Travel Blog: India, Day 8 - The Market
You ever watch a travel show on TV and watch the likes of Anthony Bourdain stroll through an obscure street market in Southeast Asia? Sitting at home in Pensacola, Florida, by far one of the most sensible conservative shopping environments one could find in the continental US, I always wondered if the markets in other countries were really that busy and colorful in other places, or if the TV crews purposefully shot them to look as exotic and non-Western as possible. Well, on this last trip to India, I found out. The markets really are that incredible.
After our harrowing race back to town, I accompanied my host through the back streets of the neighborhood to emerge in a brightly lit square, where the town market was in full swing. Again, my presence caused a bit of a splash. Several people followed me around to observe me in the most transparent way possible, eyes narrowed and mirroring my movements. I'm usually okay with the Indian street stare-downs, but I have to confess that it got a little old by this point; I actually started to wish that one unpleasant-looking codger in particular would make a move on me just so I could knock him down. But no harm was done on either side.
In most of India, meals are curried or fried. If the meal is an Indian fry-up, it's a pretty simple affair: chicken and oil, plus whichever vegetables are going to be served with the rice. Curry, however, requires quite a few ingredients, and they are usually bought fresh that day. The staple shopping list for a full curry meal, assuming that you don't have any herbs laying around, includes:
- Meat (usually chicken, sometimes goat or mutton)
- Onions
- Garlic
- Ginger
- Chiles
- Assorted vegetables
The above ingredients are simmered in a particular order in a bit of oil, spiced with turmeric and a few other seasonings, and eventually become a curry whose base ingredients are cooked down so as to be barely recognizable, but still incredibly tasty. My hosts all over the country were desperately hoping that I wouldn't be able to handle the spiciness of their curries--"is it too spicy for you?" seems to be the country's national motto--but I am proud to say that I was always able to eat Indian curry. The cumulative effect was less than optimal after a month, but I definitely enjoyed the the individual meals.
India, Day 8 - Rice Field Respite
As we Bolero'd our way through impoverished villages and shantytowns of eastern India, my host leaned forward and gave fresh directions to our intrepid driver. After he finished with the rapid, rolling-R burst of localized Hindi, he turned to me and said that we were going to detour through his home village. I was to see the place of his birth and the rest of his tribe. I told him that I couldn't wait to see the place. In my last entry, I posted about the incredible poverty to which I bore witness in this area. Future entries will show even grittier images than the ones I have posted thus far. You drive long enough through certain parts of India, and things start to look alike. Endless, pitted roads of repetitious cell phone recharge stations, machine shops and samosa stands. Villages of identical thatch huts appearing in the middle of rice fields that extend to a sensible horizon darkened by palm fringes. Even after just a few hours, the effect can be oppressive.
India is second only to China in world rice production; the last available measurement from 2010 placing its production at 120.6 million metric tons. As a staple food for its 1.2 billion citizens, most of the rice grown in India is traded within the country; the only variety to be traded outside of India to any substantial extent being the gourmet basmati variety. That said, large-scale farms still buy seeds from Western agriculture companies like Monsanto; and, like most other scenarios involving Big Pharma or industrial food production, the unethical policies of the seed producer has done exponentially more harm than good in India. I highly recommend that you watch this video of Dr. Vandana Shiva to learn more about these problems. As the Fair Trade movement gains traction in cultural consciousness, don't limit your awareness just to the sources of your coffee and chocolate. When you see images of smiling Kenyan or Ethiopian coffee farmers--remember these photos and consider the people who made your plate of basmati bryani possible.
That said, my host's home village represented a striking contrast to the usual scene. Conditions there were not only different, they felt...freer. I left with the impression that their agriculture was based on subsistence rather than subservient cultivation for the local rice barons. The people here seemed content and happy.
We pulled to a stop at the rim of a rice field. My host and I jumped out of the Bolero and he led me down to meet the people of his village who were busy planting the summer rice crop. However, they weren't so busy that they couldn't take a break to smile and meet the gora with the camera. The women were a bit shy, exhibiting the conspicuous modesty common among Indian females, but they seemed to truly get a kick out of seeing their likenesses in the monitor of my camera. Hanging about on the fringe of the crowd, a goat herder wandered up and showed himself to be an outright ham as soon as the camera turned his way.
