Uh oh!

I was very appalled with myself when I realised I had written about a lot of tosh but I had completely ignored the essential tosh -food!

If there ever existed an undergraduate course on food-cuisines, manner of approaching the cuisine, going through it and different styles of burping...Hell yeah! I would be the first person to graduate from the course. Most of the dreams I have got till date...except gruesome ones where crocs eat me up only to barf me out later (there you go, someone's eating), constitute of just food. 

Though a non-resident Bengali, I am still in touch in touch with my culture through my voracious appetite, although I try not to be partial by savoring the other cuisines as well. I certainly will not be surprised if I turn out to be a mutated dentrassi accidentally left on earth, the gourmand that I am.

Racism in me is exhibited only in cuisine terms. I accept or denounce a culture through the platter. As I work my way through the varied cuisines, the Chinese never fails to win my heart. Tea is the gateway to heaven while a cold coffee is bliss in the hot afternoons. A milkshake every now and then would just about be perfect. As Julie Andrews describes her favourite things, I slip away to the land of goodies popularised by Enid Blyton. Utopia in my eyes, I see myself running amok, dazed by the sights and smells, as free food blooms, ripens, appears, is passed over counters and is ingested. I am sure, had there been such a place, I would be elected mayor very soon. If not mayor, I would surely be awarded the ideal citizen or be approached to be the mascot for the town.

Though those were a few of my favourite things, Tamil and Gujarati cuisines break my heart and the North Indian fare keeps me looking for my weight machine every now and then. If I were given a chance to interview God, I would ask him these questions –

1. Why were the Tamilians programmed to render everything edible sour? Even the fish with its exquisite tang is not spared! How can one sour chicken?!?!?

2. Why are the Gujaratis so fervent about making everything sweet and dolloped with clarified butter!!! Luckily the papad was spared, or else the cuisine would be condemned in my suicide letter...

3. Is there any way to cook north Indian fare with oil a litre less?

4. Does the Andhra Pradesh cuisine favour food at all? Only Biryani isn’t filling, you know... a few more accompaniments would suffice, thank you!

5. Have you imposed fasts on Oriyas every other day of the week to prevent them from ingesting food? I thought the cyclones ravaged the coastal areas? I didn’t know it completely hampered food production in the state.

6. Why do the French like everything ‘rare’? Haven’t they evolved to the stage where man started using the fire to cook his food well?

And the list would go on. At the end of it all, God might condemn me to the Sahara where I will have to dance with the tribes to invoke the rain god for a few showers so that we can grow watermelons to quench thirst. Hunger...well let’s not talk about it. While the gujjus thrive in their sweetness and tamilians add more lemons...yes Father Almighty...thy will be done! Amen!