FOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At first I had conflicting feelings about Indian food. Before coming here I had tried Indian food once and I really liked it! However…… real Indian food tastes nothing like the Indian food I got on State Street. It is hard to describe what a real Indian meal is because every dish is vastly different from state to state, from city to city and home to home.  Food is a HUGE part of Indian culture, especially in my city. My dad told me that people travel from all parts of India to dine in Surat.  Every meal in India is an adventure.  Indian food envelopes all of the senses (not just taste). When the food is brought onto the table you are immediately stuck by the colors in the variety of the dishes and your eyes start to water because of the pungence of chili and coriander radiating from the giant mass of food on the table. They eat with their hands, and not gingerly with the fingertips but with the whole hand!  Contrary to popular American beliefs, Indian people do not eat with their hands because they can’t afford forks it is because they believe that they enjoy it more if they feel their food and I AGREE! I like feeling my food before I eat it. Another stereotype I had about Indian dining was that they sat on the floor on little pillows, and it is true….. Sometimes they do sit on a rug and put the food in the middle, but only when they have run out of space on the table or if the whole family isn’t there and they want to casually eat. I am so fascinated by Indian cooking. I want to learn how to make EVERYTHING.  I asked my host mom if I could copy down some of her recipes to take back to America to teach people, but she told me that none of her recipes are written down! Every recipe has been orally passed down from generation to generation, and this is ridiculous because there are practically an infinite number dishes!  It’s like every dish is a piece of heritage!  Every meal reflects the diverse and rich history of the country. Cooking Indian food is an art. The tradition and depth of Indian food is awe inspiring, but the thing that surprises me most about Indian food is the sheer mass of food that they eat! I have already mentioned that Indian people are very small and generally slender, but I swear to you that Indian people eat 5 times more than I would ever eat in The States. Nobody ever eats much for breakfast because breakfast time is when the women start making lunch, and the lunch is huge! There is always rice, roti (Indian flatbread), Chapatti (spicy cabbage and potato dish), and dal (chili vegetable puree). Those are the staples of Indian food, but after that there is a main dish which is different every time. I have literally never had the same Indian dish twice! I can’t remember the names of anything I have eaten, but every dish is distinctly different. After lunch people go out for ANOTHER lunch, or at least a dessert. Then when you come back home your mom has usually prepared a snack for you.  India is infamous for its overwhelming hospitality and over-feeding you is how they show that they care. People bend over backwards to try to please you, they would feed you until there is no longer enough food for their children! This is a very nice gesture, but there is a certain point where you can eat no longer, and Indian women make it very hard to reject food.  They will insist almost to the point of begging that you have something more, and when you still say no they refill it anyway. In India you have to eat everything you’re given otherwise you are considered to be very rude, but like I said this is hard sometimes because they give you SO MUCH. The only way I have found to avoid this scenario is to eat extremely slow, and NEVER finish my food before anyone else. If you have an empty plate and others are still eating they will involuntarily fill your plate. There is so much to say about Indian food that I could probably dedicate a whole blog to it. But I hope this satisfies at least some of your curiosity about Indian food. That always seems to be the first question that people ask me about India “How is the food? Is it spicy?” Actually I don’t think I answered that question, but I will now. YES!!!!!!!!!! Indian food is incredibly spicy, even Indians find their food spicy. For the first week the spicy food made me horribly sick, but now I am used to it (at least a little). My taste buds completely desensitized, which is probably why Indian people find all other foods bland. Also because my body is not used to the spice it sits strangely in my stomach. I have no appetite at all, which is a shame because food is so interesting here. I will try to write more about food later, maybe by then I will have remembered some of the names of the things I have eaten and even share some recipes. Until next time. Jai chhe Krishna (The Gujarati equivalent to Namaste. It literally means remember god).  Bye!