Restaurant Review: D’Arenberg Cube, McLaren Vale In South Australia

 

This article was first published online on 4th August 2020 in Luxury Lifestyle Magazine, UK https://www.luxurylifestylemag.co.uk/food-and-drink/restaurant-review-darenberg-cube-mclaren-vale-in-south-australia/

Sweet Sensations: 6 Of India’s Most Spectacular Desserts

This article was first published online on 25th July 2020 in Luxury Lifestyle Magazine, UK https://www.luxurylifestylemag.co.uk/food-and-drink/sweet-sensations-6-of-indias-most-spectacular-desserts/

Bali-hoo!

The idyllic island of Bali seems poised to become the post-pandemic world’s epicenter for the hipster drifter with ‘digital nomadism’ finding a strong footing in the millennial lexicon.

By Raul Dias 

“Trust me, it’s paradise. This is where the hungry come to feed. For mine is a generation that circles the globe and searches for something we haven’t tried before…”, says Leonardo Di Caprio’s mononymous character ‘Richard’ in the 2000 film The Beach. A backpacker cult classic, so ahead of its time that it effortlessly segues into the current milieu, exactly two decades later. A time when digital nomadism seems to be the way forward for millennials-on-the-go, as they chart their course in the (hopefully!) post-pandemic world. One that is ruled by the unholy trinity of anxiety, apprehension and uncertainty.
All this, while attempting to precariously juggle travel, work and a little adventure on the side. Constantly searching for their version of a modern-day Valhalla if you may. Nesting in places as far flung as Cancun in Mexico to Bali in Indonesia where tribes of wannabe digital nomad warriors like themselves—be they app developers, social media marketers or the ubiquitous travel vlogger–hunker down for extended periods of stay. Armed with their hi-tech weaponry and millennial coolth, ready to conquer the digital world and beyond, one oat milk latte at a time!

Digi go-go
Loath as I may be to admit, I am one of these people now. Even though I have been on the fringes of the digital nomadic lifestyle for nearly a decade as a freelance travel and food writer, setting up temporary ‘shop’ wherever I travel, I have somehow always found succor and comfort in being tethered to the familiarity of my writing desk, here in my home base of Mumbai. The fulltime, peripatetic lifestyle scene was not something I could wrap my head around for an assortment of reasons that seem trivial to me today.
Like a lot of things in our lives that have changed over the course of the tumultuous first half of this pandemic-ridden year, I have done a rethink. I guess it was the ennui resulting from five months (and counting) of suspended animation that has sealed the deal for me. I want…nay, need a change. “If I can work from home, I can work from anywhere”, is a mantra I now chant on a loop.
As we do a rethink—both about how we work and how we travel—an important realisation comes to the fore. The tradeoff by combining work with leisure over an extended period, while remaining socially distant is far greater than the ephemeral lure of a short trip. The latter no longer as attractive and realistic as before, what with mandatory Covid-19 testing and fortnight quarantines putting a kibosh on everything.
I am not alone in recognising this need of being untethered. Quick on the uptake and saddling up to this cultural sea change are countries like Estonia which recently announced a special long-term digital nomad visa. The eastern Caribbean island of Barbados too has unveiled a similar 12-month digital nomad work visa to allow visitors from all countries to live and work there, tax free.       

Seas the day
But we need not look that far. As a frontrunner on the honeymoon-meets-family vacation scene for decades, the sea-n-surf paradise of Bali has had a facelift of sorts. Transforming itself into a hip digital nomad haven for the last couple of years, the Indonesian island is undoubtedly poised to become the post-pandemic world’s epicenter for the hipster drifter for a host of reasons that I will unspool shortly.
Exactly a year ago, back in the day when ‘Corona’ to me was just a brand of bottled beer, served with a wedge of lime bunged down its neck, I took a wee detour to Bali in the middle of a two-week-long work trip to Thailand. The purpose of my two-day trip to the island was to scope out an abridged version the digital nomadic lifestyle there as part of a writing project I was in consideration for. While said project did not work out, what I gleaned from that trip was a destination ripe for the picking.
Like almost every prospective digital nomad, I found myself in Canggu, Bali’s de facto digital nomad capital along the south coast of the island. A place that is relatively inexpensive to live and work in and easy to navigate around. I was there checking out the three main things a digital nomad in Bali seeks: accommodation, a place to work and something extra when R&R beckons. 

