food and culture

I've been thinking a lot about food in its various manifestations, and what it means to eat, and how, and when, and where, and why.  This being the land of contrasts, I have been evaluating and re-evaluating all of these ideas, and my relationship to land, to food, and to health.  Here is a place where poverty reigns, both in the urban and rural settings (at least the rural poor can grow food).  Here, you can see two prominent faces of malnourishment - the bloated upper class bellies filled with more food (of varying degrees of healthfulness) than they need, and the bloated bellies of the impoverished, who go without, who beg, or who fight off pigs in dumpsters for leftover scraps of food.  These images are very hard to reconcile, and coming from a place of abundant food and a society of weight problems, I can't help but think that more places than one need to readjust their food culture. 

Here at the farm, our standard meal for lunch and dinner is dahl, chapati, white rice, and a potato + eggplant or bhindi (lady's fingers = okra) dish.  I feel my body pining away for calcium sources - where is the infamous curd? - and begging me for green leafy things.  Despite being surrounded by green growing things, they are not served.  The volunteers/interns regularly request brown rice instead of white, sugarless chai instead of sweetened, and more green food.  Sometimes we are treated with greens (though frequently fried), and if lucky, a spoonful of yoghurt, but it seems odd to me to come away from an organic vegetarian meal feeling filled but not full.  One beautiful soul here is diabetic, and she feels most directly the havoc this diet is wreaking upon our blood sugar levels.  We've resorted to storing stashes of almonds, roasted chickpeas, peanut butter and other protein sources in our rooms, and foraging for edible raw greens (sesame leaf, amaranth leaf, herbs) at every chance.  Also, we keep ensuring that we go into town once in a while for different kinds of foods!

Ramgarh, the village in which the farm is located, is very rural, and it seems to me as though most food consumed is grown right here.  At the end of the work day, the women collect greens for their evening meals before going home.  Every evening at 6, Sunil goes with his tin can to the neighbour's house to get milk fresh from the cow.  One evening I went with him, as well as two other volunteers, and we ended up being invited in to the courtyard while the cow was being milked.  After an hour or so of awkward conversation in broken Hindi and English and many many smiles and photographs, we were invited inside the house, where one of the children was celebrating a birthday.  Many people crowded in, and after the count of three, the children all jumped around popping balloons which exploded with sharp pops and cracks, accompanied by the sounds of delighted screams, and a large white birthday cake with pink icing was divided into probably a hundred tiny pieces and doled out on napkins and paper plates along with a small handful of snack food, a hard candy, and a biscuit.  Chai was served in tall glasses, and everyone ate and smiled some more.

On a completely different occasion, I experienced a much more intense and almost reverent relationship with food, in contrast with the celebration in Ramgarh.  Spending the weekend in Rishikesh not too long ago, we stayed at an ashram that served meals in this room:

On the wall is written a short prayer that was sung before each meal, and each of the little tables you see along the perimeter of the wall is an individual dining table.  Meals were consumed in silence.  Fellow ashram-stayers helped to serve each person from a large bucket that made its way around the room twice - once to fill the plate, and once again shortly after for seconds for those extra hungry.  The food served was flavourful, fresh, without much oil or overpowering spice.  I noticed that all of us took longer to eat than we normally would when conversing and laughing, as we thought more about each mouthful, and many sat long after they had finished eating, digesting and meditating.  I was full and complete feeling here after each meal, but it was probably also the most varied and diverse diet I've had since arriving in India (lassi, semolina porridge, vegetables with each meal, the best mango I've ever eaten in my life one morning at breakfast, dahl, chapati, rice, poa for breakfast...).

And then, for something completely different... the two people in the above photograph are viki and a woman who goes only by american mother - representing a business partnership struck between an indian family and an american expat living in Rishikesh.  The name of their enterprise is "The Flying Tiger" and they serve a small but delicious menu, including items such as hot chocolate, tomato soup, grilled yak's cheese sandwiches, and ginger butter banana pancakes.  Between the two of them, they are trying to improve the livelihood of the family, and american mother is concerned with the sourcing of ethical ingredients and materials for the food, clothing, and crafts that they sell.

Here is Julia, enjoying hot chocolate one night before a dash in the monsoon back to the ashram.

If you look closely, you can spot the "Flying Tiger" sign in the middle of this street.

The delicious menu...

And Julia enjoying a lemon mint slushy.

This is a page I came across while at the Flying Tiger... the diet for immortality.  Check it out, if you dare!

And one more thought about food: I have just returned from an impromptu and unexpected feast.  One of the staff at the farm, Anand, lost his father a month ago.  He has been away from the farm for a while, but today we got to see him again!  The lunch bell dinged, and we headed toward the dining hall, but were stopped at the pass by Jai Singh, who insisted we get in a car.  We were going somewhere else to eat! Four of us volunteers/interns and four staff loaded into the jeep and headed out to what turned out to be Anand's family home, just five minutes down the road.  There were many people present, and the family was serving two long rows of people seated on the floor chawal (rice), subji (vegetable dish - this one from some kind of squash), channa (chickpea curry), puri (fried dough), raita (yoghurt with puffed grain and spices), and kheer (rice pudding).  We white women were given spoons, though I'm determined to master the art of eating rice and sloppy curries one-handed eventually. It was delicious, but oh so much.  I found it interesting that Anand's family was busy serving and taking care of all the guests, and the women and men sat on separate sides of the yard - some of the women loudly crying.  We met Anand's young daughter and son, his wife, and his brothers, and this was a food experience intensely tied to family, tradition, and ritual (30 day mark after the death of his father).

I know the rest of this journey is going to be a continued examination of food and culture, but before I can share more, I am wondering now, what are your experiences out there in the world?