Writing a daily blog brings its own pressures. For this particular project, there has been a diary element to it, but the repetition of everyday life can make such an account tedious, so I generally look for something else to focus upon. And, equally important, a photograph to illustrate same.
And so, after a not particularly busy day – a rehearsal at lunchtime, of a scene with Capulet and Paris, to which Paris did not turn up (it was still useful, to translate Capulet’s words) – I was pleased when an idea presented itself. I have become friendly with Bidhan, a young teacher at the college. Actually, so far as I understand the arrangement, the employee of a private company, who supply teachers of particular aspects of IT, on short term contracts to schools and colleges all over Nepal; Bidhan thus gets to travel to and work in a succession of towns and cities, delivering particular guidance on how to use and access distance learning. And if I have got that horribly garbled, no doubt Bidhan will put me (and therefore you) straight.
He has been at SPA for quite a while now, long pre-dating me, and I have met him mainly in the staff room (a room which doubles as Aparna’s office), but also frequently in the Bread Box, which is where he seems to take the majority of his meals. I took the opportunity to invite him out for a meal somewhere else, and we arranged to meet (in the BB, where else?) at 7.
He told me he has been most unadventurous in his choice of where to eat of an evening, but I immediately discovered that not to be true. I gave him the choice of one out of three restaurants that I have been to, but two of them he had been to before, and did not especially like – the Indian restaurant and the Burger House – so we had just the third option not choose from: the Delight cafe, the nearest of the three, as it happened, a place I had happened upon, and enjoyed, a night or two back. It was a Nepalese place, but with a western feel: air-con, wifi, a TV (not such an attraction, but tonight showing some cricket, and therefore not drawing attention to itself the way the normal Nepalese pop tends to do.)
We ordered a beer, a snack, and a thali – a meal which keeps coming, so to speak, until you tell them to stop; Bidhan had the chicken version, me the vegetarian (meaning he got one extra dish, otherwise identical.) I was pleased when he announced that he preferred to eat the traditional Nepalese way, using ones hands – or rather hand – as that is what I have come to prefer too. We washed our hands, a vital precursor, and set to, over some interesting chat: I told him Val and I were planning a trip to a tiger reserve, and he showed me some pictures from his own recent visit to such a place (and probably the one we are going to.)
My journey towards using my hand to eat has been quite a long one. Egan, Val’s Hindu friend from South Africa, had cooked a meal for us when visiting Ickford, and had demonstrated some of the technique involved, but also its sensory pleasure: of mixing the food together to blend the flavours, turning it round and round with your thumb and first two fingers, forming a ball of mixed rice, vegetables, dhal. He had promoted it as a way of slowing down one’s eating, and increasing one’s enjoyment of the food, but I have to say Bidhan, and other people here that I have observed, was far more speedy, wolfing down one plateful and soon onto another.
In Johannesburg too, our most memorable meal had been an African braii, a celebratory meal which our children joined in with, standing around a high table, talking, laughing, eating… and not an implement in sight. And in Ethiopia too, the standard approach was similarly hands-on, using a sort of pancake (name? aagh!) to pick up and eat the various food arranged around the plate. But it has been on this trip that I have been taught a vital technique that has made all the difference.
My experience up till now has always been a bit… messy. Even the Egan approach, creating a ball of food, tends to fall apart on the vital last transfer to one’s mouth, with rice and other stuff tumbling down my front, onto my lap, the floor…
But this year there has been an epiphany (in a very small way). The idea is to create a spoon with the ends of one’s fingers, and then, (and this is the important bit) to use the back of one’s thumb to push the food into one’s mouth. Result!
But this has been all about the how, not the why. Using one’s hand means a more intimate relationship with one’s food, rather than simply shovelling it in. It provides for a greater mix of flavours. And it is generally more convenient, rather than having to find, use, clean a whole range of implements… though washing the hands, both before and after is vital.
But maybe there’s something more, less tangible. Some time ago, Val read, and often quotes, an article which extolled the way the choice of implement, plate, dish, etc enhanced the taste, the experience of the food and drink eaten. Many will know this for themselves with the use of chopsticks for Chinese food, but it goes wider: to the choice of bowl, of plate, of cup, of glass (though Val continues to drink wine at home out of a tumbler!) And eating Indian, Nepalese, and so many other foods with one’s hands is just… (in my opinion) better. Here’s a test: do you eat pizza, a burger, a sandwich, with a knife and fork? Is it… better?
