Food

When I told people I was running off to India for a semester of my life, elephantiasis, malaria, typhoid, and a whole slew of other third world diseases were always first and foremost on everyone’s list of concerns. While it’s reassuring to know that my family and friends don’t want me coming back foaming at the mouth with chronic hallucinations and an arm expanded to roughly the size of China, “disease-ridden” India has been pretty tame. (Mosquitoes are a different story altogether. Perhaps I’ve mentioned them and their atrocities in each of my previous articles, but you’ll have to get used to it as I’m sure I’ll continue to mention them. They’re terrible and they need to die. My lower legs are a war zone, and I am now sporting my third bite on the bottom of my foot. Mosquitoes, please, the bottom of my foot? I know my foreign blood tastes fabulous, but come on. How obnoxiously desperate can you be?)

The next concern is the food—the dreadfully, horribly, stomach-punishing, spicy food. I like to think of this “spicy food” infamy as India’s try at the Boogeyman myth. When gutsy American travelers plan their overseas adventures, it’s the little closet monster that concerned friends wave around as soon as South Asia is mentioned. It pokes its head out of a dark and shadowy corner, all fanged, prickly, and breathing fire, and gurgles, “Oh, do watch out for the food! They like spice in India! A lot!”

Okay, yes. India does like spice. But it also adores rice, curd (a more primitive form of yogurt), puuri (which I liken to fried puffs of air), potatoes, and these fabulous rice chips whose name I can never remember. It offers noodles, tomato soup, veggies, and some of the most fabulous fruit juices I have ever spent less than a nickel on. To prepare for India, I purchased a pharmacy of drugs intended to save my digestive system from certain peril. Two months later in Mysore, while taking inventory of my own personal Walgreens, I find that I have popped a couple Peptos and snacked on some Tums (yes, when Cheap College Student goes to India, calcium-enriched, tropical fruit Tums can double as dessert). Overall, my food-born digestive failures have been no more intense or frequent than what they would have been back in Syracuse. The Gobi Man, much beloved provider of fried and sauced cauliflower, whips up the hottest food I have eaten yet, and my mouth only sizzles for about five minutes afterwards. To summarize: India’s spice fetish is all bravado. You could get hotter in your local corner market’s buffalo wings.

Still, India’s food is definitely different. I had heard rumors, before my arrival here, that an entire Indian meal can be bought for the measly sum of one American dollar. Sadly, I must debunk this myth. I suppose that’s true for some restaurants and some stomachs; for the most part, though, there is a catch. My American belly is used to excess, but Indian restaurants are really only excessive when it comes to their sauce. Paneer pollack, for example, is a complete Indian entrée. In most restaurants, it would probably cost around an American dollar, but also in most restaurants, it would be comprised of about five pieces of paneer—small, party-sized cubes of a substance similar to cottage cheese—drenched in roughly a gallon of pollack—a spinach sauce. Hardly enough to satiate my “Super-size Me!” American notion of eating out, I’m afraid. Where’s my salad and my choice of side dish? So, okay, instead of $1, you have to invest in some naan (a.k.a. bread) or rice along with the entrée, which might just tip your bill into the $1.50 – $2.00 range. (Unbearable, I know. There goes the life savings.)

I’m sorry to say, but Indian food will never hit quite the same chord with me as fried chicken, fast food French fries, salads heaped in dressing, lavish desserts, and cow (steak, hamburger, ribs—cow in any form I’ll take). It’s fabulous that the new diet has allowed me to shed some pounds, but I’ve been hankering desperately for the calorie-laden, artery-clogging, obesity-loving American food I know and love. A good portion of our days here at the Dhvanyaloka Centre for Indian Studies is spent in nostalgic fantasies of all the food we’ll chow on upon return to US-living. Let me just say that no girlish fears of pudge will be enough to save my new Indian-born figure from total annihilation. Forget “hakuna matata,” life is just better when your only hope of avoiding a blubberous decline is a treadmill and a step machine. Now that’s the kind of motto this American girl can live by.