Daljit Nagra

Baby Crocodiles

I have poured over this entry for weeks, there is so much to say about this dish, so please be patient if I don't get to the point as fast as you hope. You see, many of the dishes found in Indian restaurants have been anglicised and are palatable to British tastes, such as Saag Aloo, Chicken tikka, Lamb Biryani but there is one dish that rarely makes it to a restaurant menu. The formidable Karela.

The karela is not popular for one main reason, the taste. When I was young my mother and father used to encourage me and my brother to eat this dish (which we said looked like baby crocodiles), as you can imagine, the dish that was laboriously prepared was seldom met with smiles. The truth is it is now one of my favourite dishes. Why? The bitter taste can only be appreciated by a mature palate and the appreciation of this dish comes from the efforts made to cook it.

The karela, or bitter gourd, is a dish that is complex, time consuming and therefore prestigious. This seeded dish has an odd taste: a taste that a child cannot appreciate. You must grow to love this dish, and not just because it has a multitude of health benefits.

This dish can be prepared in two ways, by stuffing the karela, or my chopping it up.
I prefer the stuffed version because I enjoy the spicy stuffing. A good instructional video eludes me therefore I will paint a small picture of how the stuffed karela is made, this by no means is a recipe!

Stage One: 
Firstly, the bumpy green skin of the karela is grated off with a blunt knife and put to the side.

the seeds and skin

 The gourd is then sliced vertically an inch from the top and an inch from the bottom, the seeds are extracted and put aside with the skin, the karela should be hollow.

Then the karela's are opened up a little and left on the side while the stuffed is prepared.

Karela seeds, very hard to eat!

Stage Two:
Your attention is now on the stuffing.
The best part of the Karela is the bittersweet onion stuffing so you will locate a frying pan and heat some oil, cumin and fennel seeds. to which you add finely chopped onions and saute.
Add tomatoes, ginger, tumeric powder, punjabi garam masala and salt, stirring well.
Leave the stuffing aside to drain
 Stage Three:  
Take the stuffing and the hollowed karelas and begin to stuff the hollows. Once sufficiently stuffed, tie with thread.

hollowed karela being stuffed with onions and spices

Stage four:
The tied karela's should now be deep friend until golden brown. They should be served hot and with chappati.

Tied and ready to be fried

Fry it!

Hot chappati

I forgot to take a photo of mine, so here it what it would look like!

With the image of the karela dish fresh in your minds, it is time to turn our attention to the poem that inspired this post: Karela! by Daljit Nagra 
This poem appears in Nagra's collection of poems Look We Have Coming to Dover! a collection of poems that have a strong character and heritage.

Karela!

Gourd, grenade-shaped,

okra-green. I prise

each limb of warty flesh,

disembowel each indi-

gestible red-seed memory

of regal pomegranate.

This dish from my past, I recall

mum would embalm the innards

with amalgam of fried onion

to gum the snarled temper.

Mummy-bound with string

for a mustard-popping pan.

then sealed. Masala creeps...

Karela, ancient as crocodile,

no matter I kiln-crisp

each skin for ages, proudly

before my English lover,

when the lid comes off

each riven body shrivelled

yet knurl-fisted and gnarled-

blackening centuries of heat

with a feedback of sizzling

smoke and wog- rescinders

stoking my mind with inedible

historical fry-ups. The rebel

ethnic of our ethnic gumbo!

Hail to the King of Bile

as I bite a mean mouthful

swamping me down to the tracts

of my roots- my body craves

taste of home but is scolded

by shame of blood-desertion

(that simmers in me unspoken),

save that we are in love-

that you bite as well your mind

with karela-curses, requited

knowledge before our seed

can truly blood, before

our tongue is pure poppy!

Nagra’s poem creates a palpable sense of the thickness of karela skin through the rhythm of the poem the enjambment of “I prise/each limb of warty flesh/disembowel each indi-/gestible red-seed memory” and the slow pace of the poem add to the sense of depth and also mimics the stealthy movements of a crocodile, which it is described as in the second stanza. The idea of a karela as a reptile is one that extends through two stanzas of the poem from its introduction as it has “limb[s] of warty flesh” and a “snarled temper” with a movement that “creeps”. The effect of these on the reader encourages the reading of the karela as a reptile, a comparison which is most obvious from a child’s perspective. Furthermore, the narrator seems to be recollecting his memories of the dish and the childishness of the crocodile-karela crossover is evident of that as the narrator describes the sinister “sizzling”, “smoke”, “knurl-fisted and gnarled”. The poem ends in the present; the narrator is an adult and with a “mean mouthful” remembers his first thoughts of his meal and it exemplifies his dual identities; the karela is a dish, like a reptile, which cannot be tamed. It is defiantly Indian and no effort to anglicise it for the curry house can take away its characteristic Indian flavour.