This little episode, lasting no more than ten minutes as I photographed the people in groups and as individuals, but for a newcomer to the area, it was happy respite from the depressing scenes I had been in the middle of for the first part of the day, and would continue to see for the next five in this area.
Paleo no more! (Pt. II)
Quick follow-up to last week's catharsis. First, a clarification:
Lest there by any misunderstandings, my feelings about what is healthy and what is unhealthy remain unchanged. What has changed is my approach to life and my relationships with other people.
I would like to share a quote from C. S. Lewis. It comes from Mere Christianity, a book which I think everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike, should read before trying to express an opinion on Christianity with anything like authority. I have Mere Christianity on my iPhone as an audiobook, and I listened to it last week while driving to Daphne, Alabama to pick up a BOSU ball that I bought for a record-setting low price on Craigslist. After spending last year frivolously haranguing people for consuming everything from gluten to seed oils, this passage came like a punch to the face when I heard it over the speaker:
One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting every one else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons--marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning.
As previously stated, I lost track of my original goal, which was to lose weight, and wasted seven months being a pedant and a food nazi. In my defense, my experience and research allowed me to help several friends lose a dramatic amount of weight in a short amount of time, but I have come to the conclusion that I could have helped many more people if I had been less vindictive and more relaxed in my approach. I denied indulgences to myself, and in the spirit of misery loving company, I wanted everyone else to do the same thing.
Which brings me to the fun part...
I want to burn through the last bit of body fat that is hiding my abs. As such, I'm giving the Slow-Carb Diet (SCD) a try. Followed to the letter, it is billed as a sure-fire method to reach sub-12% bodyfat. Based on my prior experience and a year of personal study on the subject, the science looks sound. Nothing else has worked so far in my goal to eliminate stubborn fat, so I have nothing to lose by giving it a shot. In addition to a specific exercise protocol (in my case, kettlebell swings and a couple of unique core exercises), the SCD eliminates dairy, sugar, starch and fruit from daily intake for six days. The seventh day, however, is a dedicated cheat day, also known as "reverse Lent." Anything goes. The purposes behind devoting 12-24 hours to eating any and all "forbidden foods" are both biological and psychological:
- Physically, "planned overfeeding" spikes the metabolism and actually results in a net fat loss over the following 48 hours. Doing this once every five to seven days after strictly adhering to the rules of the diet is important to keep the metabolism from falling into a rhythm and downshifting.
- Psychologically, it is healthy to take a day to enjoy all your favorite foods. The routine of "just a little bit" of fruit/sugar and dairy every day over the course of a week, always left me with the nagging fear that my sugar and starch consumption was growing insidiously each week, and I find that my mind is much more at ease on the new schedule.
My first cheat day was truly a personal coup. For the past year, I was so caught up in the fantasy of living a "perfectly healthy" lifestyle that I neglected to enjoy some of the foods that make life...well, fun. The prescribed system of reserving any and all treats (even fruit) for consumption only once a week makes them even more special. After eating a steady diet of vegetables, lentils and animal protein for six days, the shock and awe of tasting something sweet really blew me away.
Unlike most people, my cheat days do not and will not include wheat products like pizza, pasta or pastries. Gluten gives me cramps, and I've learned a little too much about the other properties of wheat for me to ever incorporate it back into my lifestyle. However, I made up for this by having some ice cream quite a bit of ice cream. I used Sunday as my day to sample some green tea ice cream at a local sushi restaurant after lunch, and at the end of the day, I made myself an enormous sundae.
Do you want to know how long it's been since I made or ate a sundae?
A year.
I used to be "the sundae guy" at my house, dipping up masterpieces every Friday night. Then I became "the health guy" and stopped. For my return to form, I made sure my first sundae was a good one: dipping up vanilla ice cream onto a bed of shredded coconut and covering it with chocolate chips, Heath bar crumbles and chocolate sauce. After not tasting such a concoction for a year, the experience was transcendent.
For yuks and giggles, I logged everything I ate on my cheat day, and if you want to see proof that I still no how to have a good time, you can see the full set here.
