What's For Lunch?

Amrit India is one of three Indian restaurants in Bloomington, Indiana. I stepped up to order my food with Ameerah Siddiqi. She's never been there before, but she's accustomed to eating this type of food. Her parents are from Pakistan and they immigrated to Indianapolis in their mid-twenties, which is where Ameerah grew up.

She got the chicken curry, which is kid of funny because Ameerah doesn't usually use the word curry to describe South Asian food.

"I know that in America people associate curry with Indian food. So, if someone asks me ‘what is Pakistani food like?' the only way I know how to describe it to them in a way they'll understand is saying ‘oh it's like curry'."

So what exactly is this thing we call curry? Colleen Taylor Sen is an expert on the topic -- she's written six books about Indian food, even one simply titled Curry. She gave a long complicated explanation of the word, but boiled down to its simplest definition, "Curry is any Indian dish with a gravy," she says "It could be made with meat, or fish, or vegetables, and of course it has spices and it has gravy."

(When we say gravy, we're not talking about what you put on your Turkey or your biscuits. We just mean sauce.)

Northern Indian Fare

Ameerah's mom's cooking is traditional Pakistani, and she cooks most nights of the week. So, when Ameerah is down at college, which is an hour from home, she comes to restaurants like Amrit to get similar foods. If she orders dishes like butter chicken or chicken tikka masala, those are similar to some of the dishes her mom makes.

The other weekend I was home and my dad made a turkey sandwich but he put this chutney that you eat samosas with in the turkey sandwich.

At the same time, restaurants don't offer the same variety of recipes her mom cooks.

"There's so many different types depending on the types of ‘masala,' which is what adds all the taste - and then the different spices you use. In Indian restaurants, I feel like butter chicken and chicken tikka masala are the only ones that they ever really have."

Taylor Sen agrees with that statement.

"The restaurants here are pretty limited. They all kind of serve kind of a similar menu," she says. "They'll kind of feature kebabs. They'll have a general north Indian menu with a few south Indian dishes thrown in."

Cooking In America

If they were going to eat kebabs in the Siddiqi household, it would be beef, chicken or goat -- but not pork -- grilled on a skewer.

Mrs. Siddiqi has tried to keep her recipes traditional, despite living in suburban Indiana. But the family finds ways to put a Pakistani twist on American foods.

"Anytime we make any sort of pasta or chicken or even burgers, they always add some sort of spice or something in it," she says. "And the other weekend I was home and my dad made a turkey sandwich but he put this chutney that you eat samosas with in the turkey sandwich."

As far as the future of the cuisine in the Siddiqi family, we'll see about that. I asked Ameerah if she knew how to cook Pakistani food. She said no.

"Not at all. My mom will have me help her in the kitchen, but it will just be like, ‘dice those tomatoes' or ‘peel that potato'. If she ever was like ‘oh Ameerah go make some chicken gorma,' I would have no idea what I was doing."

She graduates from college in two months and she plans to move to the East Coast. Her mom learned to cook Pakistani food out of necessity when she came to America. Maybe Ameerah will do the same when she moves away from home.