Namaste, Pranaam, Greetings all.

I have been away from my Blog for quite some time now. It's not that I have stop cooking, making our traditional foods or anything like that; it was more of a personal situation. 

My intention is to continue my compilation of recipes and also to revise the ones that I have already. When I started posting the recipes, I forgot to put how much each recipe yielded. I plan to remake all of these recipes and I hope that you will bear with me. There are so many recipes that still needs to be documented and kept for future generations. 

One of the things that I have noticed, is that some people are stuck in their thinking and cannot see when or how something can be incorrect. The one important fact, that all of us needs to remember, is that our ancestors were not wealthy and that there was a great lack of ingredients, that were not available when they came to Guyana. Even up to the 1980's, there was the banning of many food items necessary to the Indian/Hindu kitchen. People during that time had to substitute so many of the ingredients needed and many are still stuck in that mindset. 

Prasad/Parsad/Mohan bhog is a great case in point...... people used to make it with sugar water (some call it paag). That was because people could not afford to make it with milk alone. The situation is that some people now argue that Prasad has to be made with sugar water and they do not seem to comprehend that this was just a situational adaption. 

Even to making curries....many people feel that the way to cook curry is to make a paste and then cook this in oil (chunke this curry paste first). Curry powder was not really used in the early days and also garam masala powder. Almost all the ladies would make their own masala fresh, using a sil and lorha/masala brick. A piece of dried haldi/turmeric, some cloves, a piece of dalchini/stick spice, coriander/dania seeds, methi seeds, sarson/til; were all pounded tougther with a little bit of water and made into a smooth paste. This was then fried in hot oil/chunke, before the other main ingredients were added. The reason why this is done is simply because the frying in the hot oil brings out and awaken all the natural oils in all the spices. The yellow in the curry is as a result of the whole dried pieces of haldi/turmeric. 

Curry powder as it is today; has really ground rice as the bulk and turmeric and other masalas are added as flavoring. I suggest you read the ingredients on the package if you do not believe. Some people do not use ground masala in their curries too and use only curry powder. The other point is that the masalas are roasted already before they are grounded by the manufacturers so there is no need for further extra frying in hot oil. What you will get when you do this is a bitter flavor in your curries. 

So people cooking now, have to clear their minds and remember the circumstances of our ancestors and appreciate how adaptable they were. I learnt to cook Guyanese food from my Father and Maheshwar/Junior, our youngest brother. They taught me to think and study our foods and the way we prepare them. Both have perfected the traditional dishes and while retaining their purity, have expanded on of the method of executing the recipes.

Anyway, this is just some thoughts that I wanted to share. And I hope that when someone says that dal is not spelt as DHAL as its not written like the latter in the Devanagari script...that you will not say that well...that is how I heard it all my life. Or that Gurmba is gurma; etc etc. No one knows everything and all of us will continue to learn until we breathe our last breath.