It’s time for me to forget everything I’ve ever learned about stomachaches and surgery. For most of the next week, I will be spending time observing the way things are done, especially relating to nutrition, at Rajiv Gandhi Ayurvedic College. Don’t know anything about Ayurvedic medicine? Me neither. This morning, I left for my meeting with Dr. Y.K. Sharma, the principal-dean of the college, to see what kind of work or studies I could do in about a week. I thought that I would be able to get a crash course in Ayurvedic medicine and learn a little bit about everything there is to know in that time.
Couldn’t have been more wrong. I didn’t understand a thing about Ayurveda, so I wouldn’t have known that it’s an entirely different science and system of medicine that we really don’t encounter at all in the western world. It’s like somebody who spent 13 years of standard American education, but no science classes at all, asking to become a doctor. It just doesn’t work that way. At the Ayurvedic College, only 5-year degrees are available. That’s even more than the standard 3 years of med school that our doctors have to take. It really is a vast branch of knowledge, and I felt like a complete idiot when I realized that I didn’t know a thing about it.
Nonetheless, I picked up a couple of things by asking the right questions. Basically, Ayurveda teaches that humans are made up of the five elements in combinations unique to each individual: earth, water, air, fire and ether. These elements have to be in balance, and if they are not, they cause disease, anything from a headache to cancer. Ayurvedic teaches how to correct the imbalances in order to cure the disease, and there are a variety of ways to do that. Yoga, massage, herbal medicine and spiritual chanting are ways to do that, but so is surgery, just in a different way. It’s completely different from Western medicine.
Nutrition is the backbone of Ayurveda, and once I realized that I couldn’t learn about a completely different branch of science in a week, I decided to focus on that. I was introduced to Dr. Gupta, a female dietician instructor and the warden for the girl’s hostel on campus (two hostels are for girls, and one is for boys, but I’ll get to that later). The first thing that struck me about Dr. Gupta was how healthy she looked compared to everybody else. She was elderly, and that much was noticeable from wrinkles and hair color, but aside from that, she had a physique of a much younger woman. Compared to all the woman I see here, who are either stick-thin or obese, her weight was right where it should be. She looked neither thin nor chubby, neither well-built nor sickly; the essence of balance. She and Dr. Sharma gave me a quick intro on Ayurvedic dietetics, which I cannot wait to continue.
Foods and eating in Ayurveda is not broken down numerically into calories and grams like we are used to. Instead, foods are classified on a scale of being either easy or hard to digest. They are given values as such, and each person is also classified as having either a strong or weak digestion. They should eat foods that match with their appropriate metabolism. In addition, I learned that Ayurveda teaches that nature provides the correct diet for people according to their area. For example, people living in cold areas should eat more oil and heavy foods like meat and potatoes, while people living in warm areas should consume fruits, juices and light grains or vegetables. Out of the entire day, this struck me as making the most sense out of anything that I’ve heard in a long time. Why not? If life gives you lemons, make lemonade if you want, but be sure to eat them somehow.
Oh, and there’s another cool thing that I learned: Ayurveda teaches 6 tastes. Western science teaches sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Many Asian countries, like China and Japan, add a fifth called umamai, or savory. Ayurveda holds on to sweet, sour and salty, but divides bitter into two categories (which I still didn’t fully understand, even after it was taught to me), and adds astringent, the feeling when a food dries up your mucus membranes. Who would’ve thought?
For the rest of the week, I have two goals. First, I will be spending more time with Dr. Gupta learning about the nutrition aspect. By reading some literature and (hopefully) being allowed to shadow some doctors at the hospital, I want to learn more specifically about how both foods and people are classified under the Ayurvedic system. What is it that makes a food heavy, and what about a person tells the doctor that they have more fire in their system than air? Secondly, I will be taking some data from the hostels at the college in order to compare it with the data I’ve collected from KLB’s hostel. I’m not sure yet whether I will be even able to complete a full nutritional analysis of the same caliber, but any data that I can get can be compared in some way, even if it’s just a superficial analysis.
One more thing I should add is that I may not be going to KLB this week, which means that I may not have internet access to regularly post on the blog. Surely I will be writing about my experiences every day, but until I get an internet connection, you won’t hear about them. Guess you’ll just have to be patient. In the meantime, I’ll try to forget about every science class I’ve ever taken.
15 March 2010
Balls to the Wall
Principal Ramdev returned to KLB last Friday. That very day, he brought up a subject again which I had hoped he had forgotten, because it had been a couple of weeks since we last discussed it:
“Pat, you need to try again to come up with some spicy snack to sell.” Damnit!
Number one, I’m no good at spicy. I’m good at sweet. Number two, he wants something as a snack, not a meal, and all the salty/spicy snacks that the girls like are already being sold elsewhere in mass quantities. Number three, American cuisine just isn’t very good at spicy. We’re good at sweet, and some southern cuisine is spicy, but those things are usually meats or meals, like tacos or fajitas or carne adovado. I’ve told him this many times, but he keeps insisting that I borrow from another culture or country. “Perhaps Canadian cuisine has something spicy?” Wait, does Canada even have a cuisine, or just watery beer and hockey?
