Food In Nepal
Location: Nangi, Nepal
Local Time: Tuesday, Dec 20, 2005 - 7:55am
Give me a moment to wax eloquent about the food in Nepal.
As far as I can tell, there are four dishes. I will describe them in more or less random order.
Dhal Bhaat
Pronounced dal bot (more or less), this is the dish in the Nepali diet. All other dishes (the other 3) should be considered in the nature of either snacks or delicacies.
Dhal bhaat is heaps of white rice, a scoop of fried potatoes mixed with cabbage and curry (called tarkari), lentil soup in a bowl and, sometimes, about a teaspoon of chillies, crushed using a morter and pestle to form a spicy paste.
The potato dish is eaten as is. The lentil soup is normally poured over the rice, a little at a time so that the soup doesn't soak the rice and make it softer. Sometimes you drink the soup directly from the bowl, depending on your mood. The chilli paste is eaten a little at a time with the rice.
This dish is eaten for breakfast, and the evening meal, 7 days a week.
Dido
This is a bit of a delicacy. You boil water, then add lots of corn flour, or millet, and mix until all the water is absorbed and the resultant mass has the consistancy of thick cookie dough. Once this is cooked a little more, it is served.
To eat it, you take a handful and mold it into a kind of stick. Using the end of it, you dip it in crushed chillies then bite a little piece off. And swallow without chewing. Chewing dido is bad manners.
I have also seen dido dipped in milk instead of crushed chillies.
Noodles
Think Mr. Noodle in the plastic package and you've got it. These are boiled, powder from the package is added and they are served, sometimes for the noon meal, or sometimes as a snack to tide you over until the evening meal of dhal bhaat.
Popcorn
I have seen this as a noon meal, and as a morning snack. It seems to come it two varieties. One which we are familiar with in Canada where the kernels of corn are fully popped, nice and fluffy. It tasted very lightly buttered to me, as if the butter had been in the pan during popping.
The second variety is more or less half popped. Each kernel is cracked open, a little bit of white fluffs out, but it is mostly seed. Crunch, crunch.
There you go. These are all the types of food I have encounted in a Nepali village. All of them. And I've only seen the popcorn twice in a month. Dido is a delicacy and rare as well. Only twice in a month have I seen it. Noodles, like I say, only noon time, or maybe a snack. So, if you consider breakfast and evening meal, eating twice a day for 30 days, that is 60 meals of dhal bhaat.
Local Time: Tuesday, Dec 20, 2005 - 7:55am
Give me a moment to wax eloquent about the food in Nepal.
As far as I can tell, there are four dishes. I will describe them in more or less random order.
Dhal Bhaat
Pronounced dal bot (more or less), this is the dish in the Nepali diet. All other dishes (the other 3) should be considered in the nature of either snacks or delicacies.
Dhal bhaat is heaps of white rice, a scoop of fried potatoes mixed with cabbage and curry (called tarkari), lentil soup in a bowl and, sometimes, about a teaspoon of chillies, crushed using a morter and pestle to form a spicy paste.
The potato dish is eaten as is. The lentil soup is normally poured over the rice, a little at a time so that the soup doesn't soak the rice and make it softer. Sometimes you drink the soup directly from the bowl, depending on your mood. The chilli paste is eaten a little at a time with the rice.
This dish is eaten for breakfast, and the evening meal, 7 days a week.
Dido
This is a bit of a delicacy. You boil water, then add lots of corn flour, or millet, and mix until all the water is absorbed and the resultant mass has the consistancy of thick cookie dough. Once this is cooked a little more, it is served.
To eat it, you take a handful and mold it into a kind of stick. Using the end of it, you dip it in crushed chillies then bite a little piece off. And swallow without chewing. Chewing dido is bad manners.
I have also seen dido dipped in milk instead of crushed chillies.
Noodles
Think Mr. Noodle in the plastic package and you've got it. These are boiled, powder from the package is added and they are served, sometimes for the noon meal, or sometimes as a snack to tide you over until the evening meal of dhal bhaat.
Popcorn
I have seen this as a noon meal, and as a morning snack. It seems to come it two varieties. One which we are familiar with in Canada where the kernels of corn are fully popped, nice and fluffy. It tasted very lightly buttered to me, as if the butter had been in the pan during popping.
The second variety is more or less half popped. Each kernel is cracked open, a little bit of white fluffs out, but it is mostly seed. Crunch, crunch.
There you go. These are all the types of food I have encounted in a Nepali village. All of them. And I've only seen the popcorn twice in a month. Dido is a delicacy and rare as well. Only twice in a month have I seen it. Noodles, like I say, only noon time, or maybe a snack. So, if you consider breakfast and evening meal, eating twice a day for 30 days, that is 60 meals of dhal bhaat.
posted by Jaye | 7:37 AM
1 Comments:
Where's the Werther's Originals, the Hershey's Kisses, the cream soda Crush, and the Pizza???? You know--the Jacob staples!
Post a Comment
<< Home