Chapter 21, Entering India (Part 2)
Both the low-caste driver from West Bengal and Bai Quanyi, the health attaché at the Embassy in India, seemed familiar with Ramlila Square in New Delhi. The two discussed it for a while and soon found themselves nearby. Found a cafeteria that looked pretty good.
Generally speaking, this restaurant is well decorated, the air conditioning is fully turned on, and the environment is quite clean. However, the smell is a little bit not good, and there is always a vague, vague, similar smell. The strange smell of foot odor mixed with yogurt. However, as long as you walk a little further inside, you can smell the aroma of food, and then it is covered. Later, Wang Qiu learned that most places where Indians have lived for a long time will have this kind of smell, but the degree may be mild or Just heavy. Because they eat too much curry, and the weather is too hot, they sweat non-stop, and their bodies always secrete a sour smell of curry. The fatter and darker the body, the heavier the odor, and the longer they stay, the more The place where it was placed was also "polluted"...
(Any international flight that carries a large number of Indian passengers must spray air freshener into the cabin before receiving passengers from other countries.)
Chinese culture has always emphasized food as the first priority. For Chinese tourists who go abroad, one of the great pleasures of traveling abroad is that the local food is very appetizing. They can not only experience the novelty of foreign cultures, but also enjoy the food. On the contrary, the biggest disappointment is that the local food is difficult to swallow. And can only take refuge Local Chinese restaurants, but they often later find that the food tasted by this so-called "Chinese restaurant" is also seriously disappointing to their ancestors, and in the end they can only eat instant noodles... Whether the food in a place is good or not is directly related to Chinese tourists Perceptions of a foreign land. Those places with special and delicious food will have a better and clearer impression; while places with difficult food will have a much worse impression.
Of course, food cultures around the world are very different, and even the flavors of dishes in different provinces in China are very different. It is indeed too subjective to use your own standards to judge other people's food cultures. But there is no way, the impression of travel is inherently subjective...
At this point, India is a very unlucky country. Thanks to its notorious reputation for hygienic conditions, the country’s food culture is usually directly excluded from the experience options of Chinese tourists. Many short-term travelers even Never thought of trying Indian food.
Then, based on Wang Qiu's personal experience today, Indian food is indeed not that good, but it is not as scary as the rumors say.
——Walking around this buffet restaurant, Wang Qiu discovered three major characteristics of Indian food:
First, there is very little meat; second, the hot dishes are almost all mush, mainly curry; third, there are no pure green leafy vegetables.
In the entire buffet restaurant, if desserts are included, there are no less than a hundred dishes in total, but most of them are vegetarian. The only meat dishes are chicken and fried eggs, and fried fish steaks cut into small pieces. . But there was no beef or pork. There seemed to be roast lamb, but unfortunately it was all eaten up by the diners before Wang Qiu and the others came in, leaving only a few bones and an empty stainless steel basin. Then, except for those baked or fried foods, the remaining dishes are basically all kinds of green, yellow, brown, spicy...
——Indians don’t seem to have the concept of stir-frying vegetables. Instead, everything from beans to cauliflower, leaves to rhizomes are chopped and cooked in a paste. If the chicken is not fried or roasted, it is also put into the paste. Stewing... This is really a cooking method suitable for lazy people.
Chinese people are usually accustomed to collectively refer to this kind of mushy dish as curry. This is neither right nor wrong. All pastes are cooked with spices, and curry is just the most important category of these spices. There are also other flavors, such as some pastes are anise-flavored, some are mint-flavored, and some are similar to braised ones. Some soups taste like canned mushroom soup, some add cheese, and some add bay leaves.
Moreover, the curry that Chinese people eat is usually the three-way version that was first introduced to Japan from England and then from Japan. The three essential things in it are potatoes, carrots and meat. But in genuine Indian curry, there are more beans and onions, and there are also coriander, corn, spinach and tomatoes. Potatoes and carrots are not very common. In addition, there are certain differences in the specific taste.
No matter what, Wang Qiu and the others each scooped out several kinds of paste in small bowls, took some fried or baked pasta, and then found a table to sit down. There is a basin of water with lemon slices floating on each table for diners to wash their hands. After washing, they each extend their fingers to the food...
——Indians generally eat with their hands. If you want tableware, you have to ask the waiter for it, and there may not be any.
Next, Wang Qiu and the others discovered that although the Indian food in this cafeteria didn't look very good (they were all mushy), they tasted pretty good. Especially those kinds of pasta snacks, they are all made to a high standard - fried round and crispy golden bread balls, filled with cheese with brown sugar. As long as you take a bite, the sweet juice will flow down your mouth and fill your chin. ; Fried curry dumplings made into triangles and seasoned with curry spices. The potatoes and vegetables are spicy and satisfying after eating, and it really leaves a mouthful of fragrance; there is also the roasted and chewy Indian paratha, which is perfect for dipping into various kinds of pastes; finally, The yogurt and milk tea as drinks are also quite good, but they are slightly sweet.
Of course, like the Indians at the table next to them, who put their fingers into the bowl and stirred the rice and vegetables together, and put their fingers in their mouths and sucked twice from time to time, Wang Qiu and others still felt a little uncomfortable. Too adaptable...Although Xinjiang also eats hand-made rice this way...