The fourth and biggest obstacle that I’ve mentioned before is limitations, both in ingredients and equipment. No oven, no large burners, sometimes not even measuring cups or spatulas, and there’s not a lot I can do with food that hasn’t already been done. You have to understand that this culture has been using the same recipes, same basic cooking methods, and sometimes even the same equipment for the past 5,000 years. Palampur is rural enough that Western influence hasn’t yet kicked down the door with hot dogs and marshmallow cream, so they haven’t had the need to change much. As a result, when it comes to their ingredients and their methods, they’ve thought of it all. Everything. Anything that can be done has already been done for at least a few millennia. They’ve got their own version of falafel, which I found out after I made it. And all the desserts I’ve made require either unusual equipment (an oven) or uncommon, expensive ingredients (peanut butter, cocoa). Plus I still can’t use eggs without alienating a large portion of the market. This is one of the biggest challenges I face here: being original with what I’ve got.
So you can imagine how excited I was this weekend when I invented a completely new dessert. Not only has it never been done in India, but I’m pretty sure that while it has counterparts in American sweet pastries, it is in a category of its own. I have a friend that writes a cooking blog and takes pictures of the delicious delicacies that she creates, and earlier this week, cinnamon buns were featured on her site. My mouth waters every time I open her page, but this time, I had to practically turn off the faucet in my salivary glands. I love yeasted desserts like cinnamon buns, as well as pretty much anything else that is leavened by yeast and baked. The smell that fills your kitchen when you cook off a fresh loaf of good bread or a pan of monkey bread is unbeatable, and cinnamon is another one of those smells that cannot be matched.
(Sidebar: I purchased 300g of great-quality whole cinnamon from a shop here for 36 rupees. That’s about 80 cents. Go to Penzeys Spices website and check out the price of cinnamon there, by weight. Then feel free to email me your spice orders.)
“Man, I have to make those here. I’ll need to buy milk, a couple of eggs, cinnamon… and an oven. Crap.”
No. Not this time. I’m going to figure it out how to have my eggless, oven-free cake and eat it too. I just have to think outside the box a little. I’ve got a really good recipe for sweet yeasted dough from back in the states. This same dough can be used for not only cinnamon buns, but also any sort of sweet baked bread that requires rising times. And I can’t bake them, but there are other cooking methods available. Pan frying won’t work, because it doesn’t generate enough even heat to get the yeast to expand the dough. Boiling is completely out of the question, unless you like to eat your cinnamon buns out of a soup bowl. Open flame is a good idea, but that would burn the outside before the inside has a chance to even feel the heat. That leaves deep frying.
Deep frying gets a bad rep in the states, and it shouldn’t. Sure, if that’s the only kind of food you eat, and you go to McDonalds for three meals a day, you’ll gain a few (hundred) pounds. But if you fry something correctly, on your own, you add almost no fat to the target food. It’s a very popular method of cooking in Asian countries because it’s very efficient; the food is done in no time with a minimal amount of fuel and wasted. The way to fry something correctly is to keep the oil hot as possible without burning it and not fry too many pieces of food at the same time. Generally, oil stays right around 190°C, and you already know that water boils at 100°C. So, when a piece of food that has water in it (which they all do before they are cooked) is surrounded by oil that is already almost twice the temperature of the boiling point, the water is going to instantly boil and turn into steam, which will force its way out of the food. As long as there is water left in the food turning to steam and pushing out of the food, it will keep the oil from getting into the food. The trick is to remove the food from the oil just before it is finished cooking and just before all the water in the food is gone. The other trick is to not add too much food at a time, because that will crowd the pot and decrease the total temperature of the oil, slowing the cooking time and inviting oil into the food. If you do it right and keep an eye on the temperature, no oil is added to the food besides whatever sticks to the surface as it is removed, and that is usually wicked off by newspaper or the like. Plus, you’ll be treated with crispy, delicious and fast food without all the greasiness. Don’t believe me? Next time you deep fry, weigh the pot full of oil before and after the cooking. If you fry well, it’s not going to weigh much less after cooking, meaning very little oil left the pot.
Thus, the cinnamon rolls, I decided, were destined to be deep fried. The only problem is that if I make the traditional cinnamon roll shape, the butter/sugar/cinnamon filling rolled up in the middle of the pastry would immediately melt and leak out into the oil. That would not only ruin the oil, but I would lose that oh-so-delicious cinnamon taste that drives me crazy. Solution? Roll a flat circle out of a small piece of the dough, place the cinnamon filling in the middle, and crimp up the sides to form a neat little walnut-sized ball with the cinnamon filling hidden on the inside, safe from the oil.
Verdict: Freaking Awesome! It’s kind of like a doughnut in that it’s a small fried ball with a sweet filling, and it’s true that the outside tastes kind of like one, but on the inside, the dough is all bun-like. It’s flaky and light, minimally sweet, with none of the grainy, fall-apart-in-your-mouth texture of a doughnut. Plus the cinnamon filling is contained on the inside and doesn’t spread throughout the whole thing, which, in my mind, separates it from a true cinnamon bun. Why do I think that is new to not only India, but America? Because there is no reason for it to be made this way in the states. If you want a cinnamon bun, you bake it, and if you want a fried pastry, you use doughnut dough. Necessity is the mother of invention, and in the land of opportunity there was no necessity to think of a way besides oven baking to cook sweet yeasted dough, which is distinctly different from doughnuts in texture, taste, sweetness and structure.
