Virgin? No, Crude.

          The first time I heard a friend use the term ‘virgin’ whilst referring to a cooking medium, I didn’t know what had or hadn’t been done to the liquid for it to have earned that status. Then came ‘extra virgin’ to further confuse my generally-muddled brain.

I asked Shri Husband what it meant and received a “don’t be silly” in return. The term (‘extra virgin’, not ‘don’t be silly’) was parked in a corner of my memory until one day Bai Goanna said virgin olive oil was good for the health.

Me: “Oh?”

She said she’d read about it in a magazine or twenty. For the last many years, she’s been concerned about her well-being. She drinks warm water with lemon and honey in the morning, followed by oats/cornflakes with fruit-platter, eats garlic all the time, bananas with tea, dry-roasted puffed-rice if she feels snacky, just two rotis or a measured amount of rice with lentil and vegetable soup, a single portion of steamed chicken/fish as a treat twice a week. Only multiple-grain breads, thank you. Slimy green drinks are her favourites, and extractions of yeast and other smelly fungi keep her immune system strong. She runs pre-dawn full-marathons for fun, and solves maths puzzles to keep the grey-cells agile. So when she pronounced ‘good for the health’ I knew she knew what she was talking about.

“Virgin oil,” she gravely said, “is the first extraction from crushed olives. Cold-pressed, strained.”

She said she drizzled it on salads and rubbed it on elbows and heels to prevent chaffing.  She asked which oil I used.

“Whatever is available at the vanni’s,” I confessed.

“Always check the label for the nutrition,” she said.

I check it only for the price; but didn’t admit it right then. Mine’s a sambar-guzzling, xeet-kodhi family. We eat what we pluck from our compound (not garden, definitely not garden) during the monsoons. Wild stuff that our locals say we must eat: ‘alloo’ leaves, for example, and drumstick flowers. (BTW, these drumsticks aren’t chicken legs nor musical-instrument attendants; they’re ‘muska-sango’). But they’re so-o not fashionable. I don’t find those ingredients in any cookery classes/programs.

In fact, none of the things we eat at home are ever seen on television: phow with grated coconut and jaggery, bhakryo made with nachnnya pittho, and eaten with tisryaa-ek-shippi. Ever since someone told me shell-fish is good for cholesterol and cholesterol is bad for us, I’ve stopped eating it. No, actually, I’ve stopped telling people that we eat it. When I do (tell people, I mean, not the eating part), I’m armed with references and links that say actually-actually shell-fish are good when cooked in the traditional way, with organic ingredients. Somehow when the words traditional and organic are thrown in, everyone’s convinced about the goodness of the dish.   

I hesitatingly admitted to Bai Goanna: “I bought coconut-oil the other day. Cold-pressed, unrefined.” Hesitatingly because the last time I said such a thing, my audience of two burst out laughing thinking it was a joke. “Hair oil in food? Haha-hoho,” they chortled. “It’s good for a massage, though.” (At the time, I was reminded of an aunt who, when told that people in north and east India used mustard oil as a medium for cooking said, “That’s why their intellect is dense and their speech not sweet”. Had she been alive today, she’d have been labelled an ignorant, generalizing racist.)

To my surprise, Bai Goanna told me: “That’s good. It’s one of the best oils going around.” Really? I was puzzled. I mean until the other day it was only extra-virgin olive oil. What changed?

“New research,” she clarified. “You must avoid palm-oil. Some extracts are fine, of sunflower-seed, safflower-seed, sesame-seeds…”

I got into the groove and sang along: “Cornseed, rapeseed, canola, jatropa, rice-bran, jojoba, grape-seed, kapop, soya-bean, castor-oil,  biodiesel…”

“That’s enough.” Two words from Shri Husband and the larynx goes chup.

Bai Goanna isn’t intimidated by Shri Husband. She carried on with her gyaan: “Crude vegetable oil is the unrefined, unprocessed oil produced from vegetables - in the natural vegetable oil state when it is first extracted.  It undergoes further processing and to take it from its crude form to a refined state. Crude to refined makes it useable and safe for human consumption.” She threw in words like non-glyceride, trace metals, oxidation and contaminants. Fascinating tongue-twisters.

The same evening we met a nice young man who said he worked in the oil industry. He said he specialized in ‘crude-oil’.

“Virgin?” asked Bai Goanna, still enthused by our oil-talk.

Shri Husband interrupted: “Crude. Crude oil. Petroleum.”

The young man helpfully added: “I work in a refinery. It makes naphtha, gasoline, kerosene, the liquid petroleum gas you use in your kitchen. High-tech.”

“Extra virgin then?” Bai Goanna clarified.

“Crude,” both screamed at her.

I’ve no idea why, but an inexplicable awkwardness seemed to stall that conversation and Shri Husband is still angry with my best friend.

Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in