Cuisine

One of the pluses of living with an Indian family is that we get to enjoy authentic Indian food. While Brandon is much more adventurous that I am, I also enjoy trying new things. Let's walk through a typical meal:

 
What's on the plate:

• Dal – Made from lentils. It is somewhere between a sauce and and a soup, both in consistency and function. It is sometimes mixed with rice and eaten with your fingers, and sometimes plain, from a bowl with a spoon. This is a staple food in this part of the country, and we it nearly every day for lunch and dinner.
  
• Rice – Plain old white rice. Also eaten at most every meal but breakfast.
  
• Roti – Sort of like a flour tortilla or flat bread. This is torn into pieces and used as a utensil for scooping up rice, vegetables or meat. We also have roti for nearly every meal, sometimes even breakfast.
  
• Salad – This particular mix includes sprouted beans, sprouted chickpeas, red onion, tomato and cucumber. We don't eat many fresh vegetables or fruits here (unless you can peel them) because it is impossible to know where they came from and if they are safe to eat. The only thing that made me nervous in this salad was the tomato. Everything else was peeled.
  
• Curry Vegetables – There is always something yellow on the plate. This varies with every meal – anything from cabbage, potatoes, cucumber, cauliflower, or onion, to many vegetables I don't recognize.
  

This is the basics of most of my lunches and dinners. Occasionally we have meat – but many people in the house are vegetarians. (This is sort of the anti-paleo diet; poor Brandon). Brandon has a little more variety in his lunch, because they usually have someone go out and pick something up for the office. Breakfast has consisted of quite a range of things: omelets with onion and cilantro, potato pancakes with ketchup, banana shake (banana and milk blended), an interesting mixture of rice/peas/carrots/peanuts that was surprisingly good, and buttered toast. There is always tea at breakfast, and Brandon will be offered tea several times throughout the day at the office. I still can't imagine why anyone would want a hot cup of tea when it's 95 degrees out (and in an office without A/C).

Interesting fact: Indians eat with their hands! At fancier restaurants, or restaurants serving non-Indian food, silverware is used; but in the home it is customary to eat with your hands. Or hand, I should say. You actually only use your right hand, since your left hand is reserved for, ahem, the other end of the process, if you know what I mean. [Interesting fact 2: Indians don't use toilet paper!] Eating with your hand can get quite messy, especially when trying to eat dal and rice; and it makes tearing the roti a difficult task. Brandon and I have adopted the roti-as-utensil/scoop-method, but we still use forks and spoons sometimes. [And we still use TP].

We've also been to two different restaurants. Each a fun experience. I'm missing my sweets (and Brandon his meats), but we're enjoying the new food and culture while we're here!