A treat we experienced sometimes in southern India was having the meal served on a palm leaf. These are freshly picked and washed, then spread like huge plates. After eating, the "plate" is simply tossed out for the cows to lick clean. It's wonderfully sensual for the eyes and fingers to eat from a palm leaf … and environmentally sound.

I also want to mention the beautiful metal vessels that are used for serving and eating from. Different sizes and designs of plates, bowls, trays, and drinking glasses are made of stainless steel. They're quite lovely, and when the whole table is set with them, it makes a nice display.

India is probably the best country in the world to be a vegetarian. We've heard one statistic that 60% of Indians are vegetarian ... and we think that may be conservative. For the non-vegs, chicken is most common, then mutton (sheep and goat). Cows are very holy to Hindus, so beef is not eaten. Pork is forbidden for the Moslems. We're vegetarian at home, and have a strong preference to be veg when we're abroad, so this is perfect for us.

We relish in the fact that, in India, food is always available. There are hawkers that sell in the trains and buses ... spicy snacks, ice cream, refreshing fresh, peeled cucumbers, cold drinks, samosas, pakora, tea ... And I want to mention that tea, being such an important part of life in India, is always served freshly prepared. In the trains that sometimes means that the vendors carry portable "stoves" with open fires and two pots, one for the tea and one for the milk. These are heated separately, then poured into a glass with sugar. Two glasses are used to pour the tea back and forth, mixing it well. A definite aficionado’s dream ... all at the price of 2 rupees (ca. $0.04).

Food stalls line the streets. Vendors are set up at the beach and at temples and at any site where there are people ... and there are people everywhere. In some places, "restaurants" appear in the streets in the evenings after traffic slows down. These are usually complete with portable kitchens, washstands, tables and chairs. We've had some of our best meals at these friendly places.

In some parts of India, we get tea, curd (yogurt-like), and ice cream from train and street vendors in simple pottery vessels. Incredulously, this pottery is intended for one-time use and then tossed. It seems such a shame, but such is the availability of cheap labor in India. "Use once and toss" when it’s earth-to-earth is a great improvement over the plastic cups and bags in gay colors that line railroad tracks and streets in too much of India.

I've digressed long enough … Now to get to the subject of food, one of the passions of the world. Big topic. Where to begin?

With breakfast, perhaps, since that’s the first meal of the day. Ah, yes, and we do have opinions about breakfasts. Much of India tries to serve us white toast and jam or an oily omelet. We found what we like … specifically southern Indian, but we sometimes find it in the north, too. This, our favorite breakfast, is idli. Idli is a steamed "cake", about the size of a small doughnut, made from a fermented batter of soaked and finely ground rice and urid dal (an Indian lentil). It’s very refreshing. This is served with coconut chutney and, as with all meals in southern India, a small bowl of sambar (a spiced toor dal soup). Another treat we had for breakfast in southern India was a steamed "cake" of rice and dried coconut. Wow! This was excellent! It seems to be a specialty of Mary’s alone, since we never saw it again.

Breads or Roti

India has a variety of breads. They’re unleavened, mostly of wheat. These are chapati, naan, poori, paratha, kulcha … In Kashmir, we got "Kashmiri bread", and Ladakh has it’s own Tibetan bread. Some of these are fried with oil or ghee (clarified butter), and some are baked in earth ovens alongside open flames. They’re as good as the chef is who made them. Sometimes they’re tasty, sometimes bland … always a good accompaniment to scoop up or sop up the vegetable and/or dal dishes.

1. Chai, the word for "tea" in much of the world. Besides water, this must be the most common drink in India. "Milk tea", we’ve learned to request, in order to get chai as the locals drink it. In the south of India, spices such as cardamom and pepper were sometimes added; this was called masala chai. Special Kashmiri tea was black tea made with Kashmiri tea leaves, cardamom (whole pods), a small amount of cinnamon stick, and a strand or two of saffron, and lightly sweetened with sugar. Mmmm. In Ladakh, tea was something quite different … made with butter and salt … important to the diets in that hard, stark land. I’m afraid that our guests back home in Seattle won’t be served this butter tea, even if they should ask for it. It isn't among my favorites, so to say.
2. Street vendors often sell sugar cane juice, freshly squeezed while you wait. We were surprised to find it not as sweet as expected. It was quite good and refreshing.
3. Fresh lemon or limewater has become a favorite refreshing drink. This is just as it sounds … freshly squeezed fruit and water (or soda) … with a small touch of sugar and "black" salt (salt "from stones"!?!?) In Hospet, Mrs. Sastry had added cardamom to her lemon drink. That was great.
4. Lassi. Wow! How we love lassi’s. These are blended yogurt and water, served "salt", "sweet", or "fruit". We find the salt lassi by far the most refreshing, and a friendly waiter taught us to add a touch of cumin. As I said before, "Wow!" Variations on the basic lassi are as wide as one’s creativeness. In one home (at Dhanya’s in Ernakulum), we had a lassi with chilies, ginger, curry leaves, and a dash of salt. Loved it! I’ve made lassi’s at home a few times, adding a touch of rosewater, and now I'll be experimenting to add different spices and fruits.

