Sampling Indian Food for Divali with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Sampling Indian Food for Divali with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

My family has had fun living in Virginia and California as a military family.  We learned about Divali, the Indian Festival of Lights in Virginia thanks to our Indian neighbors. 

In fact, my fondest memories of being a Navy wife in Norfolk, Virginia, home of the largest Naval Base in the world, was swapping Christian and Hindu sweets with my Indian neighbors as we celebrated our different religious traditions.

Everyone in our apartment complex was in the Navy except for our next-door neighbors, who were from India.  They always loved talking with my daughter Florence, since their own grandchildren lived “up North.”

At Christmas, my daughter presented them with a plateful of Christmas cookies – peanut blossoms with Hershey kisses, chocolate chip cookies, Russian tea cakes and so on, she proudly said, “I made these all by myself.”

The following year in October, our next-door neighbor knocked at our door.  She told us, “These are the traditional candies we eat on our holiday of Divali.”

We thanked her and ate everything in about twenty minutes.  I took the plate back in what I thought was a polite hour later.

Our next-door neighbor invited us in when we brought the plates back.  We told her how much we liked the candies.  We sat down, and she placed more of them in front of us.

We could not stop eating the candy that came in many colors with almonds and pistachios on top called barfi.

Indians cook this treat by evaporating milk along with sugar and ghee, purified butter.

They spread the mixture on a greased, round tray called a thali, and then, cut into it.

Other sumptuous goodies we ate included nutty ball bundles called laddoos made from fried semolina flour, sugar, ghee, milk, nuts, and carrots.

The only mouthwatering sweets, though, had intriguing sweet and savory syrup on them.  They did not know the name of the ingredients in English, but several visits to India’s Clay Oven (now closed) in Monterey, California revealed what these secret ingredients were: cloves, green cardamom, black cardamom, and bay leaf.

This aromatic syrup flavored sweet rolls called gulab jamun made from milk, flour, rose essence, and ghee as well as little balls that had sugar candy inside rasgoolas.

Cooks make rasgoolas with flour and chana, a soft cheese made by adding lime juice to warm milk and then straining it through a muslin cloth.

Cooks make balls with the dough, and then, soak them for ten minutes in the syrup.

My neighbor appeared out of the kitchen with a plateful of saucer-sized orange coils that are one of the most difficult sweets to make in the Indian kitchen – jalebis.  I bit into the cold, crunchy crust of my first jalebi to discover a rose-flavored syrup inside the coil.

The tricks to achieving this culinary masterpiece are a perfect saffron-flavored dough, a coil squeezer, and warm syrup.  Cooks deep-fry the batter in ghee, and then, place them in the warm syrup.

The coils absorb the syrup, leaving the one side crunchy. Jalebis stay fresh for only one day, so my daughter and I made sure that none were wasted.

I asked what Divali celebrated.  My neighbor told me that there were two Divali stories.  The first tells that the day honors the God Rama’s coronation after he had conquered modern-day Sri Lanka after being exiled from his home.

The second story relates that the god Vishnu killed a giant demon.  His people celebrated his return with lights and decorations.  The stories’ characters differ, but both recount victory over adversity.

“The name of the festival itself,” he continued refers to the little clay lamps with oil and wicks called “dipa” set up in a row called “avali.”

Together they form, the alternative name of the festival – “Dipavali.”

My neighbor said that Indians celebrate Divali by doing things such as buying new clothes, buy new accounting ledgers, and lighting fireworks.  Most importantly, Indians say prayers to Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, asking her to visit their homes.

I said, “I think Lakshmi has already visited me” which made the neighbors laugh.

Note:  Parts of this story were printed in The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200, 000).

You can sample Indian food at the Ambrosia Restaurant in downtown Monterey, California.  They have a nice lunch buffet and lovely dinners.  I like lamb vindaloo (spicy) and mango lhassis (mango yogurt drinks).  They also have lovely, bronze Nataraja sculptures located around the restaurant.

You can buy ingredients for making Indian food at home at the Asia-Pacific Market on Reservation Road in Marina, California.  They sometimes sell live crab, spices in bulk, and have tropical fruit for sale.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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