Eating Well (and Vegetarian?) in India (Part II)

As promised in my last post, I'd like to do a roundup of my favorite dishes from my recent trip to Pune, in Maharashtra, India.

First and foremost, the sheer selection of vegetarian dishes was incredible. As I've said before, I've struggled with the question of whether to go veg for quite a while, and I pretty much don't eat meat in public anymore unless I know exactly how it was raised. But it is not very easy to eat well and avoid meat here. In recent years, I had thought that eating vegetarian had become easy, especially in Boulder, until I started actually trying to do it. Unless you have an infinite tolerance for cheese quesadillas and iceberg lettuce salads, there isn't much to offer in restaurants. And eating in my house isn't any better. I run out of ideas after about 2 meat free meals per week.

In Pune, it seemed to me that you could eat vegetarian every day for a year and try a different vegetable based dish every day. You definitely don't feel like you're missing out.

A few of my favorites (please forgive my lack of proper names) -

Dal - a soup of yellow lentils that seems to be eaten with most meals. It is significantly better than dal that you get in restaurants here. I am on record as hating lentil soup, and I really liked this.

Okra - a dish of sliced okra, rubbed in some spice and either sauteed or deep fried (I couldn't tell) was juicy, crispy, spicy, sweet and pungent all at once.

Paneer - I tried lots of different curries with paneer (a dry, pressed cottage cheese that has a similar texture to firm tofu). My absolute favorite was one made with coconut milk, spices and almonds. I've never had almonds in a curry before, and now I'm wondering why.

A few observations about grains... given my love of whole wheat bread, I was pleasantly surprised to find that whole wheat flat breads (called roti, I think) were served with all the meals I had. My hotel served breakfast of a flat whole wheat bread, almost like a thicker tortilla, stuffed with a filling which changed each day, from spinach to potato to cauliflower. Tasty, healthy and filling ... this is how I like to start my day.

Not so with the rice though. I didn't come across any brown rice, although white rice was served with every meal.

Finally, after my (attempt at humorous) rant last time about there being no desserts in India, I'll take that back and say that I did have some great desserts, although I was sorely missing a good flaky pastry.

Those doughy balls swimming in sugar syrup that you get in every Indian lunch buffet here? I definitely did not expect to ever like these. They actually have a name (Galub Jamun) and they are actually really, really good. Kind of like a denser, more fragrant version of tiramisu without the marscapone or alcohol.

And my favorite dessert was homemade - a cross between rice pudding, with some spices and grated carrot mixed in. It was delicate and refreshing.

I came away feeling inspired to stray from my typical European cooking style (Italian in summer, Irish in winter!) to experiment with more vegetable-centric cuisines. Any cookbook recommendations out there??

Eating Well in India

I'm back - just returned from a work trip to Pune, India. I'm still completely exhausted with jet lag but wanted to update before my memory fades. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this trip. I've heard from my co-workers and other friends who've been there about the infamous heat, traffic, water induced sickness, and culture shock upon seeing some of the poorer areas, so I was prepared to be overwhelmed.

I will admit that I was too busy to get out and see much, so I won't pretend to be an expert on life in Pune. But what I did see I found completely alive and invigorating, especially in comparison to my scenic, but almost sleepy, home in Boulder.

Like many cities, Pune seems like a big jumbled up mess of contrasts. The outskirts are comprised of a giant, very modern, hi-tech park which houses a large percentage of India's IT sector, military bases, mixed in with small, rural villages that have been absorbed into the growing city. I saw a few different areas in the center of the city - one part still had that village feeling but there were high-rise apartment buildings right smack in the middle of it, and pigs, yes pigs, walking down the street. Another downtown sector located near a number of universities seemed cosmopolitan and modern, more similar to a South American city than to it's own outskirts.

Wait, wait, wait ... is this a travel blog or a food blog? That's right, it's food. So what about the food? In my next post, I'll talk about my favorite specific dishes ... before that I'd like to discuss a few interesting things I noticed about eating customs.

This may be a reflection of the fact that I mostly ate out, but I noticed that meals consist of small portions of three or four different dishes rather than one large entree. For instance, at one meal, about eight of us ordered four different dishes. The waiter served each of us a bit of each, occasionally refilling empty portions. I found this nice for two reasons. First, it was more social for everybody to taste and discuss the food together. Second, it was a nice way of eating just the right amount. In American restaurants, I usually find the portions to be just a little too big, so I overeat because I do not like to leave uneaten food on my plate.

I will mention one definite downside - people don't seem to eat much dessert, and what they do eat seems almost healthy, like rice pudding. No chocolate, no cake, no pastries. Geez, the only reason I eat out is so that I can get through dinner to try some new exotic dessert that I don't know how to make at home. In fact, people there tend to avoid many vices common to the American diet, specifically meat, alcohol, and obviously dessert. Perhaps I can understand the avoidance of meat, I struggle with this question myself. Avoiding alcohol I understand less. But dessert? This is a serious cultural shortcoming... life without the occasional well-made pain au chocolate is like life without, umm, life. Although I have noticed that people tend to be a little thinner there. Hmmm....

Finally, my traveling companion and I were treated with incredible generosity, especially with respect to meals. We were invited out for wonderful dinners, including one where we sampled local wine from India's budding wine industry, invited to one family's home for a delicious homemade dinner, and one gentleman even changed important family plans to include us and everyone from the office in these plans. Again, perhaps this was just my specific experience and not an actual cultural difference, but I do have a feeling that Americans are not quite as sociable as some other nationalities. If I compare how we were hosted by our co-workers in India to how we host them when they come to visit, we homebody Americans may suffer in the comparison.

Ok, so you might be getting the feeling that I liked it there. I did. Despite the traffic, which is quite entertaining to the visitor, probably not so entertaining to the daily commuter. It wasn't that hot while I was there. I managed to avoid the water (lips pressed tightly shut in the shower), so I didn't get sick. And I didn't venture far, so wouldn't say I saw a wide cross section of people. Given all of these caveats, I definitely enjoyed the trip.

Check in a few days to see some pictures and descriptions of interesting dishes I tried...