Learning to eat the South Indian way...

So for the past few days now, and out of utmost respect for different cultures, I have been scrutinizing and training myself to eat like a South Indian. This is a bit hard when of course, it's not so easy to tell that no one's touching food with the left hand, or that curd (yogurt) is eaten only after sweets (if any), or that using your right hand to mix your rice and sambar (spicy veggy soup) into a clump to pop in your mouth is a precarious skill that takes a few tries.

The hospital canteen is a prime environment to learn all these survival skills, sans spoon if one is as determined like I think I am!

I'm freaking out here, mainly because the soap dispenser isn't dispensing soap, and the communal rag used to wipe your hands before taking food has been used by 20 or 30 hospital staff already. I notice that some hospital staff (even physicians) don't use soap to wash their hands after eating food (they just use water). Thus, I'm thinking: “can the spices serve as hygienic agents too? Because many spices and herbs do have antimicrobial properties...”

Enough of fear! I ignore all that because I'm not interested in starving. I have made some friends here with varying levels of English to teach me proper South Indian food etiquette.

So, below is a picture of a basic meal which I've labeled:

First, one uses only the right hand (sacred hand) to touch food, because as I later learned, the left hand (the unsacred hand) is used to serve others, clean yourself after using the toilet, and other “unsacred” activities. The left hand, however, can also touch silverware and the water pitcher, but it may never ever touch food. The reason being, if one hand is used only for the “dirty” things (left hand), then you won't ingest the “dirty” things when touching food with your right hand. This, I've come to understand, was an ancient method of hygiene—steeped in practical Hinduism. You can imagine the laughter when I used my left hand to break the chapati or papad (images above).

When no one's looking of course, I do use my left hand to eat...always forbidding using my left hand makes me feel half-disabled, half-accomplished.

The second lesson—food order:
(1) break the wheat flat bread (chapati) with your right hand in to small pieces (it's harder than it looks!) and use it to grab the sabzi (veggies), (you may dip the sabzi-chapati “mini-taco” into the soups),
(2) take out all the small stainless steel bowls from the large plate,
(3) dump rice into the large plate and the soups into the rice,
(4) knead the soupy rice mixture until satisfied,
(5) clump rice-soup with all 5 fingers to be rested on the middle, ring, and pinky fingers—pop into mouth,
(6) use the salty pickled carrot or veggie to salt the rice,
(7) break the big chip (papad) bit by bit and eat it directly (do NOT dip into rice-soup mix),
(8) finish with curd (yogurt)

I was eager to demonstrate my South Indian food etiquette at a lunch Dr. Balasubramanya (or Dr. Bala for short, one of the organization directors) invited me to, in celebration of the Hindu harvest festival yesterday (called “Sunkranti” or “Pongal”). Well, what can I say? Dr. Bala was delighted I sat on the floor and used only my hands!

It was an amazing cultural culinary experience--the traditional South Indian way! A plaintain leaf acted as the plate! On top of the large leaf was the yellowish lemon rice with maroon-skinned peanuts, rice with a hearty sambar (soup), some veggies options done tastefully and colorfully (ex. chopped cucumber with small golden nuts, and others), and pongal (a festival sweet) and of course, yogurt. Yum yum yum...lastly Dr. Bala's wife, also a physician, made a trail mix of sweets for us to take home, having used a mold to shape the sugary solution til it solidified into a bell-shape.

Of course, the festival did put the ethical review on hold and I was wandering around the hospital trying to catch Dr. Bindu (my research mentor) to discuss it, only to discover she was in her house celebrating. That's alright of course, because had we convened to “work,” I wouldn't have experienced my neighbor's homemade pongal (the special sweet), and her discourse on spiritual ascension and the purposeful ingredients of Indian food for each season.

The organization's staff here, whenever they are able, has always invited me for food or tea at their houses. I feel at home in this strange, yet familiar place...and it's great.