Finger Food

One of the major things a person has to get used to when traveling abroad is the food.  Each country has it's own specialty or specialties, and India is no different.  From what I have seen, the main staple appears to be rice, which is a lot different from what I was used to.  My diet in the States consisted of three main things; meat, fat, and dairy, which were usually in some type of fried form.  Frying is like the duct tape of cooking; if you don't know how exactly to prepare something, you can never go wrong by frying it.  At least for me, it's my go-to method of cooking.  And in the USA, particularly in the American South, people will fry pretty much anything.  I have had fried chicken, okra, squash, eggs, turkey, grits, Twinkies, Oreo's, locusts, corn bread, apples, and even ice cream.  The mere fact that we can fry ice cream shows the skillfulness and proficiency in our ability to fry just about anything.  Needless to say, it's probably not the healthiest way to prepare food, but it is oh so good!  Another difference is the ingredients.  South India food is a lot spicier than American food.  But I don't want to write about what's added to the food in India as what is taken away.  Indian food seems to be lacking a few key ingredients that everyone is so used to back in the US.  Where's my high fructose corn syrup?  Where's my Yellow 5 and Blue 40?  What do you mean there's no MSG in the chicken?  Where's my partially hydronated vegetable oil?  None of that is in the rice!  And where's the sugar?!?  Even the salads you can buy at McDonald's have sugar added.  The point that I am trying to make is that the food that I have up to this point eaten in India is, by far, healthier than what I have been in eating America.  When I first arrived and saw what was on the typical menu, I got a little nervous.  How would my body handle all of this new stuff?  Will it reject it like a transplanted organ?  Will my kidneys and liver atrophy from the lack work in cleansing my blood from all the preservatives and other chemicals?  Images filled my mind of me being bound in a straightjacket and thrown into a padded room in the upcoming weeks while the withdrawal symptoms slowly took their toll.  Fortunately for me, I appear to have adjusted nicely, with no aftereffects (although, in all honesty, I would really love a BigMac right about now). 

Another difference is that Indians generally have a more intimate relationship with their food:  that's a polite way of saying that they eat with their hands, sans utensils.  And they do it well.  They eat with the precision and dexterity of a Swiss wristwatch maker, with little or no mess.  We Americans like to keep a certain degree of separation between us and our food, which is roughly about the length of a fork or spoon, and so the only senses that are really involved is taste, sight, and smell.  We don't hold a steak in our hands to feel the firmness.  We don't massage the mashed potatoes in our hands to experience the consistency.  Indians make eating with one's hands look easy.  For me, I picked up where I left off, which was about 3 years old, and it showed.  I had food all over the table, my face, my lap, on the floor, on my shirt, on the ceiling (don't ask), and somehow in my pockets.  Trust me, it is harder than it looks, and it is especially harder than eating with utensils.  To me, using a fork now would seem like cheating.  

As always, I encourage your feedback, and give me any tips, criticisms, pointers, or ask any questions you like.  Until next time...