Last week I told you that I did not eat any snacks in between but ate the meals that I had prepared. I have always liked to cook my food myself on my travels and I love eating anyway so I liked to share this joy with others. I carried my spices with me, cooked and fed my hosts, too, who usually enjoyed the Indian food very much.
When I stayed with Indians, the woman of the house used to cook and was happy if I liked the food she had made. Obviously they knew how to cook Indian food but sometimes even they had to adjust their recipes – because I have never in my life eaten hot food! Whenever a little bit of chili is in the food, I just feel like my whole mouth burns and I have to eat half a bowl of yoghurt for getting my throat back to normal. I am just not used to hot food while Indian food is usually cooked with lots of chili! My hosts however did their best to save my taste buds from burning and I really enjoyed the food most of the time.
When staying with westerners however, a fully different problem arose. Obviously, my western hosts also had the wish to invite me for a dinner they cooked themselves instead of always having me standing in their kitchen and inviting them for meals in their own home. Especially with my bad leg I received lots of invitations – but I was always careful to accept because I first had to explain what I would not be able to eat: as a strict vegetarian that included not only meat and fish but also egg and with my yogic diet I did not only stay away from any kind of chili but also from onions and garlic.
Many people told me that the western vegetarian kitchen would not have many more tasty possibilities then – and especially most sweet dishes were made with eggs. But I always stayed with lovely hosts and then they often just helped me with preparing the food in Indian style. Some of them however found a few dishes that they could prepare for me.
I was offered pasta – but although I tried it again and again in the years to come, I never really liked it. The consistency, this feeling of your teeth sticking together a bit when biting on it and then way the pasta feels when you chew it was and is not something that I liked.
Once someone said he would make dinner and when I asked what it would be he said ‘A nice, big salad!’ I looked at him, waiting for more but that was it! He was not about to say ‘and some roasted vegetables’ or anything like this! I asked ‘That’s it? Nothing else?’ I just could not believe it because I was used to a meal that includes at least rice, lentils and a vegetable dish. On top of that I would eat bread and take some yoghurt. How can you fill your stomach eating only salad? Although I liked salad as a side dish, I could not have dinner without at least one warm dish!
Finally however I found a dish that I liked and it was also Italian: pizza. Not however the way most people like it, with one or two toppings. I like pizza with a whole mixed vegetable dish on top of it. There has to be lots of vegetables and of various kind – that’s how it feels to me it is a full meal!
And while pizza is the one thing in the west that people eat with hands, it is the dish on which I for the first time tried my skills with fork and knife. It took some practice but at some point I managed to use them properly and until now I somehow like eating this one dish with fork and knife.
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