Food

The number one question I’m asked in India is: “so, how do you like the food?” If I had a rupee for every time someone asked me…let’s just say there would be a large dent in the problem of world poverty. My answer is always the same: I love Indian food. Really, I do. Now I can’t deny that when I arrive back in the U.S. I will eagerly (and hopefully instantaneously) indulge in a juicy flank steak a la mom, a huge, fresh, garden salad, an In-N-Out hamburger, a warm loaf of sourdough bread, a Jamba juice concoction, and a warm brownie with a big glass of milk. But in the meantime typical Indian fare is something that I’ve come to love. This is hard for most people here to believe and so I find that, even after 4-6 months of consistently answering the question, people I see on a weekly basis still pose it and appear astounded by my answer.

And I’m telling you all of this because in the “five top questions Karisa is asked in e-mails from the US”– you guessed it – “how’s the food?” ranks pretty high.

So for the record, both here and there, I really like Indian food. Really.

Now when people from the US ask, they typically have two things in mind: Delhi Belly and Spice.

Since I’ve only been sick once (and that only a minor incident) despite many indiscretions (read: eating at roadside stands) Delhi Belly does not strike fear in my tummy or deter me from general enjoyment of the food. I think God graciously granted me a stomach of iron for the length of this trip.

And spice, both the taste and temperature of the food, has been a quickly acquired taste. One might argue that my tongue was burned, fried, and generally rendered useless within the first three days, leaving me an incompetent judge. (It was a bit of a “bang, bang, pow” experience at first given that my previous exposure to “hot food” had largely consisted of mild sauce packets from Taco Bell.) I like to look at it positively and think that I’ve become something of a spice connoisseur. I even chomped down on my first chili the other day – as a side dish. My nose was the only causality; I liked it! Another indicator that I’m truly OK with the spice factor was my recent attempt to enjoy “American food” in Bangkok. “That was your first mistake”, you might say, but give me a break! It sounded like a good treat. Halfway through the meal I realized something wasn’t quite right. What was it? Right! No taste! Bland. Blech. A chili sauce packet later I had something worthy of being called a meal.

Like I said, I honestly like Indian food, spice, Delhi belly, and uniqueness all considered.

Now, in case you are wondering, a typical meal consists of dal (a type of lentil soup typically poured over rice and always present at every meal), rice, chapattis (warm, tortilla-like “bread”), subzee (any vegetable, typically prepared in the pressure cooker with large helpings of oil and spice), and, about three times a week, chicken (also a pressure cooker specialty). Occasionally “salad” is added to the mix, which is code word for sliced cucumbers and carrots arranged artistically on a plate and sprinkled with salt and lemon juice. My favorite in our daily array is dal and I’ve been known to make “dessert” out of my chippate by adding butter and honey or butter and mango jam. Yummy!

In our household we eat with the standard fork, spoon, and knife. But in other parts of India eating is accomplished with your right hand and a chapatti. I got the chance to acquire that cultural skill during utensil-less YFC camp in January. Although it took me a while to perfect the “four finger scoop and drop”, in the end it makes much more sense to me than some other methods of moving food from plate to mouth; for instance, chopsticks, which I still fail to grasp (no pun intended).

If you ever want a crash course in cooking, come to a country that typically doesn’t use an oven (we don’t have one; there is no point, as there is never electricity with which to run one), has no pre-packaged, frozen, or instant foods, and where you are laughed at if you request a written recipe or measuring cups. These sorts of “trials” tend to either produce the golden chef extraordinaire or reduce one to an Amelia Bedelia-like state. In our house Sibu is the chef extraordinaire and I… Amelia Bedelia is my new middle name. On the up side, my true cooking (as opposed to baking, which is, I now realize, what my abilities heretofore had consisted of) repertoire has increased exponentially – I’m getting the “dash here, dash there” skill down pat and am convinced I could come up with a whole new line of recipes (Indian Mexican food, Indian Italian food, etc) given the concoctions I’ve invented. Thankfully there have been no dates required in any of my recipes.

The one bane of my cooking-in-India existence is chicken.

One day at the beginning of my time here I had prepared a lunch menu that required chicken. To obtain said item I accompanied Sibu to the farm to pick it up. It didn’t dawn on me until I saw the clucking, feathery masses that the chicken I was going to be purchasing would have so recently been alive and well. I tried to appear nonchalant and surreptitiously asked Sibu if there was a store with “pre-dead ones” nearby. When he looked at me as if I was the one missing a head I decided to drop the matter.

At that point I began an argument with myself. A frozen dead chicken is the same as a newly dead chicken…both are dead. Right?

Unfortunately that day I was a bit slow on the up take. The flat block, decorated with loose feathers and unidentifiable red “stuff”, should have been my clue that they really, truly were going to kill “my chicken” right then and there. (I say “my” because I was feeling a bit responsible for the scrawny-necked thing that Sibu had pointed out as the ones we wanted.) But it wasn’t until I saw the ax come down in a guillotine-like motion that I got wise. I looked away about 3 seconds to late.

By that point I had a headache and had stopped arguing with myself.

I had (casually and calmly) headed back to the car, missing out on the rest of the process, which Sibu said was “really cool” (apparently they fairly deftly chop the thing into manageable bits using a knife between their toes). On the ride home I asked a few cautious questions and came to understand that before an edible or even cookable chicken dish could appear my chore that afternoon would be to remove fat and bones and clean off the blood and stray feathers of Mary Antoinette (so it was a mistake to name it, what can I say?). In theory I accepted the task. Arriving home Sibu handed me our purchase in a tightly tied black plastic bag. Still warm.

That day we had pasta.