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I admit it. I went to India for the food. Forget culture,
forget history, forget music. I came to India to eat. How
insensitive. With starving people everywhere, all I was concerned
with was expanding my palate's reach.
A day I spent in the state of Kerala was the pinnacle
of my foodie experience there. This was not because of its
deliciousness, but for the sheer volume of food I consumed.
Staying with a family in a town called Thiruvalla, I was introduced
to the joys of south Indian cooking.
There was jackfruit, which looks like (pardon me!)
a large snot with prickly green spikes. It's the largest fruit
on earth, apparently. I sampled jackfruit in three incarnations:
raw, as part of lunch mixed with spices, and in halwa.
I liked it best disguised with the spices. I also sampled
a not-quite-ripe coconut and its water, which is the refresher
drink of Kerala. Kerala means land of the coconuts. All of
these were kindly provided by the backyard yield of my host.
Meals were another thing entirely. After arriving starved,
I was informed that I must wash my hands and abandon all hope
of using cutlery. In the south it's main à la bouche.
This suited me just fine.
Breakfast stunned me. A mixture of rice and coconut was heaped
onto my plate, and I was instructed to spoon on some sugar.
Then I was given a small, fat, plantain banana and squooshed
it with my fingers into the rice-coconut-sugar mixture. I
am sure that was the best banana I will ever eat. I tried
to record its taste in my body since I wouldn't encounter
its like again. Called puttu, this dish is a
typical south Indian breakfast and is absolutely divine. The
sweetness of the banana and sugar made the dish dessert-like,
which is exactly how I like my meals. Later I was introduced
to moru, another meal with rice as the staple.
Unlike in the north, where dhal is the main,
here it is a yoghurt/spice mixture. Tasting somewhat like
cheese, moru found its way in copious amounts to my stomach.
Finally, dinner was quite an occasion. The meal was brought
out, moru for me because I loved it before, and several veggie
dishes, a pickled mango, and the piece de resistance -
buffalo meat. The challenge will be to try goat's balls
in Pakistan.
The next day was my birthday and the family went out of their
way to make it a special night. I was serenaded with a uniquely
Indian version of "Happy birthday to you", with
several verses and a wonderful celebratory spirit. For dessert
we had ice cream, pineapple and mangoes. Mangoes in India
are the consistency of soft butter and sweeter than the shy
smiles of Indian children.
That night's insomnia - due to attempts at digestion, I'm
sure! - left me wondering what would be on tomorrow's menu.
Frankly, it didn't really matter. Even bad Indian food is
good. (I can hear protests from upset stomachs across the
subcontinent!)
One thing I can state for sure: the variety of food in India
never disappoints.
Texts © Emily Silbert, all rights reserved
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