From Scratch

It all began a year ago, with the marshmallows.

Well, it probaby began even before the marshmallows, with this intensifying ache for baked things of the sort I’d routinely passed over through two decades split unevenly between Toronto and Houston. Those I knew I could approximate on my own. I’d always loved baking. Nutty pumpkin breads and moist carrot cakes had seen me through two pregnancies. Elaborate trifles and elegant mousses had completed many an evening with friends. But now at last an American in Pondicherry, in this small town fishing port that was once a French colony on the edge of British India, I couldn’t just run out for angel food cake or savioardi–or marshmallows. There was nothing processed about the life I had chosen. If I wanted these things, I had to start from scratch. I had to figure out how to make them myself.

When my family moved to Toronto in the late 80s, we were hardly the first Indians to get there. Rather, we joined a wave of migrants seeking new possibilities in new places: NRIs (“Non-Resident Indians”), as the Indian government was beginning to recognize this group for its monetary clout. [Or, “Non-Relevant Indians,” as Indian residents would sometimes quip, less about NRI assertions of clout.] When we decided, two decades, two degrees, two boys, and two academic careers later, that we were quite unequal to the task of raising Indian kids in Houston, we joined yet another wave of migrants returning to a much-changed homeland of new possibilities: this one the R2I crowd, “Returned to India.”

No great shakes, either time, either way. And since the real pioneers had preceeded us, learning their own needs and anticipating ours with smart business foresight, we always found the rices and spices we needed to soften our landings. “Little India” was on Gerard Street in Toronto, and clustered around Highway 59 and Hillcroft in Houston, eventually spreading into most of Sugarland. In Pondicherry, too, the presence of so many foreigners and “foreign-returned” Indians, plus the widespread impact of Auroville, meant that the local stores and suppliers were all lined up to cater to the most cosmopolitan of cravings. Soy drinks, breakfast cereals, organic jams, cheeses, pastas–each of these were either imported or had home-grown equivalents. In other words: the obvious answers were in place already. But other questions still remained.

Like: Where to find light corn syrup? which lead to: What is light corn syrup anyway? and Do I really need it to make marshmallows? When the answers were: Yes you do need it, but Never mind that it’s a corn starch derivative, you won’t find it here anyway, then: Corn starch derivative sounds industrial; can’t make that at home. So: What could I use as a substitute?

Living away from home means living with substitutes of one sort or other. In Houston, it wasn’t food substitutes we had to search out, as so many migrants from so many places had brought their foodways into “ethnic” America and transformed everything from grocery stores to eating habits irrevocably. The “ethnic” lives a different sort of life in India, both intrinsically part of a clichéd Indian diversity and elusively foreign. Reaching for global foods from here is not simply a matter of a trip to the local grocer; it’s more like wishing for the normalcy of something that’s neither easily accessible, nor everywhere available. Most non-local ingredients are either imports–expensive, or substitutes–things not-quite or less-than or just-about or will-do. Space is tight, and so are pocketbooks. There just isn’t the space for the overwhelming over-mediated mile-long display arrays typical of American supermarkets that we marvelled at as new NRIs, and took for granted by the time it was time to R2I.

So, what to do? Live by local ingredients, if not only by local imaginings. So I read up and set bubbling a simple syrup substitute for light corn syrup, and used it, in turn, to make my marshmallows. At last.

Thinking of the clear tubs of “hand made marshmallows” I’d sometimes see at Whole Foods Market, and of Dean Martin crooning about wonderful wintery marshmallow worlds. Nearly burning out the motor of my hand-held mixer and vowing to find me a Kitchen Aid stand mixer (in cherry red or cobalt blue), powerful enough to tackle these gooey confections. Gauging the distance between here and there in the number of steps it took to get to marshmallows: the craving, the search for light corn syrup, the giving up, the identification of substitutes, the determination to start from scratch and to live locally, the preparation of ingredients that then could be whipped into these pillowy white bits of sweet nothingness that one can find at the throw-away (or shoot-away, if you’re into marshmallow target games) price of $1.99 at Target.

We didn’t throw away a single marshmallow here in Pondicherry. We just couldn’t afford not to relish every single last one.

Not long after, we made our customary journey back to Houston for the November break–Thanksgiving time. At a cousin’s home, there was the traditional stuffed turkey with all the sides, down to sweet potato pie topped with broiler-crackled, gooey-on-the-inside marshmallows. Our younger one, who would live on air and sweetmeats alone if we let him, loved it beyond all words. With streaks of sweet potato mush on his left cheek and a dot of marshmallow on his the tip of his nose he asked: Amma, when we are back in Pondicherry, can you make this one for me, with so, so many yummy marshmallows on top?

I looked down into his earnest, bright little eyes, and sighed. For just a brief blip, I considered taking a few packets of Kraft Jet-Puffed back with me to save some trouble. But then, gathering myself anew: Yes, I replied. We’ll even make the marshmallows together from scratch, okay? The boy nodded happily, and, quite oblivious of the marshmallow dot still on his nose, disappeared into the next room.

 Simple Syrup + Marshmallows

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