One more question you may have is, why do I feel this is an important enough experience to write about? Because it’s a sign that I’m starting to be original in my surroundings. I used ingredients, cooking methods and equipment very common in Himachal Pradesh to create something completely new and different, as well as delicious. There’s hope for me, and my work, yet.
As I sit here and write this, polishing off yet another of my tasty creations for more inspiration, I realize that these new concoctions need a name. Hmm… well, this is a sweet yeasted dough that, while commonly used in cinnamon rolls, can be used for many things, including a favorite from my camping days called monkey bread. Monkeys are common in India. These things are small and round. They’re new and need a catchy name. Nothing’s more memorable than humor.
Sooooo…
Monkey Balls.
Coming soon to a bakery near you!
“Pat, you need to try again to come up with some spicy snack to sell.” Damnit!
Number one, I’m no good at spicy. I’m good at sweet. Number two, he wants something as a snack, not a meal, and all the salty/spicy snacks that the girls like are already being sold elsewhere in mass quantities. Number three, American cuisine just isn’t very good at spicy. We’re good at sweet, and some southern cuisine is spicy, but those things are usually meats or meals, like tacos or fajitas or carne adovado. I’ve told him this many times, but he keeps insisting that I borrow from another culture or country. “Perhaps Canadian cuisine has something spicy?” Wait, does Canada even have a cuisine, or just watery beer and hockey?
The fourth and biggest obstacle that I’ve mentioned before is limitations, both in ingredients and equipment. No oven, no large burners, sometimes not even measuring cups or spatulas, and there’s not a lot I can do with food that hasn’t already been done. You have to understand that this culture has been using the same recipes, same basic cooking methods, and sometimes even the same equipment for the past 5,000 years. Palampur is rural enough that Western influence hasn’t yet kicked down the door with hot dogs and marshmallow cream, so they haven’t had the need to change much. As a result, when it comes to their ingredients and their methods, they’ve thought of it all. Everything. Anything that can be done has already been done for at least a few millennia. They’ve got their own version of falafel, which I found out after I made it. And all the desserts I’ve made require either unusual equipment (an oven) or uncommon, expensive ingredients (peanut butter, cocoa). Plus I still can’t use eggs without alienating a large portion of the market. This is one of the biggest challenges I face here: being original with what I’ve got.
So you can imagine how excited I was this weekend when I invented a completely new dessert. Not only has it never been done in India, but I’m pretty sure that while it has counterparts in American sweet pastries, it is in a category of its own. I have a friend that writes a cooking blog and takes pictures of the delicious delicacies that she creates, and earlier this week, cinnamon buns were featured on her site. My mouth waters every time I open her page, but this time, I had to practically turn off the faucet in my salivary glands. I love yeasted desserts like cinnamon buns, as well as pretty much anything else that is leavened by yeast and baked. The smell that fills your kitchen when you cook off a fresh loaf of good bread or a pan of monkey bread is unbeatable, and cinnamon is another one of those smells that cannot be matched.
(Sidebar: I purchased 300g of great-quality whole cinnamon from a shop here for 36 rupees. That’s about 80 cents. Go to Penzeys Spices website and check out the price of cinnamon there, by weight. Then feel free to email me your spice orders.)
“Man, I have to make those here. I’ll need to buy milk, a couple of eggs, cinnamon… and an oven. Crap.”
No. Not this time. I’m going to figure it out how to have my eggless, oven-free cake and eat it too. I just have to think outside the box a little. I’ve got a really good recipe for sweet yeasted dough from back in the states. This same dough can be used for not only cinnamon buns, but also any sort of sweet baked bread that requires rising times. And I can’t bake them, but there are other cooking methods available. Pan frying won’t work, because it doesn’t generate enough even heat to get the yeast to expand the dough. Boiling is completely out of the question, unless you like to eat your cinnamon buns out of a soup bowl. Open flame is a good idea, but that would burn the outside before the inside has a chance to even feel the heat. That leaves deep frying.
Deep frying gets a bad rep in the states, and it shouldn’t. Sure, if that’s the only kind of food you eat, and you go to McDonalds for three meals a day, you’ll gain a few (hundred) pounds. But if you fry something correctly, on your own, you add almost no fat to the target food. It’s a very popular method of cooking in Asian countries because it’s very efficient; the food is done in no time with a minimal amount of fuel and wasted. The way to fry something correctly is to keep the oil hot as possible without burning it and not fry too many pieces of food at the same time. Generally, oil stays right around 190°C, and you already know that water boils at 100°C. So, when a piece of food that has water in it (which they all do before they are cooked) is surrounded by oil that is already almost twice the temperature of the boiling point, the water is going to instantly boil and turn into steam, which will force its way out of the food. As long as there is water left in the food turning to steam and pushing out of the food, it will keep the oil from getting into the food. The trick is to remove the food from the oil just before it is finished cooking and just before all the water in the food is gone. The other trick is to not add too much food at a time, because that will crowd the pot and decrease the total temperature of the oil, slowing the cooking time and inviting oil into the food. If you do it right and keep an eye on the temperature, no oil is added to the food besides whatever sticks to the surface as it is removed, and that is usually wicked off by newspaper or the like. Plus, you’ll be treated with crispy, delicious and fast food without all the greasiness. Don’t believe me? Next time you deep fry, weigh the pot full of oil before and after the cooking. If you fry well, it’s not going to weigh much less after cooking, meaning very little oil left the pot.