Ticking all boxes
While other areas in Bali like Ubud—the rice terrace-surrounded bucolic heart of the island—and the more upmarket Seminyak are no less attractive, there is something to be said about the beachy vibe of Canggu. Here, surfing lessons on lunchbreaks are the norm, as are al fresco sunset yoga sessions that replace post-work drinks.
With its explosion of avocado-toast serving cafés, cheap dive bars, art galleries and Insta-friendly vistas, Canggu garners some serious cred on hipster street. But is the wide variety of both coworking spaces (with lightning fast internet speeds) and a plethora of accommodation options available here that make it the very epicenter of Bali’s digital nomadic scene. From inexpensive guesthouses and plush Airbnb rentals to communal ‘coliving spaces’—the latest buzzword in digital nomad circles—the search in Bali ends here.
I was barely an hour into my dalliance with ‘digital nomading’ working at the open 24 hours a day Tropical Nomad Coworking space near Canggu’s Echo Beach trying hard to swallow the luridly purple contents of my acai fruit bowl, when I got chatting with Sarah. A digital content curator originally from Texas, she had been based in Bali for the last six months and by the look of it was still in the honeymoon phase with her digital nomad life. “It really does not matter if you are an aspiring digital nomad or an experienced one,” Sarah says rather encouragingly. “Bali is the kind of place where you are almost guaranteed to find some truly unique and inspiring places and people who help you get to your productive best, while living life to the fullest.”
Quite the prophetic solution for these bleak times, no?         


Travel log
Getting There
As there are no direct flights from India to Bali, one can take connecting flights via Bangkok, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. Travel within the island of Bali is extremely easy with cheap and plentiful transport options available, including private taxis and bikes on hire. Citizens of 169 countries (including India) get a free 30-day on arrival which allows one to work as a digital nomad and which can be renewed by taking a short ‘visa run’ to places like Malaysia, Singapore or Thailand and coming back to Bali.

Stay and Work
* Dojo Bali (dojobali.org) along Canggu’s famuous surf break of Echo Beach ticks all three boxes offering a trendy coworking and coliving space along with recreational facilities like surf lessons and Balinese cooking lessons, all at very reasonable prices.
* Outpost (destinationoutpost.co) with its flagship sister property in Ubud is another great coworking and coliving space with an apt slogan of “design your best life.”

Tip
While the whole of Bali is very safe for women, there are places like Goddess Retreats (goddessretreats.com) which is a women-only retreat offering everything from accommodation and outdoor activities to transformative yoga sessions and spa treatments that are perfect for solo women digital nomads.
(Note: While it is not advisable to travel at the moment, the above information is intended to provide a general idea for future travel—whenever it is safe to do so again.)


(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 25th July 2020 issue of The Hindu Business Line newspaper's BLink section on page 20 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/takeaway/bali-is-the-capital-of-digital-nomadism/article32177278.ece)

All Tangled Up

Cutting a wide swathe across several regional Indian cuisines, with many finding a permanent position in the country’s mainstream culinary landscape, are a mind-boggling variety of ‘inspired’ noodle and dumpling preparations. 

By Raul Dias

Isn’t it fascinating, how food somehow manages to find a catalytic role to play in almost every socio-political discourse drama here in India? From the kind of meat one is ‘allowed’ to eat or not, to the rather banal debate often centred around the North’s roti reverence v/s the South’s obsession with rice, we’ve been spectators to it all.
But none, perhaps, pertaining more to what we know, love and… yes, paradoxically hate as ‘Chinese food’. A cuisine that we’ve ingeniously co-opted to form a hybrid in the guise of the coriander leaf and garam masala redolent Chindian food.
In 2012, we had a khap panchayat in Haryana’s Jind district blaming the consumption of “hormonal imbalance evoking” chowmein behind the growing incidents of rape in India. Yes, try chewing on that indigestible titbit.
The most recent salvo fired against the cuisine being union minister Ramdas Athawale’s call to boycott, what he terms ‘Chinese food’, demanding that restaurants serving it should be banned. All this vilification, never minding the fact that said chowmein is as Chinese as chaat probably is. Or that another Chindian staple, chicken Manchurian was invented in Mumbai in the late 1970s by Nelson Wang, a third-generation Chinese chef born in Kolkata!

