I'm afraid that I am officially obsessed with food. Is anybody else completely obsessed like I am? I find myself more interested in the food I eat now more than ever. This is probably due to the fact that I am living without some of the foods that I am used to eating, but it also might be because I have time to actually cook a real meal and try new recipes. There are so many differences in the way we "do food" in America compared to how things are done in India. I thought it might be interesting to note some of these differences. I am in no way saying that the way we do food in America is better. I am also not complaining about the food we have eaten here in Bangalore. Bangalore is a city in which you have access to almost any type of food that the world has to offer. With that being said, just because it is there doesn't mean it is affordable or readily accessible. There are certain food items that we will splurge for, and there are certain food items that we just live without due to cost or unavailability. So here is my list of 20 differences that I have experienced on a first hand basis related to food, eating, dining, and methods of cooking. Hope you enjoy!
1. I love to bake! It is one of my absolute favorite things to do. I would much rather bake than cook a meal any day. I have also encouraged this love for baking in my daughter Molly. According to her, I am not allowed to bake unless she can help. It is definitely something we love to do together. Here in India we have found that chocolate chips and granulated sugar are a precious commodity. For 1/2 cup of chocolate chips I pay $1. Back in the U.S. I could get an entire bag of chocolate chips (almost 2cups) for $1. For 1 cup of granulated sugar I pay 50 cents here in India. In America you can get a 5lb bag for super cheap. So I am definitely paying a lot more money to support my baking habits here. Chocolate chips and granulated sugar are definitely things I will splurge for. I love my sweets :)
2. I have decided that mango juice is the best juice there is. It must be in our fridge at all times!
3. Crockpots do not exist here. You can buy one off of amazon for $50, which is crazy expensive! Especially when you know you can get one for $5 on a Black Friday sale in the US. Luckily one of my American friends is letting me borrow hers while she is back home having her 3rd baby. We have put it to good use and now I don't ever want to give it back! (Thanks Mandy)
4. Produce here is super cheap! We have access to wonderful produce almost every day. No, it's not displayed as nicely as the aisles in a Hy-Vee grocery store, nor do we have as much of a selection, but it is sufficient to meet our everyday produce needs. Plus it is super fresh! For example for 1kg (2.2lbs) of tomatoes we will spend around 20-30 cents. The same goes for 1kg of onions. These are staples here of course, but it is much less expensive than in the US. Some things are impossible to find like peaches and most berries. Occasionally I will splurge and by a package of strawberries, but this is quite rare. But as I mentioned in my last post, we have been able to try all sorts of new produce, with Mangos being one of them. I definitely love eating fresh, as opposed to a bag frozen veggies, or out of a can.
5. Speaking of eating food out of can, this brings me to my next difference. In the US we have many "dump and pour meals." This is what I like to call, you open up a can of something and you dump it/pour it and mix it with other ingredients to make your meal. For example: tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, tomato puree, tomato soup, chicken broth, cream of whatever soup, etc. These are all things that make cooking very convenient in the US. If I really want, I can find some of these canned items, but they are very expensive and not usually worth buying. Most of the time they would require an extra trip to a grocery store that is not nearby. So I usually have to avoid any recipe that says "just add a can of… (fill in the blank)."
6. Since I'm on the topic of recipes I will mention this: Pinterest is not helpful for finding new recipes due to what I mentioned in number 5. I cannot quick go to the store and buy a roll of crescent rolls or a package of cream cheese. I cannot buy a bag of individually wrapped caramels to make those yummy bars, and I cannot buy a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups to add to that dessert. (Well I guess I could buy a bag of Reeses, but it would cost me $10 minimum). Sometimes I do search pinterest, but I usually end up going through about 20 recipes to find one that contains ingredients that I have readily available at my market.
7. I am really missing Greek yogurt. I used to eat one of these every day, so it was hard to go without it once we moved here. The yogurt that they have here is also known by the name "curd." Curd is a staple here. It's usually not sweetened or flavored, so it tastes rather sour to me. It comes in all shapes and sizes from small yogurt-size containers to large tubs. Indians eat a lot of curd to balance out the spice that they eat with each meal. I have found that if I put about 3 tsp of sugar and some fruit in my cup of curd I can eat it. I also enjoy making smoothies with it too. I still miss my flavored yogurts though.
