Meals Eating

There are so many amazing foods in India, but Tamil Nadu exceeds other states in special varieties and preparations of food. You can't eat iddly for breakfast in Andhra Pradesh and you can't have dosai for dinner in West Bengal. Well, technically you can if you go to a Chettinad hotel specializing in southern food, but the atmosphere and experience isn't the same as eating local foods prepared by local people. Make sure you keep in mind that in India signs for a hotel does not refer to a place for lodging but it is in fact a restaurant. Signs for a restaurant are also referring to a place for eating complementing the institution a restaurant defines in western countries. This country survives on rice. The government has even instigated rice rations for all people to eliminate the obvious problem of starvation. You can get 20 kilograms of rice per month for a family for only one rupee per kilogram. That translates to 2 cents for one kilogram which is 2.2lbs. Even the most poor families using this ration are able to eat three meals of kanji a day. Kanji being the most basic food consists of rice and water sometimes with some salt for taste. If you aren't eating kanji and the father of the family works two to five days a month your family can have a delectable sambar to complement the government rationed rice, otherwise known as a vegetable and yellow dal sauce. I myself have taken both of these meals in my journey, but the common meal I want to describe is served in hotels. Since rice is a staple and a good source of protein and energy everyone is eating rice so in a hotel many people prefer rice meals. You wouldn't imagine how much rice one person here can eat without becoming the slightest bit overweight and some people still being extraordinarily slim. I would estimate that an individual can eat 2 cups of boiled rice per meal if given the opportunity. This is in addition to any sauces. chicken, appalam, drinks, and pickle. In a hotel when you order a rice meal, first you get a nice steel plate covered with a banana leaf that is quite often cut into the circular shape of the plate. On that plate are between five and ten small steel cups filled with a variety of sauces and even a dessert. A waiter will come and put a crispy appalam on your place and then he'll bring a huge steel bowl full of rice and start scooping it out onto everyones plate. Everyone will start tasting and pouring small amounts of sauce onto their rice in different sections seeing which sauce they want to eat first and which they want to save for the end of their meal. With a rice meal the rice is unlimited so at least two helpings of rice should be eaten. First you can mix some sambar then try the spicy beets. After eating that there may be a kurma with potatoes or peas if your eating southern Indian food. Some other types of vegetables will be served like fried bitter gourd or sweet shredded carrots. There may be an eggplant kurma with some other assorted vegetables that even taste cannot help to identify their variety. After these substantial sauces you will finish your meal with rasam or curd with salt. When you mix rasam which is like a light sometimes oily vegetable broth with your rice the rasam should be almost double the amount of rice. Then when you scoop up handfuls of rice the rasam is fully present and the Indians will tell you drinking rasam aids in digestion. Feel free to drink the rest from your plate when all the rice is gone. If you opt for curd this is basically like mixing yogurt and rice with a little salt for taste. The curd floats in its own juice which is like the water that separates in a cup of yogurt from the dairy section in the supermarket. Mix it all in add a tiny spoonful of salt mush it around and consume. After if you are lucky there will be some kaserie which is a sweet orange grainy dessert usually accented with a cashew or there will be some payasam which is most similar to tapioca, but instead of grains of rice or tapioca balls there are noodles. You can drink these directly from the steel cup itself. After all of this you will want to take a nap right there on the table, but odds are that you've stopped for this rice meal on the way to your next destination so off you go, hopefully the bumpy Indian roads with diversions and all will aid in your digestion.