Food, glorious food

Maya, our Eating Coach

Eating South Indian food takes instruction and practice. That's right - you don't just eat it, it's an entire process, and we got schooled by Maya on the proper methods and technique. The Maya Method works well, so I'm taking it as gospel.

Thali lunch

South Indian food comes on a large metal plate with many smaller dishes. This meal is called a Thali - a veritable buffet of choices mixed together on one plate. We've had several different Thalis (in Delhi, Ahmedabad, our first night in Madurai...), but it wasn't until our lunch on Thursday in Madurai that we got the proper method explained to us. And it really does make a difference...

A South Indian Thali consists of rice, soupy veggies and curries, dry veggies, curd, and many sauces. It comes on a large, lipped platter, usually lined with paper or a leaf. The lip is important - here's why.

Before you begin the meal, remove all the "wet" dishes from the plate, leaving the dishes of vegetables and the rice in the space you've created.  You start with the sambar. This is a mild soup-like dish made with lentils. You divide off a portion of rice and pour the dish of sambar onto it, mixing with your fingers. And not just two or three fingers... if you're going to eat, you gotta get your whole hand into it! You have to mix well (or Mother Maya will tell you you're eating it wrong...!) Then you begin to eat.

And eating is a method in itself. Indian rice isn't sticky, it's the grainy, separated kind that doesn't stay together. And with the soup you've just added, it's not easy getting it into your mouth. The "scoop" technique means you basically have to shovel the food in your fingers and push it into your mouth. There's no delicate way to do this, unless you want to starve.

As you eat your sambar rice, you can add some vegetables - we've had different okras, tomatoes, beans, carrots, and potatoes. They've all been delicious, each cooked in very different flavors and with varying degrees of spiciness. After the sambar, we moved on to the rasam. This is a much soupier dish, with a sour tamarind base and tomatoes. Pour it onto the next portion of rice. The rasam turns your plate into a flood zone, and you're supposed to use the "advanced scoop" method to somehow get this into your mouth. I tried and sort-of did it, but cheated at the end and used my fried papad to scoop up the rest.

The final rice mix is with your curd, a yogurt-like sauce that Maya says is like "home cooking" - if you're ever feeling ill or homesick, just have curd rice and all your troubles go away.

Lunch view, at the CCD farm

The Thalis that we've had in other places are often served by people who come down the line with vats of food, giving scoops of whatever you want onto your plate (instead of having individual little dishes served at once). Other times, we've gone down a buffet line, picking and choosing (and often asking for a taste of everything, because... we've gotta try it!). Every time, it's so much more food than we're able to eat, and always, always delicious.

Dinner at the CM Center