Indian Food

As many of you already know, Indian food is some of the most flavourful in the world. The variety and combination of spices used in every dish is like nothing we’ve had anywhere else. In our simplistic Westerner terms, we generally refer to these dishes as “curry” but in India you will rarely see the word curry on a menu. Menus contain dozens of items and even if you try the same dish over and over again, it will always taste a little different each time.

Our Indian food experience started on the beaches of Goa and Kerala where seafood is cheap and plentiful. Fish, calamari and prawns were pulled fresh from the sea each day. These were cooked up in a flavourful sauce and usually served whole. While in India, it is always a good idea to ask for your food “mild” or “not spicy”. Many Indians like their food at a spice temperature that would make it very uncomfortable for inexperienced people like us.

We had a good time walking through the food markets of India. Spices, rice, meat, vegetables, fruit, and sweets abound.

For religious reasons, many Indians are vegetarians. Restaurants are often signed as “Veg” or “Pure Veg”. Veg includes eggs and pure veg does not. Chicken is not uncommon but you are far more likely to see a cow in a train station than on your dinner plate. In fact, we cannot recall seeing beef on the menu even once in India – what with it being holy and all.

Street food is common and many Indians dine this way. It can vary from established stalls with tables and chairs to a guy sitting on the ground beside a pot over a kerosene flame. For our health, we generally avoided eating street food.

Train food is a category all on its own. Vendors constantly ply their fare up and down the aisles and at the windows when trains pull into the stations. Most trains have a food car where meals are prepared: usually simple curries and rice. Sometimes tomato soup is available and there is always the “Chai, chai, masala chai!” yelled at the top of the lungs.

Indian desserts are extremely sweet and very popular. They contained a lot of condensed milk and often taste just like doughy sugar. Sometimes they are wrapped in edible silver leaf.

Our favourite dish to order in India was the thali, which is kind of like a sampler plate of several different items and usually includes one or two vegetable dishes, dal (lentils), raika (fresh yogurt), rice, naan or chapati and a dessert. These were always delicious and varied according to which region we were visiting and were a good way to try out different dishes. In very traditional places, thalis are served on a banana leaf instead of plates.

Most Indians use their hands instead of utensils to eat. Only the right hand is used as the left hand is reserved for other less pleasant tasks. Food is scooped up in a small piece of naan or rice is formed into small balls, scooped up and pushed into the mouth with the thumb. We tried this a few times but always found a fork and spoon to be much easier and more efficient.

Nepali food is good as well but is considerably less flavourful than Indian food. We did enjoy some good thalis on our trek with Narayan, particularly “Mount Everest” which is a heaping plate of rice served with dal and vegetable.

Photos:
Seafood Dinner in Goa
Chili Peppers in Spice Market - Jewtown, Fort Cochin
Prawn Dinner in Kerala
Roadside Fruit Stand
Rice Boat Feast - Kerala
Banana Leaf Thali - No Fork