Culinary Delights and (Mis)Adventures

*I love food. If you don’t enjoy eating, you won’t enjoy this post – you’ve been warned.

Now that our stove is finally in working order, the girls and I have been cooking almost every night. With no internet at home and not inclined to wander out after dark (for obvious reasons) our lifestyles have been rather solitary; spending the evenings reading,  cooking, chatting about work, dreaming up the next day’s menu.

The difficult part about cooking here is that there are always certain ingredients that we can’t get, especially since we’re not in a big city. Sure, the markets have lots of spices, but wanting to steer away from curry every meal we’ve been trying to cook some familiar foods, and that’s tricky. In terms of Western foods, we can’t get cheese except paneer (basically just cottage cheese of unknown origin), no basil or parsley, celery, lettuce, mushrooms are questionable, meat is difficult to buy without slaughtering the whole chicken, I haven’t seen fish anywhere…half of the recipes we come across require something that we can’t find here in Hubli. Even having milk is difficult – all the milk purchased here has to be boiled first before consumption. Something about pasteurization and it tastes quite different since it’s buffalo’s milk rather than cow’s milk, I believe. No berries, and fruits are limited to tropical ones, which I have no problems with but my roommate doesn’t like them, so grocery shopping gets tricky.

So for most things we cook, we’ve had to be creative and improvise. And load up on the garlic and onions, ‘cause there’s a lot of those here (attractive, I know).

Add to that we don’t have microwaves or ovens, so we can’t bake anything. I’ve been looking up desserts steamed or cooked with a pressure cooker, but again, it’s hard to find ingredients like vanilla extract or caramel syrup.

We were going to make hummus so we soaked chickpeas, and for some odd reason the next day when we lifted the lid it was foamy and smelled like spoiled curdled sour milk. It was so nasty we threw it out, and now we're trying to solve the mystery of why that happened by emailing our respective mothers. Suspects include the water being too hot, there were rotten chickpeas in the batch, the container held spoiled milk before...etc. We got it right the second time by sticking the uncovered container in the fridge to avoid bugs, and without a food processor we chopped and mashed all the chickpeas by hand, added olive oil, garlic, and it worked! Although it was so much effort I’m not sure if we’ll attempt that again.

Despite not having a lot of familiar food items, South Indian cuisine is still variegated enough to keep our taste buds entertained and happy. In fact, while there are lots of things that I’ve never come across at the market, like custard apples, and the other stuff I don’t even know the names of which we take pictures of then hit up Wikipedia the next day. Although I was totally mislead by the ‘butter fruit’. I attempt to try something new each visit to the market, and I’d picked up a ‘butter fruit’…which turned out to be a larger variation of an avocado. We didn’t know this and cut into it before it was ripe, and couldn’t do much else with it afterwards and though we tried softening it by steaming, it tasted really bitter after that and we couldn’t eat it. I was kind of disappointed it wasn’t some exotic fruit, but at least I know there’s avocado available! Guacamole’s going on the menu!

There’s a lady who cooks a massive amount of food and delivers it to our workplace every lunch hour for a set fee, so I do get my daily helping of Indian dishes. Usually accompanied with some sort of dough thing (roti, chapatti, poori) the curries are variations of okra, beans, peas, chickpeas, black-eyed peas, cauliflower. There’s a side bowl of curd (which is the best thing for taking the heat off when the curry is too spicy) and marinated pickles. Then usually there’s a big thing of rice, either plain steamed rice, curd rice, fried rice loaded with nuts and spices…you get the idea. On Saturdays we get desserts too, but Indian sweets are VERY sweet, and this coming from someone who has a major sweet tooth. You know that scratchy feeling you get in your throat when you have too much honey or maple syrup by itself? Indian desserts induce this.  Everyday, lunch is a very communal affair. The room where we eat is small, containing a long table, where everyone eats together. It’s the most social time of the day. Most of the utensils are made of tin, which never quite makes sense to me since the metal conducts heat when the food or drink is hot.

There are little food carts everywhere, selling fresh juices, rice, paneer burgers, little buns in dishes, sliced fruits, sweets…one of my roommate’s favourites is the corn cart, where for 10 rupees they take an ear of corn, peel it, put it atop hot coals, fan and cook it, then rub salty seasoning on it. Since she goes there so much she got to talking to the corn guy, and found out that he sells about 100 a day, which means he makes INR 1000 per day – pretty good money by Indian standards.

