XII - Indo-American-European cuisine

While I got used to Indian food and even grew to love parts of it, I still have not unveiled the secret of Indian cooking. It is tasty in most of the cases - and most of the time I have no idea what the ingredients are, much less how to prepare it. So, Lex and me adapted our own Indo-American-European cuisine, mostly consisting of fresh fruits and vegetables, and Ragi.

 

Ragi is Lex' and my new favorite breakfast food. We started off with oats but those are pretty expensive here in Bangalore. One kilo of oats costs about 2.5 €. More than double the price in USA or Germany. So, we went looking for an Indian alternative and found Ragi. Ragi is the local name for finger millet, which is grown a lot in all of South India. One kilo of ragi flour, which is what we use to make our breakfast, costs only 30 Rupees, about 40 cents. It has a mildly earthy taste, which reminds me a bit of wheat or bean sprouts. Cooked in water and/or milk and blended with a mashed banana it is a yummy alternative to oats. And the locals say it is healthy, so I don't even feel too bad about eating only carbs.

 

Here is my personal, very simple recipe:

 

Ingredients  

- Ragi (finger millet) flour: about 2 table spoons

- water: 200 ml

- milk: 50 ml

- banana/papaya/apple sauce/sugar/peanut butter

 

Heat the water until it is lukewarm. Add the Ragi slowly, while stirring. Keep stirring on medium heat. After some time the mixture will become thicker. Don't stop stirring! It clumps up pretty quickly. After it started getting thicker keep stirring and keep it on medium heat for about one minute. Add mashed banana or papaya, apple sauce, sugar or peanut butter and a little bit of milk. Done!

This is super simple and super cheap.

 

Enjoy! :)

 

Typical breakfast: Ragi porridge (top), bananas, coconut, custard apple (or some other fresh fruit)

 

 

 

 

XI – Motorcycling

I have never been a big fan of motorcycles. Partly, because I did not have very many friends that rode the motorcycle, partly because I always perceived them as loud, intimidating show-off vehicles. Then I visited the US, where I met a really nice, not intimidating biker who took me on a ride on his huge Harley-Davidson. Lex’s bike is not nearly as big or as comfy as my first ride but it sure is fun to ride with him.

All ready for adventures!

Luckily for me, Lex is a very safe driver. Every day that I am in traffic I see cars, motorcycles and pedestrians do crazy things, cutting in front of people, accelerating in thick traffic when they are just being passed, passing in between two buses that are just about to stop at a bus stop, leaving a bus or crossing a street without looking left or right. Surprisingly, I have not seen a single accident so far. 

Especially when we go for rides outside the city, like we did on Sunday, it is quite a lot of fun to ride with him. Being able to see 200° (not quite 360 but a little more than 180° is what I can comfortably see), feeling the wind and fresh air in my face, and the velocity is what I enjoy most. And, of course, arriving places and seeing and doing things. On Sunday, we went to the biggest monolith in Asia, Savandurga, which is just 2 hours driving from Bangalore.

The way up is very steep and pretty exhausting but the view is simply breath taking. Enjoy the pictures!

Typical tourist picture :) Green coconut, temple, monkeys

Monkey drinking from a faucet in front of the temple at the foot of Savandurga

We collected as much garbage as we could carry and even inspired a second group of people to do the same

Riding the bike is tiring.

X - Garbage

India – at least judging from what I have seen so far – is beautiful. I saw jungles, lakes, wild animals, such as deer, forest cows and even an elephant. Huge flowering trees, fragrant eucalyptus trees, colorful butterflies, stunningly delicate dragonflies and simply beautiful landscape. And: Garbage. Next to all its beauty and natural richness there is not a single place that I have visited so far that had no garbage lying around. 

Even in the botanical garden where they put up lots of reminders not to thrown garbage, a place that is rich enough to employ people to pick up the trash and a place where there is a garbage can every 20 meters a lot of people do not seem to grasp the idea of walking 5 meters carrying their waste to  the next garbage disposal. I suspect that the attitude toward waste is one that I am never going to fully understand, especially coming from a country where we separate our garbage neatly and split it into 6, sometimes more, categories to make sure it all gets reused or recycled. 

I find it unbelievable that in a country so rich in nature and where so many people, especially farmers and villagers, are dependent on intact nature it is in places treated very disrespectful. How desperate do you have to be to think it is a good idea to just throw your trash onto the ground, which does not only make the place really ugly but could potentially hurt yourself.

In most cases, however, at least 90% of the garbage is collected – in piles next to the road, some of it is then burnt. Burnt as in a slowly burning, smoldering, smoky and horribly stinky fire. Just as though to make sure that none of the garbage gets properly burnt, leaving toxins that are washed into the ground water by the next rain, and making a big mess caused by cinders. Burning garbage is generally not the worst alternative. It is better than just leaving it on the ground, it is cheap and easy. Recycling, of course, would be even better, but proper recycling requires a lot of equipment and knowledge and good infrastructure. So, burning trash is not as bad as it sounds, but really, burning it in a smoldering fire is not the way to go.

How can people that live in a country that is rich in natural resources, where tourism is growing, and where there is such a stunning nature, not care more about nature and properly disposing of their garbage?