Thus, the cinnamon rolls, I decided, were destined to be deep fried. The only problem is that if I make the traditional cinnamon roll shape, the butter/sugar/cinnamon filling rolled up in the middle of the pastry would immediately melt and leak out into the oil. That would not only ruin the oil, but I would lose that oh-so-delicious cinnamon taste that drives me crazy. Solution? Roll a flat circle out of a small piece of the dough, place the cinnamon filling in the middle, and crimp up the sides to form a neat little walnut-sized ball with the cinnamon filling hidden on the inside, safe from the oil.
Verdict: Freaking Awesome! It’s kind of like a doughnut in that it’s a small fried ball with a sweet filling, and it’s true that the outside tastes kind of like one, but on the inside, the dough is all bun-like. It’s flaky and light, minimally sweet, with none of the grainy, fall-apart-in-your-mouth texture of a doughnut. Plus the cinnamon filling is contained on the inside and doesn’t spread throughout the whole thing, which, in my mind, separates it from a true cinnamon bun. Why do I think that is new to not only India, but America? Because there is no reason for it to be made this way in the states. If you want a cinnamon bun, you bake it, and if you want a fried pastry, you use doughnut dough. Necessity is the mother of invention, and in the land of opportunity there was no necessity to think of a way besides oven baking to cook sweet yeasted dough, which is distinctly different from doughnuts in texture, taste, sweetness and structure.
One more question you may have is, why do I feel this is an important enough experience to write about? Because it’s a sign that I’m starting to be original in my surroundings. I used ingredients, cooking methods and equipment very common in Himachal Pradesh to create something completely new and different, as well as delicious. There’s hope for me, and my work, yet.
As I sit here and write this, polishing off yet another of my tasty creations for more inspiration, I realize that these new concoctions need a name. Hmm… well, this is a sweet yeasted dough that, while commonly used in cinnamon rolls, can be used for many things, including a favorite from my camping days called monkey bread. Monkeys are common in India. These things are small and round. They’re new and need a catchy name. Nothing’s more memorable than humor.
Sooooo…
Monkey Balls.
Coming soon to a bakery near you!
13 March 2010
Super Size You, India
I’m getting really good at making tea. I’m also getting really good at drinking it. It’s so delicious that I just can’t get enough. Yet I’m always polite and have just one small cup (which is actually about half a cup in Imperial measurements) at a time, because I know that soon, there will be a chance to have another cup. But when I’m at home, I go a little nuts and make myself a big boy cup. This also happens when I have guests at the mud hut and I make tea for them. Yesterday I brought out three glasses for Shammi, Atul and myself. Atul suggested that I start making my cups of tea smaller. For once, I completely disagreed with cultural norms.
“That’s what happens when you let an American make you food. You get American portions.”
No, I’m not making everybody around me fat. These super-sized glasses of tea are no more than an average 8-ounce glass. They’re just huge when compared to the potion size of normal Indian snacks. For example, their candies are tiny, slightly bigger than an M&M. When I make taffy to distribute, they complain that I’ve made the pieces too big. Again, that’s what you get!
Does this create a problem when I make food at the hostel? Not one bit. For some reason, they like their meals to be as big as their plate, especially if it’s rice. One pancake doesn’t quite cut it, and two pieces of PBC for each girl is only just enough.
Am I at fault for trying to increase portion sizes, or are they at fault for trying to refuse? I don’t know, but at least Shammi likes it when I make big cups of tea for him.
“That’s what happens when you let an American make you food. You get American portions.”
No, I’m not making everybody around me fat. These super-sized glasses of tea are no more than an average 8-ounce glass. They’re just huge when compared to the potion size of normal Indian snacks. For example, their candies are tiny, slightly bigger than an M&M. When I make taffy to distribute, they complain that I’ve made the pieces too big. Again, that’s what you get!
Does this create a problem when I make food at the hostel? Not one bit. For some reason, they like their meals to be as big as their plate, especially if it’s rice. One pancake doesn’t quite cut it, and two pieces of PBC for each girl is only just enough.
Am I at fault for trying to increase portion sizes, or are they at fault for trying to refuse? I don’t know, but at least Shammi likes it when I make big cups of tea for him.
12 March 2010
Tongue Tied
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a superpower. Be amazed. It’s the ability to quickly and efficiently learn any language on the planet without even so much as a book to study or a dictionary to read. I know, I know, with great power comes great responsibility.
Unfortunately, as with any superpower, it comes with limitations. My limitation is that my power is only good when it comes to language relating to food and eating.
It’s been about two months, and my Hindi absolutely sucks. Anything besides “Hello, how are you, I am fine” completely escapes me. I haven’t been taking lessons with Madam Utra anymore. I haven’t been taking lessons of any kind since I got here. I have no phrasebook and no dictionary to study on my own. Atul has been telling me since he picked me up in Delhi that he has a Hindi phrasebook to give me, and I’m still waiting on that. The only tools at my disposal are my ears and my memory, and my memory when it comes to remembering how to pronounce hundreds of completely new words that I only hear once or twice is a little lacking, to say the least.
