Eating

Eating in India is quite the ordeal. Since I haven't done much else this week I thought I would talk about that which I have done besides read textbooks.

You walk into a roadside stand after being beckoned to by the owner. For lunch I usually like a rice meal. So you say “meals” as he brings you a large banana leaf and glass of water. You pour a little water onto your banana leaf and wipe it down with your right hand—cleaning off any dirt that may still be on the leaf.

The man brings you a large portion of rice—that which a large working man could hold in two hands piled high. Then comes sambar, a sauce that is poured over half the rice. Next he brings a series of things and plops them onto your banana leaf. From left to right there are neat little piles of the following: salt, a pickle (which is not the pickle you're thinking of it's a lime, mango, or coconut that has been pickled with spicy red sauce. I one time made the mistake of trying to eat some of it, let's just say I've never tried it again, we'll talk a little later about what to do with the pickle.), and one or two vegetable dishes. Then a tortilla shaped “chip” called a papadam is placed on your plate usually on your clean rice not covered in sambar.

You proceed to eat. No utensils needed, just the right hand. However, there is an art to South Indian eating. None of this juvenal making a mess of face and plate like a two year old.

There is mixing the perfect amount of sambar and rice. The rice is to be sauced, but not saucy. So you take a portion of the samber soaked rice and your white rice and mix with your fingers massaging rice. Then you make a small ball like gob in your fingers and pick it up and bring it to your lips, so that the tips of your fingers are almost touching your lips. Using your thumb you slide the gob into your mouth and chew quickly so that swallowing can begin and the burning sensation on your tounge can subside.

You repeat this, sometimes throwing in an occasional gob of the vegetables and a taste of the papadam (but I like to save a little for the very end if I have enough self control) If you decide to finish the large portion of rice on your plate more samber is needed. This takes me at least one month in the field before I am able to eat an entire rice meal and ask for more rice.

And no, the meal isn't done with just sambar and rice. With a few large handfuls of clean sambar-free rice on your banana leaf you say confidently “rasam” if you like a spicy end to your meal, then he brings a spicy soup and pours it over the remaining rice. Or if you're like me and need a little cool down from the sambar you say “moore.” He then brings out a white milk substance that tastes a little like plain yogurt. This is where I use the salt and pickle (if you're daring enough). You mix your “moore” with your rice (but don't make gobs like before) then dip your finger in the salt and pickle and then pick up a gob of rice and put in mouth. The effect is a lightly flavored plan yogurt rice which I have come to love.

I however, break from traditional Tamil eating etiquette here. I like mixing the salt with the curd rice and then which is according to Tamil etiquette to some I dab my finger with the pickle juice, wipe the juice on my tongue, and then throw in a gob of curd rice in my mouth. It's a unique, but delicious end to the meal.

You then fold your banana leaf toward you to indicate that you are finished. You take your banana leaf to the trash pile and wash your right hand at the “wash.” In a nicer restaurant this involves a working sink. In the village this involves a large bucket of water with a scoop. You wash your hand as your pour the water with your left hand onto your right hand over a designated wet dirt patch.

You then pay the owner 15 or 17 rupees (it's about 41 rupees to the dollar) and leave to the bakery across the road to drink a cold soda out of a glass bottle before walking 20 minutes back to the village.

I remember adjusting to the food being very difficult the first time, but when I got back I was excited to be eating meals, parota, omlets, poori, and all the spicy sauces that go with it. Yum.