Eat better, travel better: a new India advisory

The inevitability of India’s food barriers, an orthodoxy born of centuries, is visible when you travel. Whether outside a network of stalagmite-filled caves in Meghalaya or inside Bengaluru’s lush and glittering Terminal 2, travelers eat what they’re used to.

Outside the Meghalaya caves, there are stalls with Bengali food, Assamese food – given the preponderance of tourists from both states – Khasi food and ‘Indian’ food. aloo parathas, is the most popular, and the Khasi stall is empty. Jadoh, this wonderful marriage of pork and red rice, is obviously too radical for the mainstream Indian tourist.

The reason I always eat local is because that’s what my parents did when they traveled, which was entirely in India. An honest government servant, which is who my father was, he could not afford to leave the country (when they retired and went abroad, they enjoyed going to Greek restaurants in Florida, Thai restaurants in Bangkok) . When he was in service and deployed in the interior of Manipur, my father happily ate grasshoppers and rats. Most of our vacations were spent on 48-hour journeys across on trains that zipped from one corner of India to the other.

The Tamil Nadu Express, the Jammu Tawi Express – they were household names. Unlike most families who brought packed food from home, we ate what came from the stations along the way. Those were the days before IRCTC, silver catering. Lunch and dinner depended on which part of the country the train passed through: fiery chicken curry from Katpadi in Tamil Nadu, spare parts, southern biryani wrapped in foil and paper from Warangal (then part of Andhra Pradesh, now in Telangana).

Over time, I realized that Indian travelers were far from unique in being unable to adapt to local cultures and cuisine. The Chinese and Americans are as bad as the Gujarati tourist, the poha-chivda stowing Maharashtrians, and the many other stereotypes that amuse us.

The orthodoxy and ignorance of the races are clear in Goa, that entrepot of both national and international tourists. In the tourist trap of Candolim, you’ll find Raju’s Happy Shed, an apparent favorite of Western tourists, offering everything from scrambled eggs to steak and kidney pie. In the corner, of course, you can get Jain “pure veg” food without onion.

On a recent weekend, I was part of a pool volleyball match at a south Goa resort where determined ignorance and culinary prowess were on full display. Among the players was a Kazakh father and his two teenage sons and two traveling companions from Bengaluru. One of the Kannadigas – for reasons unknown – kept up a steady stream of volleyball instructions to myself and the Kazakhs in shaky Hindi, and the Kazakh father corps responded in broken English and Russian. Somehow, we understand each other.

When the family was getting out of the pool, one of my fellow Kannadigas asked where they were from. Kazakhstan, answered one of the teenagers. What is it? asked the man.

Confused, the boy replied, “A village.”

Where?

“In Asia, near Russia.”

I can’t say if the Kazakhs were more enlightened about the world, but their approach to travel and food was obvious: they never ventured outside the resort – except to the beach – and they never tried local food, attached to grilled tomatoes, fried chicken and bread. The culinary divide in tourist hotels is stark: most Indians line up for dosas, aloo puri or poha, Westerners for chicken sausages, bacon, cereal and bread.

In view of this culinary conservatism of the world in general, I am most impressed by the husband’s approach to travel and food. Always try local food, even in countries and places where it is not vegetarian friendly. She refuses to go to Indian or pure-veg restaurants, finds the only thing she can eat and stays on what she calls “a liquid diet”.

In Amritsar, there was no problem – he looked for the best chhola and kulcha. In Nagaland, she was dismayed to find no vegetarian entries on any menus, but soon discovered “welcome dishes,” usually local green and red rice. In Meghalaya, he found a dal made from the jamyrdoh plant. In Italy, he ate. artichokes On Lake Titicaca in Peru, he ate boiled rice and raw, shaved carrots. What did you eat in Peru and Brazil? I asked. “I can only remember pisco sour and Cuscena beer and in Brazil, caipirinha,” he said. .

Eating local does more than expand your culinary experience and introduce you to exciting new tastes, it puts you in touch with local culture and characters. On a visit to south Goa, a couple who ran a small liquor store (with their children rummaging through the bottles) sent us to an unlikely restaurant called Pentagon. It was a little gem, nestled amidst glistening buffalo-spotted paddies. The patrons were almost entirely local, a band played on Sundays, and the hot toddy offered by the jovial manager fixed my lingering throat infection. So, too, at the best-known Martin’s, packed on Monday afternoons, especially with Konkani-speaking families ordering roasted tongue, chilli beef and mackerel rechado.

In rural Tamil Nadu, I once stopped at a small shack suggested by my taxi driver. I was skeptical because it seemed to fall below my flexible standards. It was dingy, lit by sunlight streaming in through a torn thatched roof, and there were four unbalanced tables with newspaper for tissue. But the Chettinad mutton curry and rice was sweet and fragrant, confirming – not that I needed it – that culinary barriers are only as inescapable as you make them.

Our daily bread is a column about easy and inventive cooking. Samar Halarnkar is the author of The Married Man’s Guide To Creative Cooking—And Other Dubious Adventures. Post @samar11 on Twitter.