Yet when it comes to food, something inside of my head just switches on, and my superpower is suddenly activated. I can remember the Hindi name of every dish that I’ve eaten here. I know a lot of names of food ingredients, as well as some of the tools used to cook things, like pots and spatulas. When I’m talking to Indians about food in English, I will use the Hindi words for “potato” and “whole-wheat flour” instead of their English counterparts. Then I run into problems, because using those words with such good pronunciation prompts the person to praise my excellent Hindi skills. Then they start using more common phrases, and I’m completely lost again. I just can’t get it. They’ll even tell me some words or phrases and ask me to repeat them, and even though I’m repeating exactly what I think I hear, it’s still not right.
The same thing has happened to me before. I’m not a linguist, and I’m not fluent in any languages, but this is the fourth language besides English that I’ve studied and the second time that I’ve decided to live in a country that speaks a language that I haven’t studied at all. In all cases, I am able to pick up vocabulary relating to food a hell of a lot easier than anything else, and my pronunciation of food terms is much better than everything else. When I was in Hungary, I would go to restaurants with friends and be able to read the menu and order food in Hungarian with ease. My friends would take this as a hint to try and speak Hungarian with me exclusively. But when I try to hold a normal conversation, I just fall to pieces and can’t even make a full sentence.
Yesterday, my landlord came to the mud hut to talk with Atul about some matters, and I sat on the balcony and had my tea while they talked for 10-15 minutes in Hindi. Of course, I didn’t understand a word. Soon, the landlord asked me if I understood, and I said no, not a word. His retort: “You should try to understand. You have been here for some time.” Okay, sir, if you think it’s that easy, why don’t you go to a country that speaks a completely different language that’s not even in the same language family and just pick up common dialogue by ear, with no book and no dictionary. Oh, and try doing it while struggling to adapt to a radically different culture, all at the same time as you attempting to work with these people and make enough progress to justify receiving 12 credits from an American university. Let’s see how quickly you learn to discuss complex leasing matters in a new language then.
I don’t regret not being able to go to the language school in Mussorie at the beginning of the trip. In those first few days, I would have had so much trouble trying to adapt to my new environment that I doubt a 6-hour per day crash course for two weeks would have given me a significant base from which to communicate. Yet now that I have settled in, I could really use it. In May, when the next batch of U.S. students gets here, they will be doing their Hindi language courses in Palampur, and I will be joining them for that, for which I am thankful. It just seems a bit late to be learning the language, one or two months before I leave.
In the meantime, all I can do it listen harder and try to remember even harder. At least I have superpowers when it comes to food. Cuisine Crusader, to the rescue!
Unfortunately, as with any superpower, it comes with limitations. My limitation is that my power is only good when it comes to language relating to food and eating.
It’s been about two months, and my Hindi absolutely sucks. Anything besides “Hello, how are you, I am fine” completely escapes me. I haven’t been taking lessons with Madam Utra anymore. I haven’t been taking lessons of any kind since I got here. I have no phrasebook and no dictionary to study on my own. Atul has been telling me since he picked me up in Delhi that he has a Hindi phrasebook to give me, and I’m still waiting on that. The only tools at my disposal are my ears and my memory, and my memory when it comes to remembering how to pronounce hundreds of completely new words that I only hear once or twice is a little lacking, to say the least.
Yet when it comes to food, something inside of my head just switches on, and my superpower is suddenly activated. I can remember the Hindi name of every dish that I’ve eaten here. I know a lot of names of food ingredients, as well as some of the tools used to cook things, like pots and spatulas. When I’m talking to Indians about food in English, I will use the Hindi words for “potato” and “whole-wheat flour” instead of their English counterparts. Then I run into problems, because using those words with such good pronunciation prompts the person to praise my excellent Hindi skills. Then they start using more common phrases, and I’m completely lost again. I just can’t get it. They’ll even tell me some words or phrases and ask me to repeat them, and even though I’m repeating exactly what I think I hear, it’s still not right.
The same thing has happened to me before. I’m not a linguist, and I’m not fluent in any languages, but this is the fourth language besides English that I’ve studied and the second time that I’ve decided to live in a country that speaks a language that I haven’t studied at all. In all cases, I am able to pick up vocabulary relating to food a hell of a lot easier than anything else, and my pronunciation of food terms is much better than everything else. When I was in Hungary, I would go to restaurants with friends and be able to read the menu and order food in Hungarian with ease. My friends would take this as a hint to try and speak Hungarian with me exclusively. But when I try to hold a normal conversation, I just fall to pieces and can’t even make a full sentence.
Yesterday, my landlord came to the mud hut to talk with Atul about some matters, and I sat on the balcony and had my tea while they talked for 10-15 minutes in Hindi. Of course, I didn’t understand a word. Soon, the landlord asked me if I understood, and I said no, not a word. His retort: “You should try to understand. You have been here for some time.” Okay, sir, if you think it’s that easy, why don’t you go to a country that speaks a completely different language that’s not even in the same language family and just pick up common dialogue by ear, with no book and no dictionary. Oh, and try doing it while struggling to adapt to a radically different culture, all at the same time as you attempting to work with these people and make enough progress to justify receiving 12 credits from an American university. Let’s see how quickly you learn to discuss complex leasing matters in a new language then.