Strands of History
What is really interesting to note here is that we in India have had a tryst with Chinese cuisine way before dishes like chowmein and chicken Manchurian entered our local culinary lexicon. Unbeknownst to us and thanks to ancient international trade routes like the Silk Road and to the Chinese Buddhist scholar Xuanzang, who travelled extensively around India in the 7th century, Chinese cuisine has lent to us several regional noodle and dumpling iterations. Much like it has to Italy’s celebrated pasta repertoire. Something many believe to be a direct result of the 13th century cultural appropriations by the famous Italian explorer Marco Polo.
Speaking of Italy, we may as well set the record straight about the whole which-came-first-the-pasta-or-the-noodle conundrum. Irrefutable evidence in the form of a 4,000 year old bowl of millet noodles unearthed in an archaeological settlement in the Laija region of Northwest China has proven that most forms of noodles and dumplings—be they rolled, cut or extruded—have indeed come to the world from China.
This is exactly how one of India’s most beloved and popular vermicelli-like dried noodles that we know multifariously as seviyan in Hindi, sevai in Tamil and semya in Telugu came into being. Adapted from Italian vermicelli, also called angel hair pasta or minutelli (that was itself adapted in the 14th century from an ancient Chinese super fine rice noodle called mai fun) the rice noodle is used in both sweet preparations like kheer and payasam and in savoury ones like upma, here in India. The slightly fatter and freshly extruded idiyappam or noolputtu as it is known as in Kerala and Tamil Nadu respectively is another hybrid rice noodle that is steamed in coils and eaten with both sweet and savoury accompanying dishes like egg curry.
Similarly, the translucent, corn or arrowroot-starch noodles found at the bottom of a glass of falooda came to India from Iran, another pivotal country on the Silk Road, where they are called faloodeh. The north Indian sweet called sutarpheni is another rice-based noodle of Chinese origin that was introduced to Indian cuisine by way of the Turkish who call it pismaniye.

Adapt and Thrive
It is by turning our attention to the lesser known, more regional varieties of Indian noodles and dumplings—particularly in the high North and Northeast of the country—do we see how well the original Chinese ones have been adapted and assimilated into the culinary milieu. Take for instance the steamed Shanghainese nian gao rice dumplings made from dense rolls of pounded glutinous rice. Cooked in a warming stew along with yak meat, the kyu which is made from wheat dough is a popular dumpling in both Ladakh and Spiti and a dead ringer for the nian gao.
Chutagi another Ladakhi dumpling that came to the region via the Silk Road from Central Asia is a bow-tie shaped dumpling used in a soup that is made from meat and vegetables and similar to a thukpa. Ladakhi cuisine is also known for its sweet dumpling called pakchel mirku that is cooked into a warming dessert along with ghee and dried yak cheese called churrpi. 
Assam too has its own version of the Chinese bee tai bak (rat tail) rice noodle that takes the form of anguli pitha. Named after the pinky finger (anguli) that they resemble, these extruded rice dumplings are eaten as a teatime snack when cooked with onions, green chillies and tomatoes. The chushi and jhinuk pitha originally from east Bengal are more examples of dried rice flour-based dumplings that can be reconstituted by adding them either to a savoury curry or a creamy, milk-based payesh.
This sweet-savoury adaptability is also one of the chief characteristics of the tiny ring-like dried dumplings called sarvale. Found in the cooking of Goan Muslims, sarvale are either boiled and served with a topping of scrambled eggs for breakfast or as yet another kheer-like thickened milk dessert. Substituting dairy for the thick, first extract of coconut milk is the delicious coastal Maharashtrian noodle dessert called naralyachya dudhache shiravlya where rice noodles are cooked with the coconut milk along with sugar and cardamom and served during festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi.           

The Desi Twist
While most of China’s noodle and dumpling varieties are made from either rice, corn or wheat, there are a few made from legumes like the mung bean cellophane noodle called fen si. Interestingly, Indian dumpling adaptations—particularly in regions like Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh—seem to focus on these. 
With its glossy surface speckled with tempered black mustard seeds and a scattering of freshly grated coconut flesh and coriander leaves, the Gujarati khandvi made from a mixture of gram flour and buttermilk is also spread on a flat surface to set before being rolled up into bite sized morsels, much like the Cantonese dim sum dumpling called cheung fun.
Still in Gujarat, the wheat-based dumplings of dal dhokli that are submerged in a spiced lentil stew are another example of adaptation. As are other regional Rajasthani dishes like the chickpea flour dumpling strip-based besan chilla ki subzi and Varanasi’s sui mai-meets-ravioli like wheat pockets called dal ka dulha.
Wonder what Marco Polo and Xuanzang would have made (pun intended!) of these?

