Thursday, February 25, 2010

#5 All Food is Finger Food

Welcome to the first in a five part series entitled, “5 Things We Really Like About India”!


For those who know me (Courtney) well, you don’t need much explanation of the above title to understand how happy it makes me to say it. I have always loved playing with my food. In high school I would sit at Steak ‘n Shake, bumming food off my friends usually, and at the end of the meal would create some disgusting concoction that would make my friends “ooo” and “aahh” (not totally true. Reality was more like, “gross, Courtney”). I have since graduated from salt, ketchup and hot pepper mixtures to gravitating toward taco bars. Any hands-on eating experience warms my heart. That being said, I think I was specially made for this part of Indian life. Every meal is eaten with your hands (actually, ‘hand’, maybe I’ll explain that one later…). The traditional way to eat is to combine rice and some “gravy” into a mushy ball, pick it up with your right hand and roll it into your mouth. Only the truly gifted can do this without tipping their head back to catch the food; we are nearly there. I absolutely love it.


Neil has always told me that I’ll never be able to tell our kids to stop playing with their food. If they grow up here, I won’t have to. :)

2 comments:

Lena said...

haha...Ugandans eat like that too! My first time doing it (back in 2006) I was informed that eat like a toddler because I didnt scoop it right.. :)I think Im getting better but still no where near mastery...how do they do it when the food is so hot it burns your fingers?! thats what I want to know!

Rachel said...

Oooo, I would fit right in. I got in trouble numerous times as a child for playing with my food. I should have just told my mom that I was being cultural. If I had only known.