I don’t regret not being able to go to the language school in Mussorie at the beginning of the trip. In those first few days, I would have had so much trouble trying to adapt to my new environment that I doubt a 6-hour per day crash course for two weeks would have given me a significant base from which to communicate. Yet now that I have settled in, I could really use it. In May, when the next batch of U.S. students gets here, they will be doing their Hindi language courses in Palampur, and I will be joining them for that, for which I am thankful. It just seems a bit late to be learning the language, one or two months before I leave.
In the meantime, all I can do it listen harder and try to remember even harder. At least I have superpowers when it comes to food. Cuisine Crusader, to the rescue!
Inconceivable!
Yesterday I made pancakes for the hostel girls as part of their extra meal. First of all, they were delicious. A bit of homemade syrup and they’re almost better than pancakes back in America. Even making them one at a time to serve 40 wasn’t that bad, because I got an early start and knew I would probably end up doing one at a time. However, I was beset by a difficulty that I have now found to be an integral part of how Indians view food, and that is their innate difficulty in accepting something new when it comes to food.
I would like to describe for you what a perfect American pancake should be. It’s light, fluffy, and thick. It should be lightly browned on both sides but still only just cooked within. If you pour syrup on top of it, it should absorb most, but not all of the liquid sugar while still holding its structure when cut and picked up with a fork. Rich yet light, sweet and a little bit salty, a perfect pancake is practically accompanied by a chorus of angels. There should be a plateful of pancakes at the end of the rainbow, not a pot of gold.
Constructing a good pancake is not rocket science, but there are some guidelines that must be followed. You must mix approximately equal amounts, by volume, of wet and dry ingredients along with a chemical leavener like baking powder, but do not stir them too much. Lots of mixing means that you will develop gluten in the pancakes, a tough and fibrous protein in wheat flours that is beloved in bread and pizza but the enemy of delicate cakes and cookies. It means that you have to stop mixing the pancake batter while there are still lumps of unmixed flour in it. No. Stop. Walk away from the bowl. Do not overmix. You will regret it.
The other thing you must remember is that in order for the baking powder to do its job, you shouldn’t flatten the mixture right when you put it on the hot surface. Just dump it on and let its own weight take care of spreading itself out. Then be patient, and let low, steady heat do its job. Only then will you be rewarded with thick, fluffy gifts from the gods.
Here’s the problem that you will experience when making American pancakes for Indians, if you ever find yourself in that unique situation: they won’t like how you make it. Not one bit. Three things about making pancakes contrast directly with typical Indian cooking. First, they like to mix the bejeezus out of everything. Second, they like to put the heat up as high as it will go. Third, they have no patience with their food and want it as soon as possible.
Pancakes are delicate. You have to love them, and they will love you back. The whole time I was making the flapjacks, Neetu, the hostel cook, wanted to flip them quickly and go on to the next one. I practically had to handcuff the spatula to myself. She and all of the other Indians that have watched me make pancakes also want to spread them out thinly to cover the entire surface. I really don’t know why. It frustrates me, because here I am, going out of my way to make something new and different for people who have never had it before, and they keep telling me how I can do it better, their way. They’ve never even heard of pancakes before, and they’re telling me the proper method before I even turn on the gas. Today it wasn’t so bad, but I just about smacked somebody with a hot iron pan the last time I made them for 4 or 5 of the staff last week. It went something like this:
-Mr. Pat, what do you make?
-Pancakes.
-This is flour, milk and baking powder?
-Yes.
-No sugar?
-No, you put a sweet liquid on top of it before you eat them.
-These are not sweet. You need to add more sugar.
-No, I just told you, the sugar is added after.
-So you must add more salt.
-No, they will be sweet.
-They are not sweet.
-I told you, put syrup on them.
-Ok, give us the syrup.
-I haven’t made it yet. It is heating right now.
-So these are salty. Put more salt.
-(insert sound of brain exploding)
Oh, let me tell you about when Malkeet tried to make one. First I showed him how I did it: slowly, thick, low heat. I made sure that he understood those three points. I even had somebody translate it. Then I handed him the spatula. He promptly jacked up the heat, threw way too much batter on the iron, spread it out as thin as possible, and tried to flip it in ten seconds. Needless to say, it didn’t turn out so well. It looked like a partially burnt, partially uncooked pile of gelatinized vomit. He never quite got it right that day.
The best part about all of this is when they finally eat one of my pancakes (with syrup). Their face lights up and I can practically hear their stomach scream with joy. It’s kind of like that short bald guy in the Princess Bride. “These taste good? Inconceivable!” I’m not surprised, and frankly, I can’t take the credit. The milk and flour here (and the eggs, when you’re not making them for vegetarians) are such great quality that it’s hard to make a bad pancake. But even after they tasted how good mine are, some still tell me that I’m making them wrong. I just don’t get it.
What is it about new things that they find so hard to accept? To be honest, when I think about it, I can’t help but feel somewhat offended. After all, I’m the one who comes to their country and throws out years of conditioning on etiquette, basic hygiene and eating habits, just to name a few, and they can’t even let me show them a new food without injecting their culture into it.
Wait a second…
Isn’t that what Europeans did to every indigenous people on the American landmasses hundreds of years ago? Isn’t that what Americans did to Native Americans? Isn’t that what Westerners do to the rest of the world through globalization today?
Um… my bad.
Well, damn. Guess I’m the one that needs to be more patient and tolerant.
“The American actually learned something? Inconceivable!”