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 19th July 2020 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 (https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/all-tangled-up-the-straight-and-narrow-of-chindian-food/article32113300.ece)

Goa’s Monsoon Feast!

Catholic Goan cuisine has an entire scrumptious arsenal of fermented, vinegar-preserved dishes and accompaniments that come to the fore during the long, four-month monsoon season.

By Raul Dias

To say that the average goenkar is obsessed with food would be putting it way too mildly. Coming from a large, multi-generational Catholic Goan family where food has always been that all-important axis around which most of our quotidian life pivots, I have seen it all. From intensely heated debates around the dinner table as to the ‘correct’ recipe for the beloved pork sorpotel (blood in or blood out!?) to a family wedding being famously postponed—all because the top caterer in Margao was not free to display her legendary culinary prowess on the previously finalised date—celebrating food trumps all. Go to any village in Goa and to this day you will be greeted not with a “hello” but with the often-rhetorical question of “have you eaten?” Never mind the time of the day…or night!

Mango Mania
However, there are a few weeks of the year—if one were to discount lead-ups to major festivals like Christmas, Easter and the hallowed village feast day—when the food mania gets ready to hit the proverbial roof. Just before the southwest monsoon makes its boisterous presence felt in Goa, at the end of the torrid summer from mid-May to the first week of June, homes across the state witness a frenzy like no other. Pantry inventories are taken at a militant level to ensure the steady supply of grain, spices, cold-pressed coconut oil and of course, that chief preservative agent aka. coconut palm vinegar called sur, to the kitchen. For the next four months or so, the ‘liquid gold’ will find itself in an astounding number of preserved dishes and accompaniments.
Mango trees of indigenous Goan varietals like musrad and mankurad would have been divested of their prized fruit. The juicy, ripe ones either eaten straight off the tree or pulped and preserved in the form the sugary mangaad—a jam-meets-thick paste-like preparation that can be eaten on its own, blended with milk for a shake or slathered atop freshly baked poi bread made from wheat flour and bran that the poder (baker) just dropped off. 
The tinier, unripe specimens on the other hand would be washed, cleaned, quartered and salted before being submerged in a vat full of vinegar and sugar to be preserved as the famous Goan water pickle called tora shiro. This will most likely be eaten with a bowl of tepid rice water gruel called pez on a rainy afternoon.

In a pickle
Speaking of pickles, Catholic Goan cuisine has a wide repertoire of spicy pickles—mainly of the dried seafood kind—that show up during the rains. This is because we Goans have a rather strange habit of not consuming fresh seafood in months that do not have the letter ‘R’ in them, which incidentally are most of the monsoon months, June to August!
And so, well-planned shopping excursions will be organised to the large wholesale produce market in Mapusa to procure a mammoth number of food goods. Dried, salted mackerels called sukke bangde festooned upon choir ropes will be purchased in dozens, to be made into the spicy-n-sour Portuguese-influenced parra pickle that will jazz up the orange-hued, seafood-bereft sorak curry eaten with a mountain of fat, red ukde rice.
Prawn balchão, another equally famous seafood pickle will first see tiny, dehydrated prawns with translucent bodies called javla bought along with tonnes of angry red Kashmiri chillies for the year’s supply of the yet again Portuguese-influenced preparation. Both these main ingredients soon to be laid out on straw mats strewn about the home’s garden, under the desiccating heat of the blazing summer sun.
Interestingly, and rather confusingly, there is another version of prawn balchão that is eaten by us Goans during the rest of the year. Using fresh, saltwater prawns in its preparation, this iteration of balchão is enjoyed more as a thick gravy dish than as a pickle as it is less intense and vinegary than its monsoon counterpart.

