Actuals for the week of July 18th.
Sunday: frenzy of cooking and clearing out my fridge prior to a long trip - hope family eats all that I made and not let it go bad and chuck it out.
Monday-Tuesday: several long flights. Airplane food. Although nowadays long haul flights offer a veggie meal option, I pre-book an Asian Veg meal that is typically something Indian-ish.
My first dinner was salad, chickpea masala (-ish, generously interpreted) with rice, and a brownie.
My second dinner was veggie korma (-ish, not bad, not great) with rice, salad, baklava, and the attendant offered me a chocolate mousse tart which I accepted. The mousse part was good, the tart shell not so great so I left most of that.
I slept through the breakfasts and had to grab a sandwich during my long layover.
I have low expectations for airplane food and just mentally accept whatever they dish out. I remember the days when long haul flights out of India used to come with a little plastic packet of spicy pickle (mixed veg or lemon/lime) and those were great to ease the food down. I would save any extras and douse the uniformly terrible breakfasts with them. We don’t seem to get these any longer. (shrug).
Wednesday: I arrived into India (city in the South) in the early morning. No breakfast.
Lunch: As my family’s designated eater (my mother is too elderly, sister is busy on a working day) I attended the ‘first year death anniversary ceremony’ of a close family friend’s father. This involved a South Indian banana leaf lunch. Not the time for pictures but you can get an idea here or here.
The meal was (as typical) fabulous. The local caterers don’t mess around. It followed the customary order of operations:
Sit at long table that has disposable paper tablecloth and pre-laid banana leaves (different from my young days when we sat in rows on the freshly cleaned floors and bent over to eat). Dhoti-clad waiters walk up and down serving from large buckets or baskets.
Water glasses are filled first. Protocol: eater sprinkles water on the impeccably clean leaf and brushes it off. Eat with right hand only (left hand is for personal hygiene, as in many other cultures).
First items to be served along the upper perimeter of leaf: a few slices of banana with sugar, a sprinkle of salt, a dab of pickle. These are customary.
Side dishes: kosumalli (chopped cucumber salad); a vegetable side dish or two (green beans, and a fabulous potato-black pepper sabzi); aviyal (mixed steamed veg in coconut, spices, yogurt gravy); koottu (veg steamed in dal w/ typical spices).
Rice, rice, and more rice: First, at the leaf’s center, a large blob of plain rice is served that the eater partitions into segments for the various accompaniments. Given the demographic of the guests, everyone was yelping to the waiters to serve only tiny rice portions. Waiters always serve a little more than people ask because must demonstrate hospitality and abundance.
Then come the things-eaten-with-rice: (1) a dollop of ghee on one of the segments, followed by (2) plain toor dal and (3) sambar - the eater mixes as they like. Eat as liked with dabs of the side dishes. (4) another segment of rice with ghee and rasam (ecstasy!). (5) Final segment of rice with yogurt or buttermilk. Making rice dams so that the runny dishes don’t drip off the edge of the leaf onto your lap is a skill acquired very early.
Add-ons: papad. Spiced rice side dishes - which seem redundant but are typical, usually something like lemon rice or puliyodare (tamarind peanut rice). Today’s feast was puliyodare. Just took one teaspoon of this to taste. Well worth it.
Sweets: two in today’s meal: badushah (like a sweet flaky glazed donut called balushahi in North India), and a paper cup of payasam (=kheer, rice pudding).
After eating we lined up to wash our hands dipping water out of a gigantic - waist high - copper vessel into the garden flower bed. Tucked up saris, dhotis, salwars, etc. to prevent splashes.
I did my duty as the family eater and staggered home in a food coma + jet lag. Don’t ask me what dinner was because I have no memory.
Thu: Breakfasts was pongal + usual sides (I posted in the What’s for Breakfast thread).
Lunch: tried a vegetable made from chayote leaves from the vine growing up the house. Taste was okay, nothing remarkable, but I think it was undercooked and fibrous. The dal component was sambar with veg drumsticks. I had chapatis. Yogurt. Last of the mango season: Mallika mangoes and pomegranate. (I missed some of my favourite mango varieties: Banganpalli, Malgova, Salem Gundu - gigantic mangoes from the town of Salem and the Tamil word ‘gundu’ translates to ‘fatso’ or ‘hand grenade’ or ‘sphere’ depending on the context.)
Dinner: mostly leftovers as is typical.
Fri: breakfast was hard boiled eggs doused in masala ketchup + toast.
Lunch: Morkozhambu (buttermilk stew) made with okra. Sabzi was green beans South Indian spices. Chapatis. Masala chips on the side - I cannot resist these. Eat now, exercise later. Yogurt, mangoes, pomegranate.
Dinner: leftovers.
Saturday: Breakfast idlis + accompaniment
Lunch: Lobiya (black eyed peas) dal, chayote sabzi, diced cucumber+tomato salad, chapatis, yogurt, Neelam mangoes, pomegranate.
Dinner: leftovers
Sunday: Breakfast: Kanjeevaram idlis: different from plain idlis in that the batter is spiced, boosted with soaked chana dal left whole and few cashew nuts. It is steamed in a large plate and then cut up, instead of steamed in individual rounds. Usual accompaniments.
Lunch: masoor dal, fried bitter melon (I am the only one who likes this), diced salad, kohlrabi sabzi, chapatis, yogurt, mangoes, pomegranate.
Dinner: same.
Monday: same pattern so won’t detail, only remarkable at lunch for a very delicious tinda masala sabzi that my mother’s cook is famous for - elevating a humble and much ridiculed vegetable into something we look forward to and ask for! Tindas are usually considered tasteless.
I will definitely be hauling excess baggage around my middle when I return to the US.
Happy eating all!
