Condiments in Asian Cooking

Commonly used spices in Asian cooking, specially South East Asian, and we are talking about the tropical areas of the continent, are pretty well-known. In fact, in western countries, the idea seems to be that a pot pourrie of all masalas is dunked into every meat and vegetable dish, and that's what makes them spicy, hot and colorful essentially Asian food.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Asian cooking has a vast repertoire, foods and their cooking methods are segregated according to many things, seasons, agricultural areas, geographical locations, and in most cases, nature of the food itself. All spices are not used in every dish, contrary to popular belief and again, if I may add a very small percentage of Asian food is hot. The rest can be easily varied to taste, with degrees of sour, chili and saltiness. Each region has its unique chilies, and souring agents, pungency varying with the geographical location and climatic setup of the place.

For instance, green chilies are used in North India while more dried red chilies are used in the South, and in Thailand, it is again red chilies of a different variety while Chinese food is different again. In some areas tamarind is used as a souring agent, while some others have lemon, mango powder and Thai food has kafir lime leaves which add sourness as well as pungency. Across South East Asia, tastes vary different condiments and additives are used and the pungency and the levels of sourness vary wildly. Where Indians use ginger the Thai and even Myanmar-ese use galangal - for the same purpose, pungency and as a digestive aid, since the juice of the ginger family helps clean up toxins from the system.

Besides spices and condiments, even dishes have common ancestry but different ways of cooking. The avial (essentially a mixed vegetable curry in yogurt and coconut milk gravy) of the southernmost tip of India has cousins in Thai cuisine as well as Chinese and even Vietnamese foods.... The range is amazing and it is unfair to club all foods into "hot and spicy".

In Asian countries, food is not just for sustenance. It is a gift of the Gods, to be offered to them first a thanksgiving, before every meal, and most Asian countries still follow this tradition. The methods of preparation, the spices added all are dictated by unwritten cultural rules, every person knows. There are foods for marriage ceremonies and when the same curry is made at home, the spices are different. The oils and seasonings are different. The foods cooked for the Gods are a class apart, and across religions, it is the purest form of food and can be polluted by even an ill omen. The list of restrictions is seemingly endless, and would even appear very complicated, but is actually not.

Most of the preparing styles in Asian foods have a scientific background. The pickles and their making are governed by temperature and seasonal quirks like humidity, the presence of spores in the atmosphere, and in some cases, an eclipse, or even a menstruating woman. These are not taboos, they can be traced back to logic. No scientists will deny that climatic factors do affect the preserving power of foodstuffs, the only difference here is that when these laws were made, every person was not a scientist so the rules had to be masked in banality...like, the Gods will be angry if pickles are left out in a solar eclipse. In reality, the ultra violet rays would probably spoil it.

While these may sound as meanderings through an extremely complicated and to some, uncivilized cultural system, the fact remains that the Asian food systems are extremely conducive to longevity and vital bodily health. These areas usually fall for infectious diseases that are very difficult to eliminate in tropical climates. The spices that are essential in Eastern cooking are not merely for the fragrance or the taste, in most cases, they carry medicinal qualities. For instance, turmeric, used in India and some neighboring countries, has strong antiseptic properties, it is absolutely essential for helping the digestive tract to maintain its bacterial flora, especially in the largely tropical Indian climate. Other spices like cumin are anti-inflammatory and anti flatulent in nature, and serve more as inbuilt digestives, than flavoring spices.

Nature has bestowed a bounty of healthy fruits, crops, vegetables and marine foodstuffs to these areas and their wise men learned centuries ago to harness the goodness of these gifts of nature. No wonder then that Asia has the lowest risk of diseases like heart trouble, obesity and diabetes, even cancer in some cases. Diseases related to poverty, and of course, infections that come from lack of awareness about hygiene, are always the highest incidences in these areas.