Balti into the Loop

It was hard for me to receive trust from others, where it was easy to give my trust away to them. My entire family were stuck in their ways and made the same old recipes across two weeks, for over thirty years. There are different kinds of recipes that stretched across the seven seas and, well, we hardly did any of them for they did not like change.

The diet consisted of a Roast every Sunday, a Cornish pasty every Wednesday...heck most of our meals had beef in them. It was evident for we descended from the broad and tall family of farmers, who raised the cattle for meat. All the animals managed and packed towards slaughter, which then led to the rewards of supper. There were choices of them as made by the illustrated ways to baked cakes and cooked meals, which were passed down through generations. We all ate beef more than once per week and topped it up with ham for lunches.

It became a clockwork of the same lifeless meals. Little imagination infused into each one, and they all fell into the same regulation. Any adjustment to their ingredients was like a spanner thrown into the cogs of their enjoyment. The family had to stick to the routine like sheep attracted to the white light.

I stood for change. I was the one who threw the spanners regularly. My mind was swamped with lots of ideas. The kind of exciting meals that I would love to share with other people. Their scents would be straight-forward enough for my immediate family to catch a whiff of and try for themselves, where others dared to not stick their fingers in. Anything more exotic than the usual meal of fish and chips, with a side plate of buttered bread, they would not eat.

It was my passion to pursue the likes from fried chicken to the excellent tagine. It's an exciting adventure to lick on every dish around the world, which could be done at home. Why go for the weekly victoria sponge, if I could bake an occasional strawberry shortcake? The celebratory cake of the Japanese cuisine with a heavenly light sponge, layered with rich rum cream and a field of strawberries. A soft sweetness on every bite and they all melted in my mouth.

Though it was treated as blasphemy out of not spite, but the dismissal of the community. They stayed with the foods that worked for them in the twentieth century. What they ain't broke meant they were not needed to be fixed. They stuck to their tea-stained regulations of what was proven right and what was proven wrong, for they did not align with my own ideals and beliefs. There was the truth from that machine and the smokes of their bias left snoot within my intoxicated body. It all smoked my wool into a darker tone compared to the rest.

It was inevitable for I was belittled and disregarded for my own ideas. I could only work within the constraints of their own comfort zone, which only meant tweaks to our given recipes. Ketchup instead of puree in lasagna with lemon-and-wine infused bechamel cheese sauce, all made for more vibrant flavours. Whisked egg whites to make the cake sponge lighter. Fruit pavlova with reduced vinegar for the meringue and topped with strawberries and kiwi instead of raspberries. My attempts to improve our long-and-tested food were treated as jokes, and my family blamed me for not listening to them and ruined the recipes.

It was a hard time to experiment, and it showed in my attempts to bake a strawberry shortcake. Some came out thin, and some had a sunk middle with oil leaked around the plate. Translating the recipe into the format that would match along the guidelines used for the victoria sponge, was met with difficulty. That same old cake was a common sight in our household, and it overshadowed the other tasty cakes that we should have taken out of our oven.

My efforts were not in vain. My immediate generations of my family do love to venture out into other pastures. Even as a small kid, we tried new things. We sampled the sweetness and spiciness of the takeaway food, right down to the duck spring rolls which even my gran didn't agree with. We tried the likes of the fresh Bang Bang Chicken and the sauciness of the Chicken Korma. Even stir-fries of beef and black bean sauce were fried by my dad and he poured them over rice. Those were the signs of the changed aspects of modern cooking.

It was apparent we were influenced by the meals of other people for their distinctive tastes. One time I shared a tasty Korma with a group of university mates, and it was a grand combination of soft rice and the sweet coconut richness of the sauce. All it took was a pot of sauce, some cooked chicken and batches of rice. Certainly easy to make a good curry with little effort.

But then I took a step further, at home, with a pot of curry paste. The diced onion spread into the oiled wok and fried for five minutes. My dad whipped up a fuss over the chicken before he realised it needed to be sealed before the paste was spread over the contents. Chopped tomatoes then went into the mixture, and it bubbled into pools of fresh fruit sauce. A lot of water poured into the chicken and the whole stew bubbled for half an hour with rich vapours of a Balti.

Plates of the curry spread over the mats along with the grilled naan bread, and we tucked in with our forks. There were huge servings on thirty-centimetre-wide plates, and we devoured the juicy sauce over the cooked basmati rice fresh from the rice cooker. All of our dishes were empty as pointed by my dad's finger. They all went down a hatch.

It was so much of a success that it turned into an occasional meal during teatime, which slotted into the cycle of repetitive meals. The excitement of getting a pot of curry sauce with fruit and vegetables, and a packet of garlic naan bread. A home-cooked curry on basmati rice quickly became our comfort food, and it was a celebration of my efforts to revolutionise our way of cooking. But that was only a single step on the stairs.

I went up that long case with more recipes from the vibrant depths of the internet. A delicious chicken stew with oranges and red wine, all served with soft dumplings. An exciting Pilaff mixture of chicken, chickpeas and turmeric-soaked rice, which devoured down to a few grains. Some simple cheesesteak sub-sandwiches with cooked juicy rib-eye pieces sandwiched between the fried peppers and onions and the melted Edam cheese. Even my parents became fans of my unique cooking that were missed out by my older generations.

The outskirts of that modern family would not dare to sample my great cooking anyhow, for the liberating taste of spices, sauces and sugars would have ruptured their palettes. I may not be taken seriously for my brave deeds in cuisine when my attitudes lie in my passions to share my love of food. It was that curry that I made for my family that I should be convincing anyone in the older times to get in, try it and marvel at its blend of tomatoes, onions and chicken. But some of them may reject its usage of fruit and vegetables, for they may borrow themselves in a platter of meat and cake. All of their supplies shielded their vision and left isolated in a small farming community of their own.

Those lives are being whisked away into the strands of time, and they would never try my own creations. They would not adjust to the changes to their diets and would fade out like dried leaves in the cold breeze. Others who did by sampling the foods from other worlds would live into their prosperous lives. The selection of sticky meats on the barbeque and bowls of crunchy crisps, all brought the joy to our family and our friends under the strong sunlight. All finished off with glasses of gin and tonic and a lot of laughter. The sensations of a sound feast.

The booze and the atmosphere made a warm environment, and it rewarded all of our family for our risks to try something new. It brought me the grace to bake a successful strawberry shortcake ten centimetres fall and delivered it on the outside table. Everyone looked at it with bowls and spoons, and they took slices of that cake. The sponge was moist with rum syrup, and it was complemented with cream and strawberries. People gave a lot of praise to me over the effectiveness of their dessert, and they returned with empty bowls.

They were the grand memories of that moment that left that soft-baked taste across my sorry tongue. It even gave me the courage to climb the stairs with new recipes for steps, with a firm hope to expand my breadth of cuisine. All done within the shadow of the machine operated within the comfort zone of my parents, who still churned out victoria sponges and cottage pies every week or two.

My hands held a phantom bowl of my shortcake and looked up to the stars, for I wish one day I would venture out into the woods, and into a quiet home. Then I would cook to my heart's content and fast with nutritional dishes of meat and vegetables with my favourite spices. The joys of food and drink provided from a black sheep, without the hassle delivered from the flock. Those other sheep would proceed to cycle around the machine of repetitions, for the rest of their stubborn lives.