Porcine Paradise
Just like balchão and parra were introduced and fit well into the monsoon staples of the indigenous Goan Catholic cuisine by the Portuguese during colonisation, a whole host of preserved pork-based dishes too were the result of the westernmost European country’s seafaring culture. One of the most famous pork dishes that has now breached its Goan shores to take long strides the world over—and particularly in Britain—is vindaloo.
It actually originated from a preserved Portuguese dish called carne de vinha d’alhos which simply meant meat marinated with garlic and wine. This was a dish that sailors took with them on long voyages thanks to its long shelf life, aided by the garlic and wine. However, the Goan vindaloo as we know and love today came about when said sailors, once ashore, localised the dish by adding spices and chillies and substituting the hard to procure red wine with coconut vinegar.
Called chauricão and available at most markets in Goa, the tiny beads of fat saturated Goan pork sausages have their origins in the traditional Portuguese smoked sausages called choriso. Another monsoon staple, chauricão are preserved by smoking strings of them over coconut husks causing them to dry up a bit. Only to be reconstituted when made into a spicy stew with water, sliced onions and cubed potatoes. Best had with slab of hot pão bread.

Colonial Cousins
What colonisation also did for the monsoon cuisine repertoire of Goa is introduce it to a few preserved dishes from other Portuguese colonies. Chief among these is the dark, rich pork stew called sorpotel. Known as sarpotel in north-eastern Brazil, the dish is a mishmash of offal like liver, lungs and heart that is mixed with meat and fat. Though contentious, many families in Goa are known to add a bit of pig’s blood to give the dish that special edge.
On the other hand, chicken cafreal which is a dark green, vinegar-heavy roast chicken dish is known to have been brought by the Portuguese from their east African colony of Mozambique where it is known as piri-piri chicken.
Portuguese, Brazilian, Mozambican, but now wholly Indian, Catholic Goan cuisine has evolved into a delicious genre unto itself. And one that shines in its spicy brilliance even on the rainiest of days! 

                   
RECIPE
Chicken Cafreal
(recipe courtesy Ann Dias) 

INGREDIENTS:
1kg skinless chicken pieces (legs and thighs)
2” piece ginger
8 cloves garlic
5 green chillies
½ tsp pepper corns
5 cloves
½ tbsp cumin seeds
½ tbsp poppy seeds (khus khus) soaked with a little water
1 cup fresh coriander leaves
1 tsp turmeric powder
30 ml coconut vinegar
½ tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
Juice of two limes
50 ml vegetable oil
2 medium potatoes cut in rounds and deep fried.

METHOD:
1. In a food processor, grind the ginger, garlic, green chillies, pepper corns, cloves, cumin seeds, poppy seeds and coriander leaves with a few drops of water to a fine paste.
2. Make slits on chicken pieces and marinate with turmeric, salt, lime juice and the spice paste for two hours.
3. In a large frying pan heat oil on medium flame and lightly fry the chicken pieces for 1-2 minutes on each side. Take the chicken pieces out of the pan and keep aside.
4. Pour any residual marinade into the pan along with a little water, vinegar and sugar. Bring to a boil.
5. Add the semi-cooked chicken pieces back to the pan, mix well and cook for another 8-10 minutes with the lid on till all the liquid has almost dried up. Check that the chicken is fully cooked.
6. Serve the chicken pieces hot, surrounded by deep fried potato rounds.

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 4th July 2020 issue of The Hindu Business Line newspaper's BLink section on page 18 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/cover/monsoon-food-in-goa/article31979340.ece)

Notes from Hanoi

By Raul Dias

In the future, if pop culture historians were to ever dredge up the top social media trends that defined the ensuing Covid-19 worldwide lockdown, I can bet my last coffee bean that dalgona coffee would be right up there riding the crest. The creamy-headed beverage, itself, jostling for space with everything from banana bread and bad home haircuts to auto-tuned renditions of bella ciao.
And while the genesis of dalgona coffee is (erroneously!) attributed to both, a popular Korean caramel-coffee candy of the same name and to our very own, beaten to submission desi “phheti hui” coffee, its true origins lie in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi in the guise of ca phe trung. Something I discovered on a trip to Vietnam a year ago. This, back in the good old days when I believed social distancing to be my private idiosyncrasy and when ‘Corona’ was still just another brand of beer! 

Egged On
Lending a certain gravitas to the “necessity is the mother of invention” proverb, dalgona coffee’s egg-enriched predecessor ca phe trung was the canny invention of a Hanoian barista named Nguyen Van Giang in 1946 at his coffee shop called Café Giang. Relishing the thick, creamy and surprisingly non-eggy tasting hot coffee seated in the legendary café perched along Hanoi’s ‘Coffee Street’ aka. Trieu Viet Vuong in the historic Hai Ba Trung District, I got a crash course in all things ca phe trung, thanks to the chatty manager.
Apparently, a post WWII shortage of tinned condensed milk that went into the then-popular iced ca pe sua da, steered Giang in the direction of stiffly beaten egg yolks to provide a creamy heft and rich taste to the coffee beverage that he decided to serve hot. Thus, imbuing his brand-new coffee concoction with a sort of rich, Tiramisu-esque texture and taste. But unlike dalgona that has just the creamy layer sitting atop hot or cold milk, ca phe trung has a thick body all the way through, making it more of a hybrid hot dessert than drink. One that is best tackled with a spoon, not sipped.