If all you want are the visual CliffsNotes, enjoy these "best of" photos:
As either Mark Twain or Oscar Wilde (I can't find a consensus on the source) famously said:
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
I understand that now. For whatever it's worth, I can do full compliance with a whole foods, paleolithic diet. But without a "day of rest" here and there, my social life and quality of life in general go down the drain.
Sunday was fun. But, as prescribed, I turned a one-eighty on Monday morning and went back to my regularly-scheduled diet of meat, eggs, lentils and vegetables. This "clean" diet, which leaves my blood sugar comfortably level, will continue unbroken until next Sunday, at which time I will partake once more in the fun stuff. Ben and Jerry's, anyone?
India, Day 2 - The lonely way to travel.
I have a love/hate relationship with transatlantic air travel. I like having nine hours to relax, but I dislike doing it in a metal tube filled with recycled air.
I like movies, but I dislike four-inch screens.
I enjoy conversations with new people, but planes always carry the threat of a seatmate whose bulk occupies both his own seat and part of mine. Worse yet, I've previously been caught next to talkative sad sacks, and with nowhere to run or hide, they depressed me with their life stories for hours at a time.
All that said, I generally enjoy the experience of air travel, even flying coach. Even at its worst, flying gives me dedicated time to catch up on some reading. Post-college, reading has taken on a new significance, because I finally have the luxury of choosing my own books. Based on the recommendation of a friend, I chose to bring a book on the trip that was very, very special: Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts. Set in India during the 1980s, there was little difference between what was on the pages and what I saw firsthand in India every time I put the book down. If you have not read it, I highly recommend that you do so, sooner rather than later.
Aside from a reading and some intermittent movie-watching, my flight from Miami to London was uneventful. I managed to sleep a little bit as well, which always helps kill time. Someday I'll learn to take some Tylenol PM every time I fly, so I can just go right to sleep and be blissfully unaware of the passing time. After nine hours, I touched down in London early in the morning and was met by a familiar sign.
As I entered the terminal, following the familiar path through the "B Gates" in the international terminal, I grinned for a couple of reasons. The first reason was the knowledge that I would be returning to Britain at the end of my trip, and for the first time, I would actually get out of the airport and see England itself. As many times as I had connected through Heathrow, I had never actually set foot on English soil.
My second reason for grinning was the sight of several information screens held hostage by my old arch-nemesis, the Blue Screen of Death. I had no idea the old blue screen still afflicted modern computer systems, much less in airport terminal displays, but there it was, big as life.
As I said, it was early. Early enough to eat breakfast, although my body clock was so confuzzled by the time change that I might have actually been craving lunch or dinner. This is one point of my travel recaps that will remain problematic. On a good day, I am hopeless at processing numbers. Dramatic time changes and long flights exacerbate this weakness and make it even harder for me to remember details that aren't logged in my journal or with photographs. Details like exact times.
Where was I? Oh yes, breakfast. Or, "brekkie," as they say in the UK. I love that term. "Brekkie." Fun to say.
One of my favorite things about England is, honestly, the food. I don't know why England's traditional fare has been the black sheep of world cuisine for so long, because I find it delicious. Traditional British food is certainly simpler and less magazine-ready than, say, French or Italian cuisine, but that is actually what I love most about it. There's been a renaissance in British cooking in recent years, and top-tier gastronomy is dramatically changing the modern opinions regarding British cuisine, but I will always be a fan of the classics. From the delicacies and to the pub grub, it is simple, hearty fare, always savory and always satisfying. Especially the traditional English breakfast. Eggs, sausage, bacon, beans, tomato and potatoes. I can't think of a more comforting eating experience.
Breakfast moved to the top of my action list, I entered Giraffe, had my brekkie (I love that word) and a cup of good coffee. The repast over, I sat in the atrium of the terminal with my journal and wrote. As I got still and focused on the blank page, I became aware of an odd feeling. The last two times I had flown--including the last time I had gone through Heathrow--I had been with friends. I was retracing the same path to India, but I was doing it alone.