Movie Theatre Culture

I never like to judge a place until I have experienced the movie theatre culture of the area, for really, what is the point of traveling half way around the world if not to sit in a dark room and totally disengage myself from reality by escaping in a fabricated fantasy?  As a great believer in over-involved audience participation, I long for the recreation of the mythical stories of audience members screaming in fright and ducking under chairs when the Lumiere brothers’ train came hurling at them from the screen, or when the bandit in The Great Train Robbery pointed his gun at the audience and, with a stone faced stare, pulled the trigger. The closest I had come to this movie going pandemonium was insane cinema fanatics threatening to break out in fistfights when somebody’s cell phone went off during the film.  With dreamy aspirations, I came to India as my last hope of finding some place to live out this fantasy.  It had to happen here; did not Om Shanti Om clearly depict this zeal when Shah Rukh Khan as a deeply affected audience member broke into dance in the middle of the aisles as he watched in rapture Deepika Padukone dance in the movie within the movie (hmmmm, how postmodern can we go here)? That happens all the time in India, right?

My mission began on day one of my arrival, as I started slyly dropping hints that somebody should take me to the movies.  “Somebody should take me to the movies. I REALLY want to go.”  Sly. And finally subtlety paid off and it was time to sing my favorite “Let’s go the movies” song from Annie and head to the cinema!  Now, so much spectacular build up will in the end eclipse the final experience, and how could anything live up to my years of anticipation, and really how can any conclusion outshine the oh so fabulous introduction to this story, so at this point all I can really say is that yes, it lived up to all my wildest dreams.  We all stood for the national anthem, the audience cheered for the hero and whistled for the heroine, children were climbing over the seats, people carried out long conversations with their neighbours and on their mobiles, there was spitting, there were snacks, it was awesome.   And while there wasn’t any full out dancing in the aisles (and really, who could do that better than SRK?), there was definitely some head bobbing and toe-tapping; there is a lot of potential, and I will take initiative, I will lead a movement, and one day, in one cinema, oh, mark my words, there will be dancing in the aisles once again!

Coming next week: my disastrous foray with the Telugu Film Industry.  Words were had, and it was not pretty…

Kindness

Finding your place in a new job, a new neighborhood or new country is never easy. Here in Hubli, I can’t speak or read the language. I often find myself disoriented by everything from getting milk in a bag that I need to boil to remembering to make sure that I have water to shower with. Luckily, I have been able to depend on the kindness of absolute strangers. In Hubli, no one is a stranger for long as everyone is so willing to open themselves to you.

Having so many instances where I feel so out of my element, I find it hard to articulate the feeling that comes when someone senses that I am having trouble and comes to assist me. While heading to a meeting with a company in Hubli on my own, I found myself unable to locate the office. As I was speaking on the phone to the person I was meant to meet with, describing what I could see, a random man grabbed my phone from me.

As he began to speak into it – and I began to worry he was going to take my phone – another man came to ask if I needed help. Between the two of them, they found where I needed to be and hand delivered me to my appointment.  Upon finishing, I realized I needed to catch the bus home. I would need flag down the correct bus to take me back to the office, but as everything was in Kannada, I was at a bit of a loss.  I guess that read on my face, because suddenly an old man was asking me where I was trying to go. We got on the next bus together, he helped me pay and told me when to get off, all well telling me about his family in Dharwad and his new grandchild.

Operating as a translator and guide is not the only way I’ve found help when I’ve needed it here. My neighbor, who does not appear to speak a word of English, has shown herself to be surprisingly supportive when we need her. While sometimes I think she questions our capacity to survive, she is always responsive to our resourceful pantomimes of everything from “Our power is out, is yours?” to “I can’t shut off the faucet, please help!”  She has brought over watermelon to share with us, as well as sweets after she’s watched me slip in our wet courtyard.

Each day I become more and more confident in my abilities to navigate Hubli, and each day I accomplish one more thing on my own that I used to need someone else to help me with.  None of these new skills could have come without someone else helping me along the way, whether that is through learning a new word for what I want to communicate or being given a piece of chocolate for moral support. Having so many strangers who are willing to guide me through all the new aspects of my life has made it infinitely easier and more colorful.

