Think Of It As Soup

A note about the food: it is delicious. We eat rice and daal (a soupy, spicy dish made from different legumes- often lentils, chick peas, kidney beans, or peas) at every meal, along with some sabzi (vegetables, usually steamed or stir fried and always well spiced). None of the kitchens here have ovens, so everything is cooked on either a gas flame or an open fire- including the chapattis, or roti, which are another staple of every meal. Chapatis are whole wheat tortillas, made by hand, cooked on a hot grill and finished over flame. They are used instead of utensils, and when they run out, everything is eaten by hand.

We are rarely served meat, as many Hindus are ‘veg’. If there is a meat dish, it’s often chicken or mutton (which here refers to goat (I was told by one person that goat is the only reliably free-range meat as it’s impossible to force feed goats and keep them in confinement)) The chickens are raised in large confinement operations in the bigger towns, then shipped alive in cages to small, road-side shops in villages. There you can buy them either live or butchered while you wait. I’m told the confinement operations are fairly humane- involving not more than 1,000 or so birds free ranging inside dirt-floor warehouses.

This last weekend, Keith, Chicu, Kacy and I escaped the students for a night’s rest at a wildlife sanctuary called Binsar about 3 hours drive north. We stayed at an ‘Eco-resort,’ which seemed to mean that they had no heating, warmed water for showers in a wood-fired stove, and cooked local delicacies. The food was especially good there and we had the world’s thinnest Aloo Paratha (potato stuffed fried chapattis) for breakfast. These had caraway in the dough, which we were told helps to prevent flatulence. Good luck with that!

The sanctuary itself was a thickly forested mountaintop looking north to the looming Himalayas. The oak, fir, and juniper forest was thickly hung with moss and lichen and reminded Kacy and I both of the walk down to Shell beach (except of course for the giant rhododendron trees- often as big as a small oak!).

On the way back, we stopped at a Tibetan restaurant for lunch. We had Thupka soup, and Tibetan tea, which is green tea with a lot of milk and a lot of butter and a little salt. Keith said “if you think of it as soup, it makes it more palatable.” Indeed, it’s a strong, fatty, and wonderful flavor. Almost like drinking a glass full of straight melted butter. It would certainly give DiAnn’s butter coffee a run for her money!

The soup thick with noodles and vegetables and a hearty broth notably lacking in corn starch. All the soups we’re served here at Sonapani are viscous in the manner of Chinese soups, a tradition which seems to have crossed the border this far north in India. It was refreshing to have a thin, clear broth for once.

Our last stop on the return trip was to pick up some traditional sweets for the Nepali workers who are living in plastic covered huts nearby us, building the road to Sonapani. For now, it is a dirt path about 2km to the main road. We all walk to and from and our food and luggage comes in on the back of a donkey named Lakshmi. Every day we pass the Nepali families carrying rocks on their heads and moving dirt with shovels. They build incredible and sturdy walls with the flat stone they dig from the earth around here. The road should be finished before monsoon season next year. We thought they deserved something special.