Cultural Reduction

It has been said that the secret of sauce making is reducing—to reduce a thin stock to a rich sauce. Unfortunately this cannot be said about cuisine in general. I had a very good dinner at an Indian restaurant tonight. The food was good and the price is excellent. What puzzles me, as I was half way through the meal, is that why Indian restaurants stay with the same menus through all these years. The food of the subcontinent is as diverse as China or Europe. Now, in North America, we have regionalized Chinese and French and Italian restaurants, it is high time to have regionalized Indian restaurants. Here in Vancouver, the choice in Indian restaurant is between “Indian fusion” and “tradition (outside of India) Indian.” While both can be very excellent, why can we not have some restaurants serving just Goa, Punjabi or Gujarat food unapologetically? As good as they can make lamb vindaloo, rogan josh, chicken tandoori and palak paneer, it does get tiresome eating them from one restaurant to the next and then the next. My Indian friends like to tell me how diverse the cooking over there is; I think we are ready to have some of that over here. Since most of us here, Chinese or non-Chinese, are not eating chop suet anymore, we are ready for some more variety in Indian food. Reducing is good for French sauces, but when it comes to a great cuisine, it is not that great an idea.