinese friend who’s a fiend for avoiding it from years of experience in Chinese restaurants using it as an all purpose crutch, swears she detects heavy MSG in a lot of cheap Indian) doesn’t help.
I would think so, but I don’t know for sure. They certainly called it mutton and, if you’re good at identifying animal carcasses, here’s a picture of the mutton hanging in the back at George’s.
This thread motivated me to try a little experimenting. I got some curry powder from a friend who is an Indian food enthusiast. He assured me it was very high quality. Last night I fried a tablespoon of it in some clarified butter and tossed the mixture with some egg noodles. It was very tasty. There wasn’t the combinations of flavors that I’ve found unpleasant in my restaurant experiences. I’ll need to look at Indian food more closely and see what I want to take away and what I want to leave.
My wife and mother will avoid Indian food because of this. I’ve found some restaurants that don’t feature cilantro, so my wife and I have it regularly.
The good thing about Indian restaurants is that they often have a good buffet, so you can try a lot of things and find out what you like. The bad thing about Indian restaurants is that the labels on the buffets are always wrong so you never learn what the stuff you like is called.
This is similar to me, I don’t care much for rice, and don’t order it if there’s a choice. I just scoop everything with a garlic naan (with the help of a fork, I’m not that adept) and get messy. God, I’m hungry now
I agree with Gestalt’s comment above, and I wonder if it’s a perception based on growing up in the south, where north Indian food is something that you go out to eat, and resturants tend to be heavy on the oil and cream to improve taste. Presumably someone who grew up in north India would have the opposite view. I do think that south Indian food in general tends to be lighter and healthier, and also for a vegetarian like myself sometimes offers more choice.
PS: Gestalt: greetings from a fellow Kannadiga. The moment you mentioned bise bele bath you gave yourself away.
It was the combo of spices for me. Indian food is very flavorful, and I admit to having a bland palate. I dunno, it’s just like how some people can’t stand the spices used in American chili.
I will also say that I don’t like many things drowned in sauce. It isn’t a classist thing for me (like how some people say it covers up bad meat) it’s a ‘flavor too strong!’ thing. When I tried butter chicken it was like the chicken was just there to make it not a bowl of sauce.
It took me a long time to get used to sushi, which can have very strong flavors from the combo of ingredients. I’d be willing to go to an Indian buffet, but my previous experiences were with old coworkers and no one I know now would want to go.
For those who find the sauciness of Indian dishes to be overwhelming, it might be because you’re not eating them properly.
Traditionally, an Indian meal is largely rice, a huge mound of rice. A significant purpose of almost everything else served with the meal – lentils, meat, vegetables, or whatever – is to make the rice tasty and interesting, so you can fill your gut with it and keep yourself full.
So saucy dishes are meant to be mixed with rice – not served on top of, but physically mucked together with the fingers (like you would combine flour and eggs to make pancakes) to evenly distribute the tasty parts through the mound of rice. And the proportion should be (by volume) at the very least 1:1. In reality, most Indians probably have much more rice, just Wagging from 2:1 to 5:1 by volume.