8. After buying and drinking organic milk for 7 months I still don't like the taste it. I don't think I ever will. Sorry to you organic milk lovers out there.
9. Cheese. I didn't realize this until an Indian pointed this fact out to me. As Americans, WE LOVE CHEESE. We eat cheese with almost anything and with almost any meal. You can find nice cheese here, but you will pay a hefty price for it. In fact, I haven't had parmesan cheese since we left America. Oooooh I miss my cheese. You also won't find any bags of shredded cheese. I do miss the convenience of opening a bag of shredded cheese and adding it to most of my meals. The taste of the cheese here used to repulse me, but now I don't even notice it; in fact I actually don't mind it.
10. If you go to the market in search of green bell peppers you better ask for capsicum. I didn't know that green bell peppers had 2 names! Cilantro is another thing at the market that goes by a different name…coriander leaf. Some of you "foodies" out there probably already knew this, but I'm still learning!
11. The beef here is not that great. It is hard to find better beef than what we have in Iowa and South Dakota, so I guess I have a high beef standard. Due to this fact we tend to eat a lot of chicken. A lot of Indians are vegetarians and even if they aren't vegetarians they might only eat meat 1-2 times per week total. We are used to eating it with almost every single meal of the week. In fact many Americans won't consider it a real meal unless it has meat in it. I don't mind eating vegetarian, but my husband on the other hand hates it when I cook vegan.
12. There have been days when we cook eggs for every meal. I have learned that when the cupboards are bare you can always get a rock solid meal out of eggs. We make egg salad sandwiches, egg bakes, fried eggs, hard-boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, egg burritos, you name it. Eggs are easily accessible and make for a good source of protein when we run out of or get sick of chicken.
13. I have officially fallen in love with my pressure cooker. I had never even heard of one of these until I moved here. Now I use it almost every day. I use it to cook my rice, lentils, chicken, veggies, almost anything. I'm slowly learning how many whistles it takes to cook each item. I've also learned not to have John in the kitchen when using my pressure cooker because the whistles terrify him to death.
14. We have drastically changed our mealtimes since living here. The Indian mealtimes are much later than what we were accustomed to. We do eat breakfast at a fairly normal hour, about 8:00am. Lunch isn't usually served until 1:00-1:30pm (which is probably pretty early for Indians), and supper is usually at 8:00pm (which is also early for Indians). You won't find many restaurants that will start serving you supper until at least 7:00pm. You also won't find any coffee shop or restaurant open before 9:00am. Kris really misses getting a coffee before heading into work.
15. Homemade, homemade, homemade. I think that I mentioned this in my Thanksgiving meal post a while back. You don't find many things pre-packaged here. For example I have started to make my own tortillas for when we have tacos or fajitas (I do have the taco seasoning imported from generous family members). Tacos used to be a "go to" meal for me. It was a quick and easy to meal that I could make when we were in a hurry. Now it is a meal that takes me about 2hrs to prepare. I must say though that homemade tortillas are definitely worth the time to make. You can find taco seasoning and tortillas here but once again they are a bit costly. I have also learned how to make my own chocolate sauce, carmel sauce, and tomato/spaghetti sauce. All of my baked goods are totally from scratch as well. You can find cake mixes, but they are also very expensive. I also have Martha Stewarts pancake recipe memorized.
16. Speaking of pancakes…lets move on to the subject of maple syrup. I love my pancakes and french toast with lots of maple syrup. Maple syrup is something that we have decided we cannot live without. For a bottle of maple syrup that only contains 2% maple we pay $7-8!!! This bottle in the US would only cost about $1-2. Want the real stuff? You're looking at $20. I can't believe I spend that much on maple syrup, but some things are just totally worth it in my mind.
17. You will rarely see Indians using silverware to eat. Indians believe that food is meant to be experienced with all of your senses. You not only see, smell, and taste the food; but you must also touch the food to truly experience it. They somehow make eating with your hands look very easy. I have not mastered this art yet, but I try it every time we eat Indian.
18. Pots and pans are known as "vessels" here. You use many, many, many vessels when you cook Indian food. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a dishwasher here, because the vessels would never get clean in a dishwasher. Plus it would be a waste of water and electricity to run a dishwasher. Most Indians have a "house-helper" that will assist you in washing the many vessels you use when making Indian food. You also do not have hot water to wash your dishes with. I am starting to get really fast at washing dishes!