I would like to describe for you what a perfect American pancake should be. It’s light, fluffy, and thick. It should be lightly browned on both sides but still only just cooked within. If you pour syrup on top of it, it should absorb most, but not all of the liquid sugar while still holding its structure when cut and picked up with a fork. Rich yet light, sweet and a little bit salty, a perfect pancake is practically accompanied by a chorus of angels. There should be a plateful of pancakes at the end of the rainbow, not a pot of gold.
Constructing a good pancake is not rocket science, but there are some guidelines that must be followed. You must mix approximately equal amounts, by volume, of wet and dry ingredients along with a chemical leavener like baking powder, but do not stir them too much. Lots of mixing means that you will develop gluten in the pancakes, a tough and fibrous protein in wheat flours that is beloved in bread and pizza but the enemy of delicate cakes and cookies. It means that you have to stop mixing the pancake batter while there are still lumps of unmixed flour in it. No. Stop. Walk away from the bowl. Do not overmix. You will regret it.
The other thing you must remember is that in order for the baking powder to do its job, you shouldn’t flatten the mixture right when you put it on the hot surface. Just dump it on and let its own weight take care of spreading itself out. Then be patient, and let low, steady heat do its job. Only then will you be rewarded with thick, fluffy gifts from the gods.
Here’s the problem that you will experience when making American pancakes for Indians, if you ever find yourself in that unique situation: they won’t like how you make it. Not one bit. Three things about making pancakes contrast directly with typical Indian cooking. First, they like to mix the bejeezus out of everything. Second, they like to put the heat up as high as it will go. Third, they have no patience with their food and want it as soon as possible.
Pancakes are delicate. You have to love them, and they will love you back. The whole time I was making the flapjacks, Neetu, the hostel cook, wanted to flip them quickly and go on to the next one. I practically had to handcuff the spatula to myself. She and all of the other Indians that have watched me make pancakes also want to spread them out thinly to cover the entire surface. I really don’t know why. It frustrates me, because here I am, going out of my way to make something new and different for people who have never had it before, and they keep telling me how I can do it better, their way. They’ve never even heard of pancakes before, and they’re telling me the proper method before I even turn on the gas. Today it wasn’t so bad, but I just about smacked somebody with a hot iron pan the last time I made them for 4 or 5 of the staff last week. It went something like this:
-Mr. Pat, what do you make?
-Pancakes.
-This is flour, milk and baking powder?
-Yes.
-No sugar?
-No, you put a sweet liquid on top of it before you eat them.
-These are not sweet. You need to add more sugar.
-No, I just told you, the sugar is added after.
-So you must add more salt.
-No, they will be sweet.
-They are not sweet.
-I told you, put syrup on them.
-Ok, give us the syrup.
-I haven’t made it yet. It is heating right now.
-So these are salty. Put more salt.
-(insert sound of brain exploding)
Oh, let me tell you about when Malkeet tried to make one. First I showed him how I did it: slowly, thick, low heat. I made sure that he understood those three points. I even had somebody translate it. Then I handed him the spatula. He promptly jacked up the heat, threw way too much batter on the iron, spread it out as thin as possible, and tried to flip it in ten seconds. Needless to say, it didn’t turn out so well. It looked like a partially burnt, partially uncooked pile of gelatinized vomit. He never quite got it right that day.
The best part about all of this is when they finally eat one of my pancakes (with syrup). Their face lights up and I can practically hear their stomach scream with joy. It’s kind of like that short bald guy in the Princess Bride. “These taste good? Inconceivable!” I’m not surprised, and frankly, I can’t take the credit. The milk and flour here (and the eggs, when you’re not making them for vegetarians) are such great quality that it’s hard to make a bad pancake. But even after they tasted how good mine are, some still tell me that I’m making them wrong. I just don’t get it.
What is it about new things that they find so hard to accept? To be honest, when I think about it, I can’t help but feel somewhat offended. After all, I’m the one who comes to their country and throws out years of conditioning on etiquette, basic hygiene and eating habits, just to name a few, and they can’t even let me show them a new food without injecting their culture into it.
Wait a second…
Isn’t that what Europeans did to every indigenous people on the American landmasses hundreds of years ago? Isn’t that what Americans did to Native Americans? Isn’t that what Westerners do to the rest of the world through globalization today?
Um… my bad.
Well, damn. Guess I’m the one that needs to be more patient and tolerant.
“The American actually learned something? Inconceivable!”
10 March 2010
The Importance of Being Hungry
Is something wrong with me? Am I losing my sense of wonder and excitement about being here?
The past week or so, I have been losing my appetite for Indian foods, and I don’t know why. Chapattis, which are eaten with nearly every meal, usually number 4 or 5 on my plate. Lately, I only eat 2. Sometimes Shammi and I are making dinner, and I feel like I don’t even want to eat at all. The Indian mentality of eating everything on your plate and respecting the food is the only thing that is keeping the spoon moving to my mouth. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even be eating.
More than the unhealthiness that I have always associated with not being able to eat normally, I feel downright offensive sometimes. Shammi and I go to all the trouble of making delicious meals from scratch, and I feel like I am hurting his feelings when I only make 2 chapattis to go with dinner. Chapattis are the main part of the meal most of the time. Whatever is made besides them is supposed to just flavor the chapattis, and usually doesn’t provide significant nutrition on its own. What it does provide is adequate amounts of refined soybean oil used to cook the dish. While I am still getting a relatively low-fat diet, every main meal is much greasier than I am used to, so maybe that’s the reason for my diminished appetite.
