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.
No comments:
Post a Comment