Alone. That's a naughty word when you're traveling. I've traveled alone plenty of times, and had fun doing it, but after several trips in a row with other people, I missed the company. I missed them badly, in fact. I have to confess that my trips to India aren't just mission trips. Selfishly, I look forward to the chance to spend ten days at close quarters with good friends from another state who I don't see at any other time during the year. And now I was doing the India thing again, but they weren't there with me. In the film The Third Man, Orson Welles' character, a sociopathic gangster, says from atop a ferris wheel: "Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?" In that moment, tired and listless and with no one to talk to, I felt like a dot.
This was the first of several such moments that I had during the course of my journey. When I was actually in India, I returned to several places where I had served on earlier trips. Coming back was strange, because the paradigms were so drastically different. Whereas the first time I went to this or that place, I was with friends, and often arrived there after a bus ride filled with conversation, laugher and even the occasional song. On this trip, however, I visited these places as the "silent partner" of various hosts, with almost every word out of my mouth requiring translation into Hindi or a local language before they could be understood. Having such strong memories so far from home, and even in a place like Heathrow, was a new and surreal experience, made slightly depressing by the removal of all the familiar and positive emotional associations. It almost felt like I had lost something, or someone.
In this incredibly positive state of mind (irony alert!), I sat in Heathrow and journaled my thoughts onto paper. My plane left in the late afternoon, and before departure, I also translated my mild sadness into a bit of emotional eating by buying a cappuccino and a bar of dark chocolate for an early dinner--my last Western indulgence before committing myself to India for six weeks. That decision has not gone down in the annals of "Steven's Personal Best;" to the contrary, the assault of milk and sugar on my stomach, unaccompanied by any other solid food, made the flight uncomfortable and set me up for a very tired landing in India.
My re-entry into Incredible India will be covered later this week. I am slowly realizing that my writing consecutive entries as long-form narratives is a little too time-consuming, so you may look forward to shorter but more frequent entries in coming weeks. Stay tuned!
The Awesome Food of Gainesville, GA
As a follow-up to Mr. and Mrs. White's Wedding Extravaganza, I want to give a quick shout-out to a some of the amazing restaurants in and around Gainesville, GA that provided me with some superb meals while I was in town last weekend. For those of you who know me well, you may commence the eye-rolling. You knew this was coming...winkety-wink. I love to look for unique places to eat when I travel. I'll duck into a Ruby Tuesdays near an exit now and again if I want a bottomless salad bar, but I am strongly of the opinion that life is just too short to waste money at franchise joints. I would rather do a little extra driving and spend a little extra money to support local restauranteurs who are passionate about cooking delicious food. In that spirit, I chose my meals carefully, and Gainesville's culinary offerings did not disappoint!
My Gainesville eats:
2 Dog: A Local Restaurant - Friendliest staff and freshest ingredients I've had in a while. I ordered smoked pork shoulder with sides of asparagus and sautéed Swiss chard. The pork was unbelievably tender and flavorful--upon a single prod from my enthusiastic fork, Hoffa himself could not have paid that meat to hold itself together. Further props go to 2 Dog for their support of Gainesville's local farms and commitment to fresh, organic produce.
Avocados Restaurant - There is nothing better than a good omelet, and when I decided to order one at Avocados Restaurant off of Gainesville's historic downtown square, they knocked it squarely out of the park. I had been in the mood for chorizo for a few days, and I was elated to find that Avocados makes an omelet with chorizo, mushrooms, tomatoes. The cheddar cheese wasn't listed on the menu, but it added a nice touch. And, since I am an insufferable protein fiend, I ordered the "meat omelet" with a side of bacon. Delicious.
Redd's 'Que & Stew - No trip through Georgia or the Carolinas is rendered complete until you've eaten some local barbecue. Redd's was presented to me as a "hole in the wall with great ribs." And that sums it up pretty accurately, as it's barely more than a shed on the edge of a secondary highway far outside of Gainesville. Upon taking an especially eager bite of a baby back, I detected an unusual texture. It hit me then that not only had I taken a bite of tender meat, but the bone itself was so tender that I could eat that part as well! Smoke-flavored marrow made for a great treat in addition to some good meat.
The only downside to this trip was that I wasn't in Gainesville long enough to try some of the other delicious-looking places downtown. I also have a sneaking suspicion that there are more barbecue joint gems to be found in the surrounding area. Thankfully, I have reasons to go to Gainesville at least once or twice each year, so I can look forward to future opportunities for more culinary explorations...