Last Tuesday evening, “Indians and Indians” joined forces to serve up a feast. As they have done for over five years, the Native American Council joined the Bhakti Club in the latter’s weekly Indian cooking class in celebration of Native American Heritage Month.
About seventy-five people gathered in Lerner’s Broadway Room at 7 PM as a member of the Bhakti Club demonstrated how to make Karhi, or Gujarati yogurt soup. The turmeric-colored soup filled the room with the smells of asafoetida, coriander, and mustard as it simmered in the electric pan on the demo table. As the soup cooked on, attendees clearly became more and more excited for what was to come. Finally, a leader of the club, Dave, wearing heavy tan sweats over his Hare Krishna orange, introduced Adam Spry, an English Ph.D. student on the Native American Council. Spry announced the council’s contribution of traditional Native American foods to the feast: green beans with roasted peanuts, wild rice-stuffed acorn squash, and homemade salsa. Clearly, the upcoming meal would be eclectic, to say the least.
Surprisingly, Indian (from India) and Indian (from America) foods fit together rather well. Both relied on rice bases, the Indian sweet and light, the Native American dark, heavy, and savory. The curried vegetables served by the Bhakti Club were matched by the Native American salsa in their heavy use of fresh cilantro, though the vegetables themselves differed. Despite the difference in vegetables, both cuisines were in fact similarly spiced, though the Indian curries more complexly so. A major point of praise for both Bhakti’s and NAC’s cooking: neither babied down their offerings. Many Indian restaurants in America default to relatively mild curries, worried, no doubt, about their clientele’s sensitivity. Not so at Columbia. Both groups brought strongly peppered dishes and expected those attending to handle it, to taste food as it was meant to taste.
The friendship was not reserved for the cuisine alone, though. There was a general air of friendship and peace in Broadway. As Spry finished, everyone present formed a surprisingly orderly line, Tupperware in hand. Clearly, Bhakti’s weekly meetings are no mere free food events. Friends come in groups and stay to eat; very few attendees simply hit and run. Dave greets everyone with a smile and wishes them well. Haley Hair, CC ’13 and treasurer of the NAC, was excited to promote Native American Heritage Month and underline her group’s relationship with Bhakti. “We been doing this for years,” she said. “We love working with other student groups.” This inter-club relationship does certainly seem a success. Relaxed and well-fed, everyone present looked delighted at this meeting of Indians and Indians.
