Spicy Pumpkin

Spicy pumpkin. Have you ever tried a spicy pumpkin curry?Growing up in south India I had seen generous portions of cubed pumpkin pieces submerged in a delicious tangy soup ( Pulusu). Every slurp of that mouth watering pulusu was unique with its own character and surprises that spring out with every helping from the bowl. Pumpkin was my favourite among them . Weirdly for a large part of my life , I had never tasted pumpkin in any other form on the Indian menu. But someone told me some time back that spicy pumpkin is quite a common dish. Had the privilege of finding it in a food court yesterday ...and it tasted exactly as I remembered from my last time.. a wonderful combination of the mild sweetness of a full bodied soft pumpkin intercepted by contrasting sharp spices to be followed by more wonderfulness.  In one swift motion it took me back in time by quite a few years....

Many concentric flashback circles later, I found myself in Taman Negara. This time I am not going to be your snooty tour guide and give you unnecessary details about the geographic location, significance etc..It took us a bus ride, a cross country train ride, another bus ride and a 4 hour jetty ride to land at this dense jungle (They say its the worlds oldest rain forest and I have no doubts on that going by the effort it took me to reach there). while my energy and enthusiasm lasted, the boat ride reminded me a lot of Tintin`s in "The broken ear" and Mississippi in the movie A river runs through it.

On its widest portion, along the river bed they had a handful floating restaurants. Nothing  fancy but serving some super fresh produce of fruits, vegetables and  fish...with limited menus they absolutely nailed whatever little they could offer. It was a simpler time when the place was aboriginal, undeveloped, devoid of commercialization and we had a lot of time on our hands to walk, swim, observe or spend an entire evening on those floating restaurants listening to music and appreciating the fish they serve. Once we walked back into the jungle to our cabin on the cliff and it got dark ...there was nothing but the darkness ,forest sounds and a million imaginative snakes to give us company. People choose to go on some adventurous 7 day treks ( pythons, tricky terrain, dense undergrowth, swirly reptilia..) there but we chose to just idle our time in the jungle, discovering something new in every corner and having conversations with people as they paddled away  under us. Strange conversations they were... with both parties shouting at the top of their voices - one on top of an overhanging cliff and the other struggling to stay still on an exuberant river. Odd but exhilarating. When I feigned fatigue to escape the long walk to the floating restaurants, they gave me a rubber tyre and pushed me into the river downstream ...with some self learnt maneuvering, bruising and cursing on being thrown into wild nature I would always end up at the floating restaurants. Like I said there , no one was in a hurry to arrive- people reached at their own convenience on their personalized vehicles.... As one walked to the restaurants half wet and tired, one is glad that the restaurants are so low profile that they still welcomed you in that state. One restaurant stood out among the rest... mostly due to its chef.

He seems to be our souvenir from that trip. He was half Portuguese and half Malay and had lived in different parts of the world -In his words - tasting, cooking and living. Not a celebrity in any way but very worldly and charming. He did not have any menu at all but promised to dish something special to suit my mood. He sat with us over some coffee and fried fish and spoke at length about the river (Tahan) and his travels. He wanted to take off from that cut off jungle soon...  many places to be at or people to be with? Maybe.  He was good at connecting with anyone who walked in, where he made them feel like they were a part of his stories...he would disappear in between to greet the guys on the next table or into the kitchen. A good one and a half hours later he brought in the surprise to suit my mood- a soft spicy pumpkin curry teamed with crunchy sauteed celery and fluffy steamed rice. Before I could recover he serenaded us with some amazing grilled fish in a coriander sauce and as for the rest of the dishes...to be honest it was many years ago and I just have a vague memory of  a pile of neatly finished plates...He shared the meal with us and more charm followed.. One wouldn't believe.. but he got our orders from our conversation .

Spicy pumpkin for the south Indian girl :)