"...Although these gooey things look very unappetizing, they seem to taste pretty good...especially this coriander curry..."
While Wang Qiu was dipping the pancake into the green paste, he said, "...the taste is very refreshing...much better than the Indian food I imagined. Is it because we are in a high-class restaurant, so it feels better?" Is it passable? I read a travel brochure before coming here, and it warned us repeatedly not to eat anything from Indian roadside stalls, and not to drink bulk drinks from small shops, otherwise we will suffer from diarrhea..."
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"...If I am not biased, Indian food is still worth tasting. Otherwise, how could the British bring curry back?"
Health Commissioner Bai Quanyi ate a piece of curry fried noodles and said, "... Regarding the issue of roadside stalls and big hotels... what should I say? This cafeteria is indeed a relatively high-end consumption place, and the people who come to patronize it are all high-caste Indians. People and foreign tourists, however, although those roadside food stalls in India look... It's a bit dirty and messy, but the hygiene problem is not as serious as you think. Think about it, how clean are our Chinese roadside stalls? And most of the Indian snacks are fried and grilled. All bacteria must have been wiped out by the high temperature!
After all, Indians are not Japanese. They like to eat everything raw, which results in a lot of parasitic diseases. On the contrary, Indian food is basically overheated! Let’s talk about these sticky vegetables! They are all cooked in a large pot or even a pressure cooker for several hours. It may not look good, it may destroy the nutrition of the vegetables, and it may not be to the taste of some people, but sterilization should be fine. ”
"...So, are the stories in the travel brochures about Chinese tourists eating at Indian roadside stalls all exaggerated and made up?"
"...It can't be said that if you really go to a roadside stall to eat, it is indeed very dangerous to the stomach. But the main problem is not the food - the bacteria in the fried snacks themselves have long been killed during the heating process. Dead, but the tableware is not clean, and the water used to wash the dishes is also not clean. The vendors' plates and cups are basically not washed, and they are rinsed in a bucket of dark water, from morning to night. How about...?"
Bai Quanyi replied, "...Every time when people from the embassy and I go out to eat, if it is not a relatively high-end restaurant, we usually bring our own lunch boxes and cups, so there will usually be no problems. In addition, Some tourists are too exhausted from long journeys, resulting in poor health and weak stomachs, but they still have to eat Indian-style raw onions, spicy curries and indigestible fried foods, and naturally they are put down..."
"...If this is the case, it is indeed the tourist who is seeking death." Levi muttered as he chewed on a small fish steak, "...But you still can't eat too much of this curry - before, I originally thought that Europeans The body odor is already strong enough, but it can be tolerated after washing. But no matter how hard the Indians here take a shower, they still can’t wash off the smell of curry..."
"...Indeed, Indians not only always eat curry, but also eat onions every day, and they are raw onions, so the smell on their bodies is naturally not good."
Bai Quanyi shrugged and pointed to the young driver from West Bengal next to him, who was holding a bowl of chopped raw onions and devouring his food. "...However, this is also a survival philosophy to adapt to the environment of the South Asian subcontinent. First of all, eating more onions and curry can stimulate the mouth and prevent heatstroke, which is the same as taking rendan in summer. Secondly. , this can also prevent mosquito bites. When I first came to India, I was always bitten by mosquitoes in the summer, but the Indians around me were always fine. Later I found out that the reason was their curry body odor. ——Because Indians often eat onions and curry, the smell of sweat can repel mosquitoes over time..."
"...Just to repel mosquitoes, you have to eat onions and curry so much that your whole body smells weird? Isn't this too exaggerated?"
Wang Qiu was dumbfounded and said without thinking, "...We are human beings, not living mosquito coils!"
"...But if you want to live in India for a long time, you really need to turn yourself into mosquito coils! This is a tropical climate, so the mosquitoes in India are much more ferocious than the mosquitoes in China. The Chinese mosquitoes are just for people. It’s just a few swellings, but Indian mosquitoes can really kill people!”
Bai Quanyi shook his head and sighed, "...I am the health attaché of the embassy. Every year, I hear that Chinese tourists who come to India contract tropical diseases due to mosquito bites and other reasons! If the mosquitoes that spread malaria also It’s okay, just wait for a week or two, but if you encounter a mosquito that spreads dengue fever, you will probably be dead. And when you die, you will be bleeding from all the orifices and covered with red spots. It’s terrible..."
At this point, he suddenly stopped talking, trembled, glared at Wang Qiu, Li Wei and the other three people and said, "...wait a minute, you guys were all pre-vaccinated before coming to India for a business trip. Come on! This is a matter of life and death, don’t be careless!”
"...Uh... don't worry, we have all been vaccinated! There is absolutely no problem! And we brought a doctor here this time!" Wang Qiu was stunned, then reached out and patted the female doctor Marikawa Shizuka on the shoulder, He replied with confidence. But then the three of them hurriedly took out the cooling oil from their bags, and wiped it on their bodies regardless of the pungent smell - being bitten by an Indian mosquito and contracting dengue fever was just a small trouble for them; But if the T virus is infected by an Indian mosquito, the situation will be horrifying...