To the 2013 Sandbox Fellows–

Getting the most out of a year’s work in India requires great courage, patience and dedication. Here are a few points of advice to make your time worthwhile in Hubli-Dharwad:

• First and foremost, come with an open mind! Unless you have one, you will neither learn much from the experience nor be able to make a significant contribution.
• Once you are here, always keep your eyes and ears open to soak up as much as you can while working, traveling, socializing etc.
• Loosen yourself up, be flexible. This not only helps you in adjusting to the new environment but also in solving problems, building relations, understanding cultures and enjoying your experience here.
• Try to learn the Kannada language. This will help in building relations with the locals beyond the customary “Namaskara” and “Hello”.
•   Socialize with other fellows – go out for dinners, explore new places together, attend all the monthly fellows’ meetings, etc. This is another great way of learning and making life-long friends while in Hubli-Dharwad.
• Take initiative and ownership of your work. New ideas are continuously generated and experimented in the Sandbox. Take this opportunity to play with innovative ideas and hone your entrepreneurial skills.
• Right mindset – for instance, flexible, willing to deal with minor inconveniences, eager to take initiatives and calculative risks – is an important requirement for Sandbox Fellows to excel in their ventures. Not everyone starts with the right mindset but it’s never too late to get into it.

Americans Learning About Indian Food, Indians Learning About Nutella

After being in India for about three-quarters of a year now, I definitely have a few favorite dishes.  Something with any type of dal?  Love it.  Something with channa (chickpeas), or something close to them?  Love it.  A vegetable-based dish?  Great.  Rice and sambar?  I like it, but I’m over the idea of eating it several times a day, every day.  Some foods I liked more at the beginning, but am less interested in eating them now – like paneer.  Other dishes, like idly and sambar, I wasn’t thrilled with when I first arrived in Karantaka – but now I think idly is great!  I always enjoy mixed-veg raita, and during these hot months eating some each day has become a must for me (just like having some coconuts).  I also love all the different types of rotis, parotas, kulchas, etc. – and of course, chapattis never fail to satisfy.  Overall, I enjoy foods that compose the local diet and eat them all – with a few key exceptions:
- the sweets: my taste buds don’t react well to most local sweets – something about the taste tends to be too overwhelming for me
- the chai: the taste is good (too sugary for me, but still good), but the idea of drinking something so hot when I’m already so hot…I just can’t do it.

I’ve learned to cook lots of Indian dishes, but for the most part I have to say that I still have a lot to learn.  Fortunately, I spend lots of time eating with others, and we always share.  At lunch each day, for example, several colleagues and I take out our tiffin boxes and share what we have brought for the day with everyone – something I really enjoy.  My co-workers have learned I’m a particular fan of dishes like coconut chutney, potato-turmeric-onion dishes, dosas – the list goes on, but the point is that there are always several tasty things to eat each day.  My landlord’s family is also filled with excellent cooks – a very good thing, as we spend lots of time eating together at their house.

Despite all the great food here, I sometimes still want more variety – and it’s perhaps for this reason that whenever I travel to a different region in India I think everything I eat is fantastic (neera dosas!  gajak!  kachori!).   I also miss lots of foods from home. (Like cheese.  And pie.  And red peppers.  And so on.)  Thanks to the import store in Dharwad and a trip to Bangalore once in awhile I stock up on some of these items, and make something that I’ve been missing.  A few weeks ago my boss and his family came over for a western-style salad (complete with olive oil and feta cheese), pasta (with American sauce, different colored peppers and different types of zucchini thrown in, topped with parmesan), and stropwafels for dessert.  They came over early to examine every item in my kitchen and fridge closely, and to cook with me so they could feel familiar with what they were about to eat.  They also brought a tiffin box of Indian food as a back up.  Ultimately, they ate a lot more than I expected.  (The feta cheese seemed the most difficult for them, and the stropwafels the easiest).  Later that day my landlord and what seemed like everyone in his extended family came over to taste the leftovers.  They were curious, but very hesitant.  They recommended that the next time I make pasta sauce I add more chili peppers, but said that otherwise it was very tasty.  Nearly everyone agreed that my kiwis from Bangalore were delicious, even though they weren’t sweet or salty – except for my landlord’s wife, who refused to taste them.  But by far the biggest all-around hit has been American chocolate.  It never fails to please. Furthermore, thanks to me my landlord’s grandson has developed what has become a very close relationship with Nutella.

In terms of food, my main priority now is to try and make time to improve my cooking skills – because there are some dishes I know I’ll miss a lot when I leave here, and I’ll want to recreate them and share them with others.