Maybe I’m getting sick. Doubtful, because I feel great and am still working out and exercising like I normally do. I haven’t had so much as a runny nose since I got here.
Maybe I’m getting homesick. It’s possible, and I won’t deny that I miss home sometimes, but there are too many things here that I love for me to downright want to leave. I really don’t, I love being here.
What I’m really afraid of is that I’m reverting back to my American conditioning. I rarely get desserts or sweets here, everything is natural and unprocessed, and every food is cooked from scratch. This also means that everything is spicy, the food is rough and heavy, and there’s no convenience. I also feel like everything is starting to taste the same, and since everything is eaten with chapattis, that may not be so far off. Could it be possible that 21 years of American eating is finally starting to break through the excitement of eating new and interesting cuisine? Maybe my body is yearning for convenience and corn syrup so much that it’s activating a physical response whenever I see a pot of dal being prepared or a parantha being grilled.
I worry the most about how this is going to affect my projects at KLB. How can I continue to work on diet and nutrition when I can’t even maintain a healthy appetite? Hopefully this is all temporary and I’ll be back to my normal second and third helpings by next week.
The past week or so, I have been losing my appetite for Indian foods, and I don’t know why. Chapattis, which are eaten with nearly every meal, usually number 4 or 5 on my plate. Lately, I only eat 2. Sometimes Shammi and I are making dinner, and I feel like I don’t even want to eat at all. The Indian mentality of eating everything on your plate and respecting the food is the only thing that is keeping the spoon moving to my mouth. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even be eating.
More than the unhealthiness that I have always associated with not being able to eat normally, I feel downright offensive sometimes. Shammi and I go to all the trouble of making delicious meals from scratch, and I feel like I am hurting his feelings when I only make 2 chapattis to go with dinner. Chapattis are the main part of the meal most of the time. Whatever is made besides them is supposed to just flavor the chapattis, and usually doesn’t provide significant nutrition on its own. What it does provide is adequate amounts of refined soybean oil used to cook the dish. While I am still getting a relatively low-fat diet, every main meal is much greasier than I am used to, so maybe that’s the reason for my diminished appetite.
Maybe I’m getting sick. Doubtful, because I feel great and am still working out and exercising like I normally do. I haven’t had so much as a runny nose since I got here.
Maybe I’m getting homesick. It’s possible, and I won’t deny that I miss home sometimes, but there are too many things here that I love for me to downright want to leave. I really don’t, I love being here.
What I’m really afraid of is that I’m reverting back to my American conditioning. I rarely get desserts or sweets here, everything is natural and unprocessed, and every food is cooked from scratch. This also means that everything is spicy, the food is rough and heavy, and there’s no convenience. I also feel like everything is starting to taste the same, and since everything is eaten with chapattis, that may not be so far off. Could it be possible that 21 years of American eating is finally starting to break through the excitement of eating new and interesting cuisine? Maybe my body is yearning for convenience and corn syrup so much that it’s activating a physical response whenever I see a pot of dal being prepared or a parantha being grilled.
I worry the most about how this is going to affect my projects at KLB. How can I continue to work on diet and nutrition when I can’t even maintain a healthy appetite? Hopefully this is all temporary and I’ll be back to my normal second and third helpings by next week.
09 March 2010
Real Indians of Genius
International Interns present Real Indians of Genius
Real Indians of Genius…
Today we salute you, Mr. Ignorant and Lazy Indian Shopkeeper.
Mr. Ignorant and Lazy Indian Shopkeeper…
Thanks to you, foreign customers have no need to learn Hindi, since you hardly notice when they walk into your store anyway.
What you sayin’ to me?
Even though words like chocolate and chicken are the same in both languages, you still don’t understand what we want to buy.
…mmm, it’s so sweet…
Go ahead and say that you’re out of brown sugar. They’ll point to it on the shelf behind you anyway.
…that’s a good brand…
So kick your feet up on the cot you’ve got behind the counter, O Guardian of Groceries, and feel confident knowing that without you, white people in India would have no trouble buying shampoo. No trouble at all.
Mr. Ignorant and Lazy Indian Shopkeeper!
International Interns, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India.
(If you're confused, look up Budweiser's Real Men of Genius ads.)
Real Indians of Genius…
Today we salute you, Mr. Ignorant and Lazy Indian Shopkeeper.
Mr. Ignorant and Lazy Indian Shopkeeper…
Thanks to you, foreign customers have no need to learn Hindi, since you hardly notice when they walk into your store anyway.
What you sayin’ to me?
Even though words like chocolate and chicken are the same in both languages, you still don’t understand what we want to buy.
…mmm, it’s so sweet…
Go ahead and say that you’re out of brown sugar. They’ll point to it on the shelf behind you anyway.
…that’s a good brand…
So kick your feet up on the cot you’ve got behind the counter, O Guardian of Groceries, and feel confident knowing that without you, white people in India would have no trouble buying shampoo. No trouble at all.
Mr. Ignorant and Lazy Indian Shopkeeper!
International Interns, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India.
(If you're confused, look up Budweiser's Real Men of Genius ads.)
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