Cookery and Domesticity

I can’t write about beans without thinking of the scene in Blazing Saddles. Decorum dictates that I do not describe the excerpt, so if you’ve not seen the film, you won’t get the point. We have a strictly vegetarian diet here, and fortunately I like beans, because we eat a lot of beans at Saccinandram: green beans, chick peas, haricot beans, kidney beans, and others whose names I don’t know. Yesterday, in addition to beans, we had ladies fingers (okra to aficionados) and bitter gourd, the latter being a new one on me. You’d think that with a name like bitter gourd, people would know better than to think of cooking and eating it, but there’s no accounting for taste. And that one didn’t taste particularly nice at all.

By and large, I find the cuisine delicious; – and though I will eat just about anything, I am very critical of cookery. The presentation and etiquette leave a bit to be desired, but you wouldn’t expect that to worry a bloke, would you? The herbs and spices are exotic and create deep hot flavours that threaten to scorch your throat. We sit in silence in two rows, facing each other in the refectory, either cross-legged on the floor or on low stools. We each have a circular stainless-steel dish that is shaped like the baking tin for a sponge cake –about 9inches across and an inch or so deep. We take it in turns to assist the brothers as dinner monitors, dolloping a large spoonful of rice and a couple of small ladles of vegetable curries on the trays. Sometimes grace is spoken in English, and sometimes chanted in Sanskrit. Spoons are optional, and most people eat with the fingers of the right hