Where have all the flowers gone?

Imoved to Bangalore from Delhi last April. This month has had different associations in all the cities I have lived in. From the delicious coolness of the blustering nor’westers or Kal Boishakhis of Kolkata to the abundance of flowers in the spring-summer warmth of Delhi. And then the sudden heat wave in Bangalore. Its famed good weather as elusive in my early days here as the cool evenings, punctuated by a few drops of rain and the constant drone of bees.

The bees became my markers for summer and for my new abode in the city. However, even before I could muster home remedies in case of a sting, or dream about the batches of fresh honey one could get from the hive when the collectors arrived, tragedy loomed large. Affected by a distressing global phenomenon, the bees made their way drunkenly into our 40 odd apartments, not 20 feet from their hives. Like malfunctioning robots they collided with doors, windows and neon tube lights. Sad, suicidal, they arrived in hordes every evening, only to collapse to the floor in their death throes — a rather anticlimactic end for such industrious creatures.

Affected by deforestation and increasing pollution, the honey bees are slowly starving to death in the garden city. But Bangalore is just another point on the map where the phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD is becoming more common. There just aren’t enough flowers left to feed the bees, and our cities do not provide kind homes for these winged pollinators. Instead of natural perfumes, they are subject to the fumes of factories, mosquito fogging machines, excessive pollution on the city roads... bringing to mind Einstein’s apocryphal warning, “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.”

As much damage as the loss of bees would do to the ecosystem, the disappearance of honey would be equally hard on culinary larders, medicinal cabinets and cosmetic remedies as well as mythology, history and language itself.

H-O-N-E-Y: the very word drips with a dulcet melody. A perfect choice as a term of endearment, the word is a metaphor for sweetness in both real and abstract terms. Aeons before sugar, there was honey. The rich, golden bottled goodness that sits pretty in our larder today in its myriad organic, mass-produced and single-origin forms, has been around for millennia.

Sweeping away a pile of bee corpses on yet another morning, I decided to bring out as many potted flowering plants as I could fit in my little balcony to offer some recompense for my kind. I also decided to write this little tribute to the lives of worker bees. And what better eulogy than a feast? It seemed apt, therefore, to adopt a diet where everything I ate and cooked was marinated in, flavoured with, drizzled upon or doused in golden honey. It added that extra zing to my Sunday roast where the whole spices and root vegetables soaked up its sweetness. Honey, bananas and ice cream brought alive visions of homemade banana splits and childhood evenings. I replaced tea with my grandmother’s magic brew, hot water, honey with a dash of ginger, lemon and whole pepper that had held its own against heaving chests and wintry congestions over the years. I dribbled honey down a stack of freshly made pancakes for breakfast, transported back to simpler days when happiness was all about devouring such goodies, accompanied by fragrant Darjeeling tea and great conversations. I layered food memories with kitchen experiments as I tried to add a little more honey in my life. Some worked, some didn’t, but through it all, the bees buzzed around me for a fleeting moment or two.

One such experiment — the toasted sesame and honey chicken — was born of a need to lower the intake of carbs, eat more protein and jazz up a dull weekday dinner. The best part of this impromptu, Asian-inspired dish was that it was low-fuss and could be efficiently recycled into a sandwich, salad as well as pita and roti rolls, and quickly transformed into a light workday lunch.

Toasted Sesame and Honey Chicken

Ingredients

8 chicken drumsticks

8 cloves of garlic

2 Thai bird’s eye

chillies or red chillies,

finely chopped

1 1/2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

Basil to garnish

Marinade

2 tbsp honey

1/2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

1 tsp soya sauce

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Salt to taste

1 tsp pepper, freshly ground

Method

1 Mix all the ingredients of the marinade and marinate the drumsticks for 1-2 hours.

2 Add the olive oil in a thick bottomed nonstick pan and toss in the garlic cloves and chopped chillies. Let them cook for a minute or so and add the marinated chicken. Toss lightly till the chicken browns. Add the remaining marinade and cover and cook on low heat till tender.

3 Garnish with basil and toasted sesame seeds. Serve hot with rice noodles or steamed rice.

(Diya Kohli is a Bangalore-based food writer)

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