Finding good food to eat continues to be a challenge for me in India. I am not seeking foods that are Western in nature. In fact, I want to eat more local foods and I had expected that by now I would be eating Indian food all the time but there are several hurdles that I have yet to clear. The first hurdle is that for the most part when I sit down to a meal in NA, I recognize each food item on my plate. Here, however, most food is mashed or pureed before serving and even the people eating it do not really know what is in it. Also, when an Indian says "It is not spicy." do not believe them! I believe their taste buds are blown out and they need more and more spice just to taste the food.
Indians, generally, eat the same food at each meal unlike a NA who will eat something for breakfast, something different for lunch and something different again for dinner. To date, I have only tried a few dishes, cheese dosa, which I have had several times. Dosa is a very thin rice pancake that more likely could be called flat bread, I do not know where the cheese is because it is rolled around some mashed potatoes that are peppery (maybe there is cheese in the potatoes). To an Indian, this is very bland so it is served with spicy dips which I tasted but did not eat. I also tried dal which is mashed yellow lentils with spices in a broth form (it can be a paste as well) which is served over rice, I had mine with the dal on the side and used maybe a tablespoon of the lentil broth with my rice, so I really just had lightly flavoured white rice.
Someone from NA, especially Canada, might ask, "Where are you keeping this one billion plus people? Is there anywhere left to stand? India, although the 7th largest country in the World can still fit inside the two largest provinces of Canada, a place where we are only storing 15 Million people. So there must not be anyplace left to stand, right? Actually, they are rather piled on top of each other in the cities but there is plenty of space around them which then makes one wonder, why are people starving if there is land left to plant food. India could learn a lesson or two from Cuba on using unused spaces. They have nearly year round growing conditions, no issues with ground water. As a hobby farmer, I would love to stake a claim here and turn some of this unused soil into arable ;and. Today, however, I did see an excellent example of urban farming. Along the tracks on what is assumably government land some locals were tilling the soil and planting some type of vegetable.
I did finally make it to D Mart today, I want to apologize to WalMart for mistakenly comparing the two. D Mart, while it is far ahead of its counterparts in India in terms of its approach, it is more akin to a Kresge's or a Woolworth, if any of you are old enough to remember visiting these stores. Do not misunderstand, there is no reason to try to attract Western buyers, I haven't seen any other Westerners, although I did see two Chinese guys last week. It is just that I have been trying to get to a D Mart for several weeks now so I had had high expectations and was seriously let down by the experience.
Can I get a burger please with those fries?
Indians, generally, eat the same food at each meal unlike a NA who will eat something for breakfast, something different for lunch and something different again for dinner. To date, I have only tried a few dishes, cheese dosa, which I have had several times. Dosa is a very thin rice pancake that more likely could be called flat bread, I do not know where the cheese is because it is rolled around some mashed potatoes that are peppery (maybe there is cheese in the potatoes). To an Indian, this is very bland so it is served with spicy dips which I tasted but did not eat. I also tried dal which is mashed yellow lentils with spices in a broth form (it can be a paste as well) which is served over rice, I had mine with the dal on the side and used maybe a tablespoon of the lentil broth with my rice, so I really just had lightly flavoured white rice.
I did finally make it to D Mart today, I want to apologize to WalMart for mistakenly comparing the two. D Mart, while it is far ahead of its counterparts in India in terms of its approach, it is more akin to a Kresge's or a Woolworth, if any of you are old enough to remember visiting these stores. Do not misunderstand, there is no reason to try to attract Western buyers, I haven't seen any other Westerners, although I did see two Chinese guys last week. It is just that I have been trying to get to a D Mart for several weeks now so I had had high expectations and was seriously let down by the experience. Can I get a burger please with those fries?
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