Just a bunch of Food
August 3, 2010
Using the parlance of this place…Shall I talk about food? Truth to tell, I am not sure I am qualified to do so, despite the fact that many people will utter their disappointments that I am not joyously taking part in the eatable culture of India. However, I will share a bit of my eating habits.
Generally there is rice. It might be yellow, brownish, often white, but occasionally red and spiced in a variety of ways. The tamarind is spicy, the Kerala rice was large. Mounds of it. People create a paperback book layer of it across their plates to mix with all sorts of delicacies, none of which I can remember the names of. There are soupy brown dishes with stick-like vegetables that are meant to be opened and eaten like a melon rather than a bean. There are think, dry concoctions of vegetables, often heavy with potato. Lentils, think lentil pastes that can be eaten with the multitude of chipatis that I eat. For those in the know, I eat more like a northerner than a southerner. If eating traditionally, the meal with end with curds. Most eat it with the left over rice on their plate. I spoon it out. Call me a wimp if you must.
Mornings are dosas with any variety of pastes or sauces to dip with the dosa. Green, red, white, brown. You name, a whole range of colored foods. Occasionally I have idly’s, like a pure moon on my plate. They dip too, but I can never finish the sauce that come with them. I have no idly style. Half the time my breakfast is western style, but a pile of toast like you wouldn’t believe. I could build myself a little fort from them.
Sweets will make an appearance once in a while. My landlady likes ice cream in little cups or local chocolates. My hosts like fancy little chocolates or blocks of ice cream. At the ashram it was fried bread that had been multi-dipped in a sugared liquid such that you felt you were eating sugar coated with a little bread.
Most amazing to me is the liquid accompaniment. No one, hardly anyone drinks while eating a meal. I can’t get through a single bite of a chipati or dosa without drinking half a cup of water. They all wait until the meal is finished.
I have, of course, drunk the milky tea at many a tea time here. Biscuits are served but I rarely eat them. The number of times food and beverage is served in a day is a little overwhelming to me.
And food rules. How many times have I been greeted with, ‘Did you have your lunch?’ How often people comment on how little I apparently eat, judging by the number of little cups of side dishes I dump onto my plate to eat with a chipati or rice. Food is so central to life here I have been literally stopped from leading a workshop to be escorted to my meal and made to eat.
If you are cringing at my lack of food subtlety, then do not read on. For I purchase food I am comfortable with often, even though in reality I probably don’t need to buy food at all, since almost all of it is provided. But could I make it through six months without a can of dark soda or a bag of doritoes? Not this unsubtle eater. I will note, however, that I have not visited the few fast food restaurants here, and have had exactly one truly Western meal in a sort of celebration of my halfway mark. I went to a restaurant and had a steak and garlic bread. My one fully identifiable meal.