One of the great benefits when we travel in a country with lots of cheap fruit is that freshly squeezed fruit juices are often available.

We survive a lot of long bus trips by buying fruit, usually bananas and oranges. The mangoes are plentiful and wonderful, … papayas, pomegranates, coconuts, melons … Now cherries and lychee nuts (mmm!) are in season. A new fruit for me is jackfruit (chakkar). Actually, I’ve seen this often in tropical lands, but I don’t recall having tried it before. We liked this quite well. The jackfruit is a strange-looking growth. It sprouts directly from the trunk and branches of the tree on a short stem. The fruit gets quite huge, as big as a watermelon. The outside looks something like a hand grenade. On the inside, seeds are spread throughout, about the size of a jalapeno pepper. The edible fruit is sectioned around each of the seeds, about the size of a plum. Yellow. Quite good.

We love to try the different snacks in India. Street vendors often have dried chickpeas, peanuts, or other chewable delectables coated with a variety of spices. E.g., freshly made potato chips, extra thick, coated with chili powder. A new snack experience for us we found first in the streets of Calcutta. There, I saw a street vendor surrounded by several women and children, so I stood close by, not attempting to hide my interest. The vendor had an assortment of condiments and spices … fresh onion bits, dried nuts, popped rice, chopped cilantro, dried chickpeas, dried coconut flakes … salt, chili powder, cumin … The women were calling out how much of each ingredient as he added them to a large tin, then squeezed fresh lime over all, and mixed gently. This was poured into small bags (made of cleverly folded newspaper pages) and handed around. My interest in the process earned me a taste, too. We’ve enjoyed variations on this theme many times since, several times on trains and beaches.

A special treat that friends in Dehra Dun introduced me to is GolGappa … or "water balls". These are thin, hollow, puffed pastries about the size of golf balls. They’re filled with chili water. As you might imagine, you have to pop the whole thing in your mouth at once and close your lips before biting down. And then, Wow! What a hit! Now that I know what they are, I search them out in every town.

Another treat is Chaat. This seems to vary a lot, and I’m still tasting and learning. Basically, this is a small plateful of cubed fruit, vegetables, some pastries, or a combination of these. A dressing of tamarind paste and chilies, sometimes mixed with curd, is poured over the top. To be eaten with a spoon.

Samosas are the "fast food" of India. We often make a fast meal of these, although they’re officially a "snack". A circle of pastry dough is wrapped around a spoonful of cooked, spiced vegetables, shaped into a pyramid, and deep-fried. These are very tasty, and 2 or 3 of them are enough for a meal. Pakora, bhaji, and stuffed peppers are other deep-fried "snacks", similar to samosas.

Indians love sweets, and there are sweet shops galore. The sweets are often made with condensed milk, drained curd cheese, or powdered lentils and nuts. They’re sometimes covered with a thin sheet of decorative, edible silver leaf. Although Robert and I seldom eat the sweets, we have had one dessert in southern India that I liked very much, called khir or payasam. This is a pudding of vermicelli cooked in condensed milk, with cardamom and pistachio. Mmmm.

For a good, hearty meal once a day, order a thali. These can cost anywhere from Rs. (rupees) 20 to Rs. 50 ($0.50 to $1.00). This is usually the most inexpensive way of eating a full meal, and the plate is refilled as often as you like. The thali plate is divided into several sections or it’s a large tray-like plate with several small bowls accompanying … with rice on the large plate and the bowls filled with 2 or 3 vegetable dishes, sambar or rasam (soup), dal (lentils), curd, chutney, and pickles. A papadum often accompanies. That’s a crunchy, thin lentil "bread".

1. Palak panir – A thick sauce of chopped spinach and chunks of sautéed curd-cheese
2. Aloo gobi – Potato and cauliflower with a tasty cumin sauce
3. Malai kofta – Minced vegetable balls with special sauce
4. Vegetable jhal frazi - Spicy, hot sauce on tomatoes and chilies
5. Vegetable biryani - Partially cooked rice, layered with vegetables, and baked with saffron
6. Masala dosai – We love these, and my efforts to make them at home have been frustrating. I’ve had some special tips from friends here now, so shall try again. But the wonderful dosai we’ve had here can’t really be replicated. This is a "crepe" of rice and lentil flours, served with a potato and onion filling. A "paper dosa" is huge … often more than ½ meter across.