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My life in India, 2005-2006

 

8/27/05

 

I thought I’d write a bit about the food here in Bangalore. So far it’s been pretty tasty, but there are some interesting details.

 

First of all, people in Karnataka eat South Indian food, which is very different from the type of food I’m used to eating in Indian restaurants back in the US (or for that matter, in London). That type of food is mostly North Indian food. Of course, I had some idea of what South Indian food was like because my roommate in college used to make dosa every once in a while, and his mom used to visit sometimes and make a bunch of different dishes for him, which he’d share.

 

As one could imagine, the food here is very spicy. I had heard that the South had the hottest food in the subcontinent. Of course I haven’t been to any place in this country but Bangalore, but I’m finding that easy to believe. The first day I arrived my host family served some food to me that had a medium spiciness to it, which I could handle. I thought I was in good shape until I realized that my host family doesn’t make their food nearly as spicy as everyone else in this city.

 

There is practically no meat in the South Indian diet, which is frustrating for me. I’m not that big a carnivore, but vegetarianism just isn’t for me at this point in my life. So, considering that Bangaloreans don’t eat much meat, they must eat a lot of vegetables, right? Not really. That’s been disappointing, because I like vegetables. The diet is basically starch and oil with some green stuff thrown in, and of course milk products. And everything is fried, it seems, and a lot of stuff is breaded and fried, which makes me wonder how in hell I am going to avoid becoming a big fatass before coming back home.

 

Almost everything is accompanied by rice or has rice in it. Today my host family’s mother made dosa in the morning, which I only today learned was made with ground up lentils and, of course, rice. Then she served rice for lunch. For dinner I just ate some leftover rice with some cheese and cabbage. I mean, I’m an Iranian, and I’m getting sick of rice. Think about that for a second.

 

But generally, the food here is tasty. The sweets are very nice, and so is the coffee (I’m not a coffee drinker, but I may return as one). And I haven’t even tried any of the other types of restaurants in this city. Bangalore is pretty cosmopolitan, and from what I hear, you can get a lot of different types of food in this city. I can’t wait to try Persian food here and see what that tastes like.

 

Luckily, fruits here are cheap and sold everywhere. Right now I’m eating a pretty good orange, which I got for about 75 cents/kilo. Because my stomach is sensitive to a lot of stuff here, I have to stay away from anything that isn’t peeled, which is too bad. But the cheapness and deliciousness of pomegranates more than makes up for that – they’re about $1 per kilo.

 

 

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