Did you know that there are two groups on Facebook divided on their love and hate relationship with coriander? Mumbai-based chef Ranveer Brar is definitely in the ‘I love coriander’ camp, given that he is trying to get the herb conferred as the national herb.
In a change.org petition to have dhaniya recognised as India's national herb, Brar has called coriander a superfood and the ‘superstar’ of kitchens "from Kashmir to Kanyakumari". So far, 21,344 have signed and at 25,000 signatures, the petition will gain become one of the top-signed on the platform. “I don’t know if the change will happen but at least it will start a conversation about coriander, one of the humble ingredients we use at home and forget all about it,” Brar said.
On April 1, Brar invited viewers to check in to his Instagram at 2pm for recipes like dhaniya jalebi and daniya barfi - presumably just the thing to make sceptics fall in love with the herb. The April Fool's Day video still tied back to his love of the herb, which he held like a bunch of flowers in the video.
Coriander originated in the Mediterranean, and according to The Oxford Companion to Food, the name is derived from the Greek word for bedbug - the aroma of cilantro was considered similar to that of bedbug-infested bedclothes.
You would forget such obnoxious references when you hear Brar describe the flavour of coriander as if he were describing a great vintage wine. “There is definitely an unmistakable citrus note with very top-heavy floral notes. There is a slight earthiness which essentially is the mainstay of the coriander on which all its other flavours come through. Over the years I have realized that different parts of coriander have eventually the same notes but in different quantities. The seeds are slightly less floral, less citrusy, more woody and earthy. The leaves, on the other hand, are diagonally opposite. The stem has a fair balance of both.”
When he cooks for himself and his family, or when he is shooting a cooking video, Brar says he uses about 3-4 bundles of the herb. Which may have been the reason why on March 10, he put up an Instagram post on having a petition to make ‘dhaniya’ the national herb. The post went viral and caught attention of change.org on making it an actual petition.
“I thought, why not? Coriander is one herb that drives Indian cuisine pan India whether it is to cook with, to finish or to garnish with. It is a typical root to fruit ingredient used in Indian cooking where everything, from the roots to the seeds ends up getting used,” Brar said.
Flavour, according to Brar, is the essence of Indian cuisine. “All cuisines hang on to different hooks,” he noted. “Japanese is on texture, Korean cuisine is about texture and colour, ours hangs on to flavour. A single dish may not have any texture to speak of but the flavour stands out. Traditionally our cuisine flavours are from spices but coriander is used to flavour most of our dishes.”
Stints at major hotels in India, setting up restaurants in the US, returning to the country eight years back to host food shows and being a judge on Masterchef India, Brar has acquired a celebrity status. He credits the “streets of Lucknow” for first sparking his interest in food. “My fascination for food of Lucknow made inroads into my being and I guess, the food from where you are eventually ends up driving you,” he said.
While Lucknowi cuisine has its share of coriander flavouring, is there a dish he wouldn’t use coriander in ? Brar thinks for a second. “I wouldn’t use the herb for any international classic dish that doesn’t call for it,” he said. But when it comes to Indian cuisine, he has dedicated a space in the petition for signees to give their reasons for voting coriander as the national herb. Some of those reasons are evocative. One wrote: Food without dhaniya is like a princess without her tiara. Shouldn’t that alone be enough to make coriander the national herb?
“There are many such humble ingredients and we should be talking about all of them on bigger platforms,” Brar said.
But wait. Are there any countries with their own national herbs?
“I don’t know but why should that stop us from having our own?” he counter-questioned.
“So many countries have cuisines that use some herbs extensively. The flat parsley, which I like, is called Italian parsley,” he said. So, shouldn’t coriander, which vegetable vendors hand out for free with purchases in many parts of India, be called the Indian coriander? That’s something to talk of and the petition does shine a spotlight on the humble herb.
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