Back Story
Akin to the coffee beverage version of a set of nesting Russian dolls, I was soon to learn that there was yet another story within the story related to how Vietnam’s obsession with condensed milk—both as the dairy and sweetener component—in regards to its coffee drinking experience came about. And it was the French colonialists that set the course.
After producing the easy to cultivate robusta variety of coffee beans in Da Lat in climatically suitable central Vietnam in the early 1900s, the French realised that milk was hard to come by. This was bacecause milk and other dairy products had never been a part of the Vietnamese diet. And still are not, to this day. To fill in this deficit, the French started to import tinned condensed milk which was first used in traditional French coffee preparations like café au lait and then in the more localised Vietnamese iterations that sprung forth.

Chain Reaction
Over my one week in the country, as I dove further into Vietnam’s coffee culture, I soon came to some interesting realisations. There is no ‘grab-and-go’ coffee shop concept here. People prefer to sit down at cafés and have leisurely, conversation-enhanced coffee drinking sessions. Despite being second only to the Brazilians in terms of coffee bean (both arabica and robusta) exports at an annual turnover of about $3.10 billion, the Vietnamese prefer the sharper, bitter flavour and higher caffeine content of the less popular robusta coffee beans for their personal consumption. And this is why the big international coffee chains like Starbucks and Gloria Jean’s Coffee—both of whom primarily use the milder arabica beans in their beverages—have failed miserably in the local market that is dominated by cheaper, more artisanal cafés.
And why not? It is in places like these, that are literally on every street corner in the big cities and small towns of Vietnam, that one can get a taste of even more experimental versions of coffee beverages. From a yogurt coffee to a hipster-chic avocado and banana smoothie-meets-frappe called sinh to ca phe chuoi bo, the variety on offer boggles the mid. Maybe even a dalgona, someday. If not already.     


(This article first appeared in the 28th June 2020 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/travel/notes-from-hanoi/article31922421.ece)

Lockdown Loaves: The Rise of Sourdough!

At the very vortex of the lockdown baking frenzy is the humble, yet hip sourdough bread revelling in all its social media savvy. 

By Raul Dias

If anything, the last few months of lockdown have augmented one social media phenomenon. And that is the sheer volume of home baking activities being undertaken both here in India and across the pandemic-ridden world with an almost militant fervour. Just key in the catchphrases ‘banana bread’ or ‘chocolate chip cookies’ into any one of your social media account feed searches and watch the ensuing results boggle your mind.
But in particular, there is one bakery item that singularly gobbles up a mighty chunk of the proverbial baking pie. Sourdough bread. Gleaning dozens of pages and a gazillion hashtags on everything from Instagram to Pinterest, it would appear as though every Tom, Dick and…erm, Hari along with their next-door neighbour has secured a place on the sourdough bread bandwagon.

Back to Basics
So, what exactly is sourdough bread? And more importantly, why is it so darn popular these days? Characterised by a nutty aroma, this tangy-tasting, highly porous artisanal bread has a crusty surface and is made using natural yeast. All it takes is plain flour, water and a little salt to make a loaf of the bread. This, as opposed to commercial white bread that has as many as 20 ingredients, including hard to digest additives and dough conditioners. But what makes sourdough extra special is that it is most likely the first form of leavened bread that was ever created.     
Like most great inventions, sourdough bread was probably discovered by accident over 4,000 years ago by the ancient Egyptians. There is even written evidence of sourdough from hieroglyphs found in the pyramids, showing people making beer and bread at the same time in a sort of crossover fermentation.
With no need for commercially produced yeast—an almost impossible feat to procure in a lockdown—you just require a starter in lieu. A ‘living organism’ if you may, that is simply made from a mixture of water and flour. Microbes from the environment colonise the flour-water slurry producing gut-friendly, lactic acid-generating bacteria and wild yeast that aids in leavening.
Interestingly, even here in India, there has been a tradition of sourdough bread making. In Crumbs! her well-researched book on bread baking, food author and consultant Saee Koranne-Khandekar talks of a Himachali iteration of sourdough and even one made by Maharashtra’s Pathare Prabhu community who use a starter called gonda made from chana dal, water and milk. “We (Indians) have an almost instinctive understanding of gluten strengths and dough consistencies (stiff ought for poori, loose for chapati, etc.). We also understand wild cultures that exist in our environment, thanks to all the curd setting and the idli/dosa batter and kaanji making,” believes Koranne-Khandekar. 

