Why there’s never a 'dal' moment with Canada nowadays

Among the little known facts to emerge from the ongoing spat between India and Canada is that the relationship hitherto had not only been mostly dull—but mostly dal too. Even as India has turned the spotlight on Khalistani activity from Canada, farmers there—mostly in Saskatchewan—have been focusing for a while now on India’s growing appetite for lentils. And well they might, as Canada is the world’s biggest producer of dals but India is their largest consumer.

Now that Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau has supposedly detected something black in the lentils (metaphorically speaking) and stopped trade talks with India as a consequence, farmers there find themselves in a soup. Dals are the very pulse of India; their consumption is an allegory for India’s journey to prosperity, so any twist in this country’s Yeh Dal Maange More story cannot be countenanced. India will ensure that its dal-roti (or dal-chawal) appetite remains sated.

Thus, there is a bright side to this dal kahani for all others concerned. First, the matter of supplies. Australia, Turkey and Brazil are only too willing to split the Indian dal demand between them. A potential Canadian lentil mountain thanks to Trudeau could also have a beneficial effect on diets worldwide, as people want healthier and cheaper sources of protein. Raw lentils pack as much protein as red meat and India is best placed to show the world how to prepare them.

Considering the starchy residue of legumes such as pigeon peas (arhar or toor dal), green gram (moong dal) and black gram (urad dal) have been found inside storage jars in Farmana, Haryana dating back to about 4,800 ago, India has the world’s longest living tradition of eating lentils which shows no indication of waning. Little wonder then that every dal has a name and every family in almost every region of India has a repertoire of recipes featuring pulses.

Indians may affectionately deride lentils with phrases such as “ghar ki murghi dal barabar” implying anything homegrown is as mundane as dal, but very few desis can do without it for long spells of time. Western ignorance of dal, however, is telling. Relatively few Europeans and North Americans know about legumes—lentils and pulses—apart from beans. Even fewer are inclined to include them in their daily diet unless as a trendy pate, which they also call hummus.

Although 4.2 million acres of Canada’s arable land is used to produce lentils, few locals apart from those of South Asian origin there consume regularly; hummus may be an exception, but among the younger, urban segments. The UN had declared 2016 as the Year of Pulses (like 2023 is the Year of Millets) and Canada as one of the largest producers at that time, should have used that publicity to launch a lentil revolution, culinarily speaking, but it did nothing.

This despite the fact that Canadian farmers actually began growing lentils in the 1960s as a “break crop” and so people have had plenty of time to get to know dal. Even as wheat garners more and more ‘intolerance’ worldwide and gluten-free becomes an article of faith, the idea of beefing up protein intake without eating meat via the inclusion of lentils seems to still elude them. Could a gigantic lentil surplus in Canada change attitudes and finally make the penny drop?

Sadly, western languages are so dismissive that they do not even have names for most dals. They are childishly identified by colour only—red, black, yellow, green lentils. Contrast that with India: all languages have a word for every dal, sometimes several for the same one. Only a few ‘western’ dals have names other than a colour, the most famous being Lentille verte du Puy (green Puy lentil) which has an appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) label in France.

Several European nations have local lentils that take the name of the region they grow in, like Lenticchie di Castelluccio which has GI protection, and Ustica, Vilalba, Altamura etc. They vary in size and colour and do not have the universal recall that dals in India have. Spain has Lenteja de La Armuña, Lenteja de Tierra de Campos etc. The local lentils of Germany’s Swabian Jura region died out but was recently resurrected from a seed bank and is now sold as Alb-Leisa.

Interestingly, ancient Romans would gift each other scarsellas or leather purses full of lentils (symbolising prosperity), wishing they would turn into gold coins.

That Roman heritage survives in the tradition of eating lentils at the stroke of the midnight hour on New Year’s Eve in Italy though the original dal dish now includes sausages too. This custom crossed the Atlantic is now observed in Chile; in Colombia they carry lentils in their pockets on New Year’s Eve…

Dal even played a role in World War II: to stave off the advance of Soviet troops during the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942, the Nazi commander ordered large batches of lentil soup to be made from stocks in the village they had occupied. The idea was that the mostly ill-fed Soviet troops would definitely halt to have the soup, giving the Germans time to retreat safely. He was right. So Europeans love dal too; yet lentils have never really become mainstream there.

The opposite is true of India—dals are centrestage. They are added to rice to make khichri (sometimes with meat added), the comfort food that unites elites and plebs. What makes all the difference is the tempering or baghaar, given India’s array of aromatic spices, seeds and herbs. Dals are also added to rice in varying proportions when making the batter for an array of south Indian staples like sundal, idli, dosai, vadas and uthappam, boosting their nutrient content.

Surely this principle deserves to be adopted by the health-conscious wider world—beginning perhaps with Canada, for obvious reasons? Beans have become a part of western diets especially in North America thanks to Mexican favourites like chili. However, dals are actually even better when it comes to protein content and are easier to cook as they do not need to be presoaked unlike beans. And of course, lentils are less likely to cause bloating too!

KT Achaya in his seminal work Indian Food: A Historical Companion says the Yajurveda—dated to a 1,000 years after the decline of the Saraswati civilisation that Farmana belonged to—cites dals such as maash (urad) mansura (masoor), mudga (moong) and kalaya (white peas) while chickpea is mentioned in the Markandeya Purana and Vishnu Purana. Adhaki (arhar) and chanaka (chana) find mention in Buddhist and Jain chronicles, composed 2,600 years ago.

By about 900 years ago (quite recent by Indian standards) dals were being put to even more innovative uses. King Someshwar of Kalyan in his 12th century treatise Manasollasa lists elaborate dal based dishes including Vidalapaka which used five in powdered form—chana, rajma, masoor, moong and parched toor—seasoned with rock salt, turmeric and asafoetida. Then there was parika or chickpea pakoras, which many people now know better as falafel.

More recent instances of dal in India need no reiteration: even Mughal emperors were partial to khichri—vegetarian, that too, in Akbar’s case. Dals are intrinsic to everyday desi meals now, though not too many Indians (in India at least) know the Canada connection to this comfort food! But maybe it is time for Canadians to wake up to the possibilities of lentils that may be piling up soon in their backywards—if only to dal the edge of the current crisis with India!

The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._

Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .