KLB College Report

Here is another report that I wrote for Atul about my work so far at the college.

“I have started working at KLB College for Girls. There are about 800 students taking classes in four graduate programs and 1 post-graduate program. Two main classroom buildings are operating right now, with a third under construction, due to be completed in the summer. My main focus will be in two areas of the college that prepare and serve food to the student body.

“First is the canteen. It is a small kitchen adjacent to the college run by one man and his wife. They are independent from the college itself, and are given the space and free electricity by Principal Ramdev. He is unhappy with their service for two main reasons. One, they serve a limited menu: samosas, channa and chai. Occasionally momos are also made. The other reason is that they just don’t make enough food, at least by Principal Ramdev’s judgment. After the samosas are finished, usually by noon, they are sold out in two hours. A dish of two samosas and channa is sold for ten rupees (about 25 American cents).

“Principal Ramdev has suggested that the owner of the canteen serve more or different food, but the suggestions are ignored. He has also told me that this man is actually a very good cook who is an expert in many Indian dishes, but just chooses to serve two of them. I can only take him on his word for this, because the man does not speak English, and I have yet to see him prepare anything else. I can add a third fault to the canteen’s service: the samosas are improperly deep fried. Ideally, a small number (around ten) should be completely submerged in oil at about 375 degrees Fahrenheit (about 200 degrees Celsius). That way, a minimal amount of oil will actually make its way into the food. Instead, the cook here only partially submerges a much larger number of samosas (20-30) in oil whose temperature is not regulated. Using this method, much more fat than necessary gets into the food. I am not about to condemn his cooking; I am just observing that the food can easily be made quicker, more efficiently and a bit healthier if he were to use more oil to fry and regulate temperature.

“My other area of focus will be the hostel kitchen. The hostel is reserved living quarters for anywhere between 35-50 female students of the college who do not live close to campus. They are not allowed to leave campus except for classes, on Sundays, and by written permission. They have a warden who lives on the premises (Mrs. Utra) and a resident cook (Neetu), as well as one of the girls appointed as “head girl” (Neha) who takes responsibility to make sure the rules are followed. Specifically, I will be working to improve the quality of food in the hostel kitchen. Three meals a day plus tea are served there. The menu is a weekly rotation, meaning that every Monday is the same three meals, every Tuesday is the same, and so on. It is also very monotonous. Every day, the girls receive two paranthas for breakfast (a savory filled flatbread) with a serving of milk or yoghurt, rice and a serving of pulses or beans for lunch (also called dal) and chapatti (whole-wheat flatbread) with a different kind of dal for dinner. On Thursdays, a sweet dish called kheer, similar to rice pudding, is also served. So, every day the girls get more than enough complex carbs (which contain a fair amount of fiber and some protein), lots of rice, two servings of beans, lentils or pulses (more complex carbs and more protein), one serving of dairy, between two and four servings of vegetables, and no meat (but that is typical or Indian diets). Of course there is added fat in the form of oils used to cook the food, but it is no more than a few tablespoons per day and well within almost all allowances of fat, both saturated and unsaturated.

“I also took a look at the accounting books to see the money that is being spent on the food. Between 25,000 and 30,000 rupees (545-650 USD) is spend per month on food ingredients and gas for cooking. Each girl pays 1600 (35 USD) per month to live in the hostel. Compare that to the approximately 1000 USD spent by an MSU student each month to live in the dormitory and eat in the cafeteria. Right now, there are 40 girls living in the hostel, making a total of 64,000 (about 1400 USD) per month in revenue towards the hostel for the girls. 30,000 rupees of that is spent on food and gas to cook. 4000 is Neetu’s salary for cooking (she is also given accommodation in the hostel as payment), and another 1500 for her helper that washes dishes. It varies per month, but Ramdev estimates that about 8500 is spent per month on water, electricity, and various other expenses. That leaves 20,000 rupees (435 USD) left over as profit for the college from just the hostel, tuition not included.

“I have tasted the food in the hostel on several occasions, and have found that is quite lacking in flavor. The girls to whom I have talked agree, and in addition to requesting more filling food, they also would like more taste in their diet. I don’t blame them. Ramdev has asked that I being my work here by preparing new dishes for the students, but especially for the girls in the hostel (since I will be using their kitchen much of the time) and especially American foods. I have focused on sweets so far: brownies (without eggs, of course, and that recipe needs work), fudge and peanut butter-chocolate no-bake cookies, which I have called PBC’s. I also made a larger quantity of PBC’s to distribute to the rest of the college to see how they like it, and it met with resounding success. The results were a little substandard by my judgment, as they did not have a very good structure and crumbled easily, but the taste was still quite good.

“The plan is to begin making more snacks out of both the hostel and the canteen kitchens and to distribute them throughout the college to see how the students like these new recipes. I will be exploring mostly sweet snacks and desserts in this manner, but also some spicy things like falafel (because chickpeas are very common here, and the girls want more spicy things). Furthermore, I hope to increase the quality of food in the hostel. First, I need to work more with the cook there to learn how these Indian dishes are cooked, and I can also learn from the canteen cook. Then I can apply what I know of cooking and baking to what I will learn here and apply it to food preparation in the hostel to make it more savory and a better quality. The ultimate goal is to make the general diet in the hostel more nutritious. One idea is to purchase an oven, which they don’t have, so that more foods can be cooked without frying them in oil. Sure, I will be making some desserts, but I believe taste is quite important to overall diet, and I won’t be giving them brownies at every meal. Next week I will analyze their diet more closely to breakdown the average caloric content of their diet, including their intake of proteins, carbohydrates and fats. I am not a trained dietician and will not be doing any sort of published studies from this research. I just want to get a general idea of what these girls already consume to see if there is anything radically wrong that needs correction, but I doubt that. It will be more of a base from which I can observe any changes that I may make in my work this semester.”


Well, that’s what I did this week. Ramdev said he would look into purchasing and oven and I could also use a scale for measuring ingredients. Accuracy makes for better results if you ask me. Oh, and I really need to perfect that PBC recipe. They were way too hard and crumbly, and I felt bad that I made so many of them and they turned out so badly. At least the people here support me and are willing to give me another shot. I can’t thank them enough.

Stay tuned for next week’s update!