Scents and Sensibilities
“Sourdough bread has gained popularity because of its delightful taste. Moreover, it is a great substitute for other breads made with commercial yeast. The lockdown has encouraged people to opt for healthier options and sourdough, therefore, has become a huge social media trend of late,” says Amar Dwivedi, Executive Chef at Grand Mercure Gandhinagar.
There is, however, more method to the apparent sourdough bread madness. In Cooked, his seminal book on all things food, American author Michael Pollan says that “…freshly baked bread is the ultimate olfactory synecdoche for hominess”. Making a strong case for the curative powers of aromatherapy vis-à-vis mood by way of freshly baked goodies, a 2016 study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that when young adults took part in an olfactory senses-heightening activity such as baking, they felt happier and more creative over the following days. Truly, aromatherapy for the depressed soul!
That is exactly why 24-year-old Gurugram resident and chef Akanksha Dean decided to swap her stove top for the oven and give baking bread a whirl. “Out of work as a chef-manager at a café, I suddenly found so much free time on hand that I decided to get into baking bread which I find so therapeutic and depression-ridding,” says Dean, who even launched a new lockdown-themed baking page on Instagram featuring her creations. “I particularly love the idea of sourdough bread which is perfect for baking these days as the starter is the sum of just two ingredients that everyone has in their pantry.” 

Nurture the Starter
Speaking of the sourdough starter, it has become so ‘legit’ that in US’s Silicon Valley, hipster coders are now blogging about the fermentation graphs of their sourdough starters. In fact, in August last year, Seamus Blackley one of the co-creators of the Xbox and self-professed ‘bread nerd’ resurrected a sourdough starter dating back to ancient Egypt that was made from residual yeast scraped from the insides of broken bits of pharaonic pottery.   
Closer home, one such afficionado is Shivam Bhatia from Bengaluru who has been nurturing his sourdough starter for the last three weeks. “The last time I took care of anything similar was when I was a teenager in the late 1990s when the craze of owning a virtual pet like the Japanese egg-shaped Tamagotchi one was all the rage,” says the 38-year-old VFX company owner. “Lockdown has given me the impetus and time to concentrate on the regular feedings that my sourdough starter needs.”
But if Bhatia ever were to shift base to either New York or Belgium, he would find that tending to his starter need not be a solo pursuit. Enter the sourdough starter ‘hotel’ where one can leave their starters to be tended to with regular feedings when travelling or indisposed in any way. All this, for a small fee, of course.
One such specimen is Brooklyn, New York’s Sourdough Inn which claims to be a “hotel for your sourdough, helping busy Brooklyn hipsters stay connected with the authentic bread experience”. The inn that was started by Mathias Jakobsen, a Danish-born internet entrepreneur a few years ago, also offers a three-week, $60 intensive ‘training and rehabilitation’ course where your neglected starter can be brought back to life.
Jakobsen himself was inspired by something radical that was taking place on the other side of the Atlantic. The Puratos Sourdough Library in St. Vith, Belgium not only tends to around 125 heirloom sourdough starter samples, but also develops, researches and preserves the biodiversity of different starters for the future.
  
#Wannabe
But just like sourdough dethroned banana bread in the baking trend wars, there seems to be another usurper slowly nipping through at sourdough’s crusty surface. And no, we are not speaking of the commercially produced, nutritionally challenged sourdough imposter social media has comically dubbed ‘sourfaux bread’.
Proving true the rather ephemeral nature of social media trends, the newest lockdown baking blitzkrieg comes to us in the form of ‘focaccia art’ where bakers are channelling their inner ‘Van Doughs’ and going all out to deck their slabs of the classic Italian flat bread with rustic pastoral scenes made up of fresh herbs and vegetables. Any takers? 

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 7th June 2020 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/lockdown-loaves-the-rise-of-sourdough/article31756457.ece