19. I love, love, love cold water. Indians prefer to drink water that is room temp. Many Indians believe that you can get a cold from drinking any beverages that are chilled or even by eating ice-cream. I believe that cold water quenches my thirst so much better than room-temp water. However, I am getting used to drinking room-temp water as well.
20. I love Indian food!!!! This was not always the case for me as it has become somewhat of an acquired taste. I have now found myself craving Indian food. I still can't tolerate a lot of heat/spice, but that is the beauty of making it in your own home. Now I can enjoy all of the flavors and spices that Indian food has to offer without all of the heat. I simply cut down on the number of chiles or the amount of chile powder that I use. We make a lot of gravy's, masala's, dal, rice, chapati's, roti's, and dosas. This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Indian cooking. Indian cooking is complex and labor intensive. I allow myself at least 2-3hrs to prepare an Indian meal. I have to give a big thank you to my friend Joanne who gave me my first Indian cooking lesson. I also have to thank my friend Anita who has graciously shared some wonderful recipes with me. If there are any Indians out there that want to share more recipes with me, or that want to teach an eager American how to cook, please let me know! I will close this post with a recipe that my friend Joanne taught be how to make:
Chicken Curry
-0.5 kg boneless, skinless chicken breast cut into bite size pieces
-Marinate the chicken:
-1tsp salt
-1 tsp chile powder
-1 tsp garlic ginger paste
-4 TBSP curd
-Heat 2 TBSP of oil in pan with 2 cloves and 1 cinnamon stick
-add 3 chopped onions and 2 chiles chopped. Sauté until onions are clear.
-add 1 tsp garlic ginger paste
-add 4 tomatoes chopped
-add 1 tsp coriander powder
-add a pinch of turmeric
-add marinaded chicken
-add 1 tsp of chile powder
-(if too spicy add more curd)
-simmer gravy on low until chicken is completely cooked and gravy thickens.
-finally stir in a small bunch of chopped cilantro (coriander leaf).
Serve with chapatis, roti's, or naan.
Sorry Joanne if I missed something, but this is how I have been making it since you taught it to me! Hope you all will try it out!!
Well I'm sure there are many more differences that I have failed to point out. Once again, my aim in this post was only to simply point out a few differences between the two places/cultures. I, in no way, want to offend either culture on how we both experience food. I am also not claiming to be an expert, but am only offering my own personal observations. It has been so much fun trying new things, and I hope you all found this as interesting as I have!
1. I love to bake! It is one of my absolute favorite things to do. I would much rather bake than cook a meal any day. I have also encouraged this love for baking in my daughter Molly. According to her, I am not allowed to bake unless she can help. It is definitely something we love to do together. Here in India we have found that chocolate chips and granulated sugar are a precious commodity. For 1/2 cup of chocolate chips I pay $1. Back in the U.S. I could get an entire bag of chocolate chips (almost 2cups) for $1. For 1 cup of granulated sugar I pay 50 cents here in India. In America you can get a 5lb bag for super cheap. So I am definitely paying a lot more money to support my baking habits here. Chocolate chips and granulated sugar are definitely things I will splurge for. I love my sweets :)
2. I have decided that mango juice is the best juice there is. It must be in our fridge at all times!
3. Crockpots do not exist here. You can buy one off of amazon for $50, which is crazy expensive! Especially when you know you can get one for $5 on a Black Friday sale in the US. Luckily one of my American friends is letting me borrow hers while she is back home having her 3rd baby. We have put it to good use and now I don't ever want to give it back! (Thanks Mandy)
4. Produce here is super cheap! We have access to wonderful produce almost every day. No, it's not displayed as nicely as the aisles in a Hy-Vee grocery store, nor do we have as much of a selection, but it is sufficient to meet our everyday produce needs. Plus it is super fresh! For example for 1kg (2.2lbs) of tomatoes we will spend around 20-30 cents. The same goes for 1kg of onions. These are staples here of course, but it is much less expensive than in the US. Some things are impossible to find like peaches and most berries. Occasionally I will splurge and by a package of strawberries, but this is quite rare. But as I mentioned in my last post, we have been able to try all sorts of new produce, with Mangos being one of them. I definitely love eating fresh, as opposed to a bag frozen veggies, or out of a can.
