A Dough by Any Other Name

A day devoted to food is a good day in my book, and that’s what yesterday was.

KLB students threw another party like last week’s for another departing class. I am not sure exactly how this class structure works, but I think they just set it up so that they can throw as many parties as they want. Fine with me, as long as they make more bhatura. Even better if you let me help make it, which they did. I was very appreciative of that, because during the beginning of the day, the teachers who didn’t have much to do that day were just sitting around and asking me questions. “What’s education like in America? What happens if a student doesn’t pass? What kind of classes do you take? What are your teachers like?” This is fine by me, except that they want three-word answers in simple English that they can understand, which is extremely difficult. I was getting really frustrated when Malkeet arrived and motioned for me to come with him. At that point, I didn’t care if he was going to abduct me on his scooter again, I just wanted a break from trying to answer impossible questions in broken English.

Fortunately, he wanted to show me how to make bhatura, and how to make a lot of it. I loved eating this last week, and it has turned into one of my favorite foods here. It’s very interesting dough that breaks all rules of dough making and still turns out delicious. First you start with 10kg white flour and 4kg whole-wheat flour. Then you use your hands to mix in 100g salt, 100g baking soda, and 100g instant yeast. That’s the first weird thing, using both chemical and biological leavening. After that, you add 15kg water and about 300-400g oil. More water than flour means you end of with a very wet hunk of dough, one that will have problems holding on to any gas produced by the leavening. Also, you only have to wait a half hour for it to be ready to cook, meaning that the yeast isn’t doing much work and won’t add much flavor. Again, you will be surprised by how well this turns out.

Well, maybe not that surprised, because you just fry hunks of it in oil. Hell, that makes anything taste good. Malkeet has an assistant to come in when they make bhatura whose name is Sanjeev, and he showed me how to pinch off small balls of dough from a big piece in such a way that it forms a skin like you would on a loaf of bread or pizza, yet you don’t have to roll it. Fascinating. Plus, since I work with dough a lot, I already had an idea of what needed to be done to get the right shape, so they were very impressed with how quickly I picked it up. That was a nice ego-stroking for me. Once the first round of dough was portioned, Sanjeev expertly manipulated of a piece of it into a thin, flat disk with a series of deft hand motions. He kind of slapped the dough against his hands several times, faster than one could see. Then he spun the disk into the pot of hot oil like you would toss a Frisbee. At first I thought that seemed dangerous, but then I realized that if he just dropped it in, more oil would splash around. Also, this made sure that one side of the dough evenly breached the surface of the oil so it would cook the same amount over the entire side. I tried doing this part of the process several times, but could never get it right. It negated the ego-stroking that I got from shaping the dough, so I just stuck to shaping the portions and moving them around while they fried. A well-shaped and properly cooked bhatura blows up like a balloon when it’s done. It was very cool to watch.

When he pulled the first bhatura out of the oil (with his bare hands), instead of placing it in the serving pot, he brought it to his lips, kissed it, then put it on the ground. He then kissed his fingers, touched his heart and looked to the sky. That first bhatura stayed on the ground underneath the frying pot for the rest of the day. I later learned that the first piece of food when cooking for large groups like this is always for the gods, to ensure a safe and successful day.

Anthony Bourdain writes in Kitchen Confidential that the recent phenomenon of celebrity chefs is a rather annoying paradox for those in the food service industry. That is because most of the time, the people who want to make food in restaurants are the ones who would rather be behind the scenes, out of the spotlight, because they simply hate people. I couldn’t agree with him more. The canteen crew today was an embodiment of that statement. Everyone just knew that food had to be made, and it gets made better and quicker when you don’t have to talk to your customers or do your work in front of a camera. I don’t exactly hate people, but I would much rather spend an hour taming a 30-kilo mass of wet dough then trying to get the complicated nature of the American education system understood in broken English. Malkeet and Sanjeev, on the other hand, talked very little, and I could tell that all of us were enjoying being absorbed in our work for the time being.

Also, I was impressed by how smoothly things worked with such minimal equipment. I spent several months working at MSU’s cafeteria, and most of my work was on the industrial fryers. There, I received small or large burns every day, even with that professional equipment and enough safety procedures to make a cow feel comfortable in a slaughterhouse. Yet here, with a big iron pot over an open flame and oil splashing everywhere, nobody got even singed. By the end of the day we had made at least 500 bhatura for the whole school, and Malkeet cooked a big pot of chickpeas over a fire pit to eat with the bread. Absolutely delicious. And I got to make food for hundreds of people. It may not have been for the gods, but when I cook for others, it certainly is for other reasons besides mine or their satisfaction. The look of their faces when I can see that they liked our food, the food that Malkeet, Sanjeev and I made together, even though we don’t even speak the same language… I don’t know, it’s just a really special feeling.

We finished the last piece, then I joined Sanjeev in thanking the gods once again for blessing our operation. There was more dancing, another beauty pageant, and we all went home. This time, however, I really felt a great sense of accomplishment, more so than most days. I fed people. What could be more rewarding than knowing that you helped people fulfill their most basic need?