My Daily Bread

I'll start by saying I LOVE Indian food. Of course, that doesn't mean I love all Indian food. So far I have had a  fair but not extensive exposure to the great variety of dishes that can be classified as "Indian". As a city halfway between North and South India, and as a city to where many people from all over the country and from other countries frequently migrate, Pune offers a great selection of food. I have tried my hand in a few restaurants around Fergusson and I have really enjoyed trying so many new things (usually ordering involves picking something at random from a menu because although they are printed in English, the names have no meaning to me). However, this happens only every once in a while. The Indian food that I am really talking about is the food that I eat every day. There is a structure to each of my meals that admittedly is pretty repetitive but one I find delicious and comforting. Maybe I will get sick of eating the same foods all the time down the line, but for now I am loving what I am eating.

Breakfast 8am:

During the week, the program center gives us breakfast. There is always yogurt, bananas, another fruit, oatmeal, boiled eggs, and tea. A carb-type portion varies from veg pastry puffs to a rice mixture to this savory thicker cream of wheat type stuff that I call mush throughout the week. There are always leftovers that we can snack on throughout the day.

On weekends, if I am home, my host mom makes me breakfast. We almost always have this dish, which is called pohe (po-hay). It is just pressed rice, spices, green chilis, and peanuts, but it is super delicious. We have it with tea, of course. 

Lunch 1pm:

Lunch is always the most varied meal. We are responsible for our own lunch, and so we go to restaurants during our lunchbreak, which is where I have learned what some different dishes are. The problem is that I don't really like doing that because I don't always have time to go to a restaurant, don't like having to take so much time to sit down, order and then eat, and I don't like not knowing how the food is prepared because I have no idea if it is healthy or not. This is us eating at a place I have gone to a lot because it is right across the street, really cheap and fast, and pretty tasty so therefore the most convenient option. I have come to realize that it is pretty fast-foody, though, and it makes me feel slightly sick, so I really don't like eating there. Luckily, our program staff is awesome and has now organized an ordered meal made by some woman out of her home that is more similar to what my host mom cooks that we can get every day if we want. Maybe it sounds like I have a lot of issues with my lunch-eating, but I'm not the only one so I don't feel bad about it at all.

Dinner 8:30pm:

Dinner is by far my favorite meal. I do everything I can to make sure I am home to eat at my host mom's house. She prepares the most simple but delicious meals. Explaining this meal will give you a really good representation of a typical Indian plate. At her house there is always rice, chapati, baji (which is basically vegetable mush), a vegetable (usually tomato and red onions) and yogurt salad, and dal. Dal is a liquid made from lentils, spices, and other vegetables. It can be eaten plain but is usually served over rice (which helps make the rice possible to eat with your hands, which I will show you in the next post!). Chapati is so important to the Indian diet that I am going to include a post just about chapatis later, but basically it is an Indian flatbread that is used as a tool to eat your food. But like I said, more about those later. The last thing you can see on this plate is something we don't always have but happened to when I took this picture. It is a sweet milky dessert made from grains and milk. Very good, and not too sweet. Indian desserts are INCREDIBLY sweet, way too sweet for me, so you won't really see me talk about them because I don't eat them. 

One more thing about dinner. The portion size here is only what I start out with. My mom always firmly insists that I take more, and I usually do. If I don't accept, she gives me more anyways. Oh and we eat that late because Indians eat that late, if not later. My host family doesn't eat until 10:00pm usually, but to be fair they do have a pretty late, and big, lunch and afternoon snack with their tea. 

Snacks:

If you notice, I have large breaks between my meals, especially between lunch and dinner. While I do often scrounge up some fruit or some leftover mush at the program center, I don't actually snack that often at all. Snacking is not anywhere as near as common here in India. Most of the food is prepared fresh-to-eat. So by the time I get to dinner, I'm usually starving. I compensate by eating bigger portions at every meal, which surprisingly is working out okay.