INDIA TRIP PART 3: Food!

Cherian’s aunts prepared for our arrival and arranged to make a lot of great food with the help of their servants.  Their attitude is that we should eat since we hardly get a chance to eat their food! So, we've eaten a LOT!! We’ve also eaten at some great restaurants and festivities.  Here is a list of some of the great, interesting food we’ve eaten:

Ricepatties with jackfruit in banana leaves

• Iddli and dosai with sambar, coconut chutney, powdered chutney
• Rice, dahl, sambar and homemade yoghurt
• Poori, south Indian parota, bhatura
• Appam with chicken and vegetarian curry
• Wattayappam (fluffy rice, coconut cake) with curry or coconut milk and sugar
• Vegetable and meat cutlets
• Mango curry
• Paneer curry
• Jackfruit in ricepatties steamed in banana leaves
• Fried jackfruit seed
• Jackfruit seed curry
• Eggplant thoran (sliced thin and prepared with coconut)
• Kerala beef
• Kerala shrimp curry
• Fried paneer
• Fried fish (kingfish, sardines)



Eating with hands on banana leaves

• Crab boiled with masala (only because Kiran went to the fish market with my parents and wanted a crab claw)

And we are so proud that the kids have eaten EVERYTHING and have finished what was served to them. Some days, the kids wouldn’t stop eating!!

And, we’ve seen first-hand where a lot of food comes from! Fruit/Nut bearing trees/plants seen so far:

• Coconut
• Mango
• Guava
• Banana
• Cashew
• Almond
• Papaya
• Mangosteen
• Sapota
• Nutmeg
• Rambutan
• Tapioca (Cuppa)
• Coffee
• Kerala Yams (Chana)



Almonds

• Tamarind

Mango

Fruits eaten:

• Banganapalli mango – sweet & ‘parfumy’,  must use a knife/peeler to get the skin off
• Romani mango – smaller, sweeter, can peel the skin off with your fingers
• Sapota
• Mangosteen
• Jackfruit
• Papaya
• Tender coconut (with molasses)
• Rambutan
• Gooseberry (not for the faint of heart… sour, bitter, and is only sweet when washed down with water)

More pictures below!!

Jackfruit

Cashew

Fruit stand in Kerala

Coffee

Rambutan

Tapioca

Sapota

INDIA TRIP PART 2: Mahabilipuram – July 23, 2011

However, the next day, all the complaining went away… the day started with a birthday cake for Cherian. And as a gift from Sonny Chayan and Kochery Kochama they rented a 10-seater van and we went on a day trip 50 km south of Chennai. We were amazed at how the driver just cut through the chaos of motorbikes, cars, people walking, bikers, goats, cows, dogs and much more… On the way, we stopped at a “Crocodile Bank” where we got to come close to the Gharial crocodile… 

Before setting out for a day in the hot sun, we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant for some south Indian food.  The waiters came and gave us banana leaves as plates, and then served us food on the banana leaves.  The waiters complained that Sofie did not know how to eat with her hands, and was urged to learn how to eat with her hands. So, she was taught the fine art of squeezing the rice in her fingers and using her thumb to push the food into her mouth.  The waiter wanted to know if she would continue to eat with her fingers when she got home…

We then went to Mahabalipurram and got a tour of the oldest hindu temples in India that are now a World Heritage Site…  We saw the “Five Rathas” site, which are five temples with 3 animal statues all carved from one stone.  Each temple was built for the Hindu gods, Durga, Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma & Indhira by the Pallavas who originated from Sri Lanka but settled in Mahabalipuram to make it a port city between Sri Lanka and Calcutta.  The animals were a lion (pulls Durga’s chariot), an elephant (pulls Indhira’s chariot) and a bull (“nandi” pulls Shiva’s chariot). 

It was interesting to see this 1400 year old (built in 600 AD), monolithic structure, World Heritage site get turned into a playground for our kids and the mass of uniformed school kids.  To quench our thirst, we bought some tender coconuts and drank the juice from a straw.

After seeing some more sites of monolithic carved structures, we started to head back to Chennai and stopped at the beach, where the kids got blasted away by the crazy power of the waves of the Bay of Bengal.  The undercurrent was so strong that we were very conscious of letting the kids go too deep.  We were fortunate to have a cousin’s house down the street, where we got to shower off the sand before heading back to Chennai.

INDIA TRIP PART 1: Chennai First Impressions – July 22-25, 2011

This is our first time officially blogging as a family, so we are going to try and update this blog with a bunch of posts on our experiences…

We’re on an exciting trip to India and have had a great few days in Chennai… We’ve all been taken aback from the crazy traffic, the life on the streets, and the way old ladies can carry anything on their head and make their way through town.

Fortunately, we’ve been able to stay and be pampered by family in Chennai.  Cherian’s uncle, Sonny Chayan and Cherian’s dad picked us up at the airport at 4 in the morning where the first words that came out of Kiran’s mouth when exiting the airport were “It smells terrible”…  After a nap and a breakfast of iddli, we took a walk with Cherian’s parents around the neighborhood where tired, jet-lagged Selina expressed her desire to go back home to …

We braved the crowded streets of Chennai and went shopping so that Sofie could find a salwar kameez (traditional female clothing), passing street markets with beggars and aggressive hawkers of junk (including a 4 year old boy).  Sofie and Kiran got to take a ride with Cherian’s aunt, Kochery Kochama in an auto-rickshaw while Cherian and his mom bought sapota and mangosteen fruits…