5. Speaking of eating food out of can, this brings me to my next difference. In the US we have many "dump and pour meals." This is what I like to call, you open up a can of something and you dump it/pour it and mix it with other ingredients to make your meal. For example: tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, tomato puree, tomato soup, chicken broth, cream of whatever soup, etc. These are all things that make cooking very convenient in the US. If I really want, I can find some of these canned items, but they are very expensive and not usually worth buying. Most of the time they would require an extra trip to a grocery store that is not nearby. So I usually have to avoid any recipe that says "just add a can of… (fill in the blank)."
6. Since I'm on the topic of recipes I will mention this: Pinterest is not helpful for finding new recipes due to what I mentioned in number 5. I cannot quick go to the store and buy a roll of crescent rolls or a package of cream cheese. I cannot buy a bag of individually wrapped caramels to make those yummy bars, and I cannot buy a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups to add to that dessert. (Well I guess I could buy a bag of Reeses, but it would cost me $10 minimum). Sometimes I do search pinterest, but I usually end up going through about 20 recipes to find one that contains ingredients that I have readily available at my market.
7. I am really missing Greek yogurt. I used to eat one of these every day, so it was hard to go without it once we moved here. The yogurt that they have here is also known by the name "curd." Curd is a staple here. It's usually not sweetened or flavored, so it tastes rather sour to me. It comes in all shapes and sizes from small yogurt-size containers to large tubs. Indians eat a lot of curd to balance out the spice that they eat with each meal. I have found that if I put about 3 tsp of sugar and some fruit in my cup of curd I can eat it. I also enjoy making smoothies with it too. I still miss my flavored yogurts though.
8. After buying and drinking organic milk for 7 months I still don't like the taste it. I don't think I ever will. Sorry to you organic milk lovers out there.
9. Cheese. I didn't realize this until an Indian pointed this fact out to me. As Americans, WE LOVE CHEESE. We eat cheese with almost anything and with almost any meal. You can find nice cheese here, but you will pay a hefty price for it. In fact, I haven't had parmesan cheese since we left America. Oooooh I miss my cheese. You also won't find any bags of shredded cheese. I do miss the convenience of opening a bag of shredded cheese and adding it to most of my meals. The taste of the cheese here used to repulse me, but now I don't even notice it; in fact I actually don't mind it.
10. If you go to the market in search of green bell peppers you better ask for capsicum. I didn't know that green bell peppers had 2 names! Cilantro is another thing at the market that goes by a different name…coriander leaf. Some of you "foodies" out there probably already knew this, but I'm still learning!
11. The beef here is not that great. It is hard to find better beef than what we have in Iowa and South Dakota, so I guess I have a high beef standard. Due to this fact we tend to eat a lot of chicken. A lot of Indians are vegetarians and even if they aren't vegetarians they might only eat meat 1-2 times per week total. We are used to eating it with almost every single meal of the week. In fact many Americans won't consider it a real meal unless it has meat in it. I don't mind eating vegetarian, but my husband on the other hand hates it when I cook vegan.
12. There have been days when we cook eggs for every meal. I have learned that when the cupboards are bare you can always get a rock solid meal out of eggs. We make egg salad sandwiches, egg bakes, fried eggs, hard-boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, egg burritos, you name it. Eggs are easily accessible and make for a good source of protein when we run out of or get sick of chicken.
13. I have officially fallen in love with my pressure cooker. I had never even heard of one of these until I moved here. Now I use it almost every day. I use it to cook my rice, lentils, chicken, veggies, almost anything. I'm slowly learning how many whistles it takes to cook each item. I've also learned not to have John in the kitchen when using my pressure cooker because the whistles terrify him to death.
14. We have drastically changed our mealtimes since living here. The Indian mealtimes are much later than what we were accustomed to. We do eat breakfast at a fairly normal hour, about 8:00am. Lunch isn't usually served until 1:00-1:30pm (which is probably pretty early for Indians), and supper is usually at 8:00pm (which is also early for Indians). You won't find many restaurants that will start serving you supper until at least 7:00pm. You also won't find any coffee shop or restaurant open before 9:00am. Kris really misses getting a coffee before heading into work.
