Hands down, one of the best parts of my study abroad experience thus far has been indulging in the heavenliness that is South Indian food. South Indian food uses a lot of lentils, chickpeas, rice, coconut (!!!), and veggies (one of the most interesting veggies present in a lot of the dishes is the drumtree, a fibrous okra-like vegetable). For non-veg south Indian, one can find mutton or chicken. Currently, the best non-veg meal I’ve had is mutton biriyani, which is a rice dish with onions, sometimes a little tomato, and a sauce. The mutton falls off the bone and is so ridiculously tender I am often entranced.
Every time my ammaa places a new dish in front of me for dinner, I emit a noise that can only be compared to that of a wild grizzly bear reveling in its spoils (table manners were never exactly my strong suit). In my first two weeks of being in India, I fell in love with the greasy, flaky, decadent egg parotta. However, it was not long before new foods caught my eye and led me astray from my first true love. Lately, I have been quite taken with dosa, which can only really be described as a sourdough crepe served with a number of chutneys.
My favorite combination has been an egg dosa served with my ammaa’s tomato chutney. Usually we eat dosa on Friday nights, and I sit at the dinner table for a good forty-five minutes as ammaa brings out one hot and tasty dosa after the other. After I’m about two dosa in, she’ll ask me “one more?” and how can I refuse such an offer? So I say yes and another emerges, and before I even realize how much time has passed I’ve eaten nearly six dosa in one sitting (by the end of the semester I think I am set to beat that record). There are a variety of dosa including vadai dosa, millet dosa, masala dosa, set dosa, and wheat dosa. I even overheard my ammaa telling her sisters what an excellent eater I am, and I was nothing if not touched (unlike table manners, I would consider my eating to be a natural gift).
My most recent food adventure happened at a wedding reception I attended two nights ago with my host family. The reception was beautiful; palm trees strung with twinkly lights and a stage glittering with roses and heart shaped decorations for the backdrop. I went into the reception as I had gone into any other; prepared to elbow my way through a crowd to the rows of banana leaves waiting to be filled with goodies. This will have been my fourth reception, so I was finally getting the hang of the whole thing (and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that Indian weddings are massive and if you don’t queue up for the food as soon as the ceremony ends you will be waiting a long time).
However, this particular reception was smaller and had outdoor seating, so guests lounged in plastic lounge chairs and children playfully ran around the stage much to the chagrin of their well mannered parents. As I finished a plate of sumptuous mutton biriyani, curd rice, sampar, and onions, I sauntered over to the dessert table with ammaa. “Try this,” she said, and thrust a slender plastic cup filled with a pale orange scoop of ice cream bobbing in matching thawed liquid into my hand.
My first bite was ice cold, a welcome sensation in Madurai’s steamy climate. After the initial pleasure of coldness, my taste buds came alive (if you had tasted this dessert you would also find yourself at the mercy of some tragic but necessary hyperbolic speech). Every new bite was sweet and tender and by the end of the night I ate three. Each time I would inch my way to the dessert table where two men were handing out the treats. I would begin with a wildly broken Tamil phrase (that phrase being ennakku another one venum or roughly “I want another one”) but before I could finish my feeble plea the man gestured to the row of goodies and I sheepishly accepted one and darted off back to my host family. I repeated this little vignette each time that my taste buds won out against reason, and I think it’s safe to say that me and the stranger handing out the greatest dessert known to mankind are now dear friends.
I learned this dessert of my dreams is called "jiggarathanda." "Jiggarathanda" is a dessert specific to Madurai and is made with almond paste, chopped up vermicelli rice noodles, milk, and sugar (and probably fairy dust because how else could it taste so good?). Should I have eaten that much dairy in one sitting? Maybe not, but I don’t regret a single second of it (and my lack of regret is easy to reconcile given the amount of extra strength Tums I packed).