[Sca-cooks] Yogurt and garlic, was Chocolate yogurt

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Avraham wrote:
>Have you tried raita? An Indian yogurt-and-cucumber dressing which is
>intended to be eaten as a "salad".

Actually, there are many kinds of raita. Around here, coriander
greens nearly pureed with coconut cream and chilis is a much more
common raita. There are others with fresh mint, and more varieties...

A raita is a "fresh" accompaniment, just as a "chutney" is a
sweetened, spiced, and sometimes "heatened" preserved accompaniment,
and a "pickle" is a salted, usually oiled, and sometimes soured
preserved accompaniment. (i'm referring here strictly to Indian/South
Asian pickles - which are usually very salty, often quite oily,
sometimes sour, and generally really hot)

When i was 18, living in New York City, and only knew how to prepare
spaghetti (the sauce was a blend of 1 can tomato paste, one can
tomato puree, salt, and maybe a daring sprinkle of "Italian herbs")
and tuna salad, i decided to make an Indian dinner. I made my own
pickles and chutneys, never having made preserved foods before, etc.
and ended up with quite a complex range of foods, all, as i recall,
successful. I made a mango chutney and a lemon pickle, but i have NO
recollection of what the main course was, nor any of the accompanying
dishes - of course that was in the late 1960's and you know what they
say, if you can remember them, you weren't there. I can't remember
much, but i still have the cookbook i used - not very authentic, but,
heck, i'd never really cooked before and had only eaten in an Indian
restaurant once, where i asked for hot food (having grown up in
Chicago where pastrami was considered "hot"), and had a transcendent
experience as the spices exploded in my mouth and melted my mind...

Anahita