Location and laziness combined with ‘Oor kannu’ resulting from me having a good time travelling around the world, conspired against me and forced me to survive on Pizza, Pasta, their cousin brothers and onnu vitta chittappas every time I come to Italy. Usually, tomato does a Kamalagaasan and takes various forms to accompany the pasta. I was sick and tired of tomato, till yesterday happened.
I decided to try out a new restaurant near my hotel. They had a vegetable accompaniment for pasta and it was not tomato. Aubergine is what they called it. I did not know what it was, but I was assured that it was not tomato. So I ordered pasta with aubergine and basil sauce and while waiting for the dish to make its appearance, I ran a flashback in italics.
When it came to leaves and vegetables, I was pretty much a cow. There are tales in my family about how I would pilfer the ‘Tulasi’ (basil) offered as ‘prasadam’ in temples from everyone else. In my ‘iruvathu anju varusha’ (25 years) service as a vegertarian from the southern part of India, I have been exposed to a variety of edible seeds, roots, stems and tubers and have unashamedly devoured most of them. But there is one vegetable I hate. Brinjal. Yes, that devil in dark purple attire, with a star twig attached to its brainless head. Best efforts of mom have failed to make me eat it. My dad almost succeeded once when he made an exemplary ‘Kathirikkaai deep fry’, oozing with ghee, oil and spices. But even he had to accept defeat when I rejected it after the first two pieces. So in a fit of unbound rage mixed with limitless paasam, my mom made a prediction
“One day you will eat brinjal willingly, my son
And for neglecting our advice, you will feel like a bison”
Inspite of the gargantuan struggles that I have encountered with food while travelling outside India, I have always been thankful that the damn vegetable is not very popular outside the subcontinent. I was ready to live on tomato for months, but cannot eat brinjal for even a day.
The pasta with aubergine arrived like the Tamizh Cinema Police, after the flashback was over. I cleaned up the plate within minutes. Today I checked what aubergine was. I am a tomato and Mom is God.
looks like you are having fun man… ;) home sweet home is it? ;)
Yes Siva.. Total fun and fun is tomato :-)
haw haw.. got fooled by the fancy name. You had to go to Italy to eat brinjal …man some people live it up
Meera - Enna panradu… En soga kathaya kettu this evil ulagam laughing… But this diet does help with trimming the fat, u see!
haha! good one!
My first weekend in the US…I was ‘taken’ to a foot ball game. Bewildered at why they are playing ‘Rugby’ at a ‘foot ball’ match, I strolled towards the next best thing - the Food stall. Wanting to keep up my newly found vegetarian status, I safely ordered Nachos & Cheese. On being asked if I wanted to add chilli to my order, my taste buds screamed Ohhh, YES! loads of it. I dreamt of perfectly crisp nachos topped with melted ooey gooey cheese with a generous drizzle of red chilli flakes while my order was getting ready…..
The dream came to a screeching halt after my first bite into chunky bits of beef filled nachos. Apparantely, chilli = beef in this side of the world!
Unfortunately for me, I had to order another plate and unfortunately for the guy at the counter, he had to hear a 15 minute social-history (!) narrative on why hindus dont eat cows.
LP - haha, a ‘holy cow’ moment, eh! Guess it was the redemption for the ‘Lilliput’ sins at the Wimpy :)…
Good that u have finally started blogging… Looking forward to hear more such stories from you!
unaku vazhkai fulla kathirikai than ;-)