15. Homemade, homemade, homemade. I think that I mentioned this in my Thanksgiving meal post a while back. You don't find many things pre-packaged here. For example I have started to make my own tortillas for when we have tacos or fajitas (I do have the taco seasoning imported from generous family members). Tacos used to be a "go to" meal for me. It was a quick and easy to meal that I could make when we were in a hurry. Now it is a meal that takes me about 2hrs to prepare. I must say though that homemade tortillas are definitely worth the time to make. You can find taco seasoning and tortillas here but once again they are a bit costly. I have also learned how to make my own chocolate sauce, carmel sauce, and tomato/spaghetti sauce. All of my baked goods are totally from scratch as well. You can find cake mixes, but they are also very expensive. I also have Martha Stewarts pancake recipe memorized.
16. Speaking of pancakes…lets move on to the subject of maple syrup. I love my pancakes and french toast with lots of maple syrup. Maple syrup is something that we have decided we cannot live without. For a bottle of maple syrup that only contains 2% maple we pay $7-8!!! This bottle in the US would only cost about $1-2. Want the real stuff? You're looking at $20. I can't believe I spend that much on maple syrup, but some things are just totally worth it in my mind.
17. You will rarely see Indians using silverware to eat. Indians believe that food is meant to be experienced with all of your senses. You not only see, smell, and taste the food; but you must also touch the food to truly experience it. They somehow make eating with your hands look very easy. I have not mastered this art yet, but I try it every time we eat Indian.
18. Pots and pans are known as "vessels" here. You use many, many, many vessels when you cook Indian food. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a dishwasher here, because the vessels would never get clean in a dishwasher. Plus it would be a waste of water and electricity to run a dishwasher. Most Indians have a "house-helper" that will assist you in washing the many vessels you use when making Indian food. You also do not have hot water to wash your dishes with. I am starting to get really fast at washing dishes!
19. I love, love, love cold water. Indians prefer to drink water that is room temp. Many Indians believe that you can get a cold from drinking any beverages that are chilled or even by eating ice-cream. I believe that cold water quenches my thirst so much better than room-temp water. However, I am getting used to drinking room-temp water as well.
20. I love Indian food!!!! This was not always the case for me as it has become somewhat of an acquired taste. I have now found myself craving Indian food. I still can't tolerate a lot of heat/spice, but that is the beauty of making it in your own home. Now I can enjoy all of the flavors and spices that Indian food has to offer without all of the heat. I simply cut down on the number of chiles or the amount of chile powder that I use. We make a lot of gravy's, masala's, dal, rice, chapati's, roti's, and dosas. This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Indian cooking. Indian cooking is complex and labor intensive. I allow myself at least 2-3hrs to prepare an Indian meal. I have to give a big thank you to my friend Joanne who gave me my first Indian cooking lesson. I also have to thank my friend Anita who has graciously shared some wonderful recipes with me. If there are any Indians out there that want to share more recipes with me, or that want to teach an eager American how to cook, please let me know! I will close this post with a recipe that my friend Joanne taught be how to make:
Chicken Curry
-0.5 kg boneless, skinless chicken breast cut into bite size pieces
-Marinate the chicken:
-1tsp salt
-1 tsp chile powder
-1 tsp garlic ginger paste
-4 TBSP curd
-Heat 2 TBSP of oil in pan with 2 cloves and 1 cinnamon stick
-add 3 chopped onions and 2 chiles chopped. Sauté until onions are clear.
-add 1 tsp garlic ginger paste
-add 4 tomatoes chopped
-add 1 tsp coriander powder
-add a pinch of turmeric
-add marinaded chicken
-add 1 tsp of chile powder
-(if too spicy add more curd)
-simmer gravy on low until chicken is completely cooked and gravy thickens.
-finally stir in a small bunch of chopped cilantro (coriander leaf).
Serve with chapatis, roti's, or naan.
Sorry Joanne if I missed something, but this is how I have been making it since you taught it to me! Hope you all will try it out!!
Well I'm sure there are many more differences that I have failed to point out. Once again, my aim in this post was only to simply point out a few differences between the two places/cultures. I, in no way, want to offend either culture on how we both experience food. I am also not claiming to be an expert, but am only offering my own personal observations. It has been so much fun trying new things, and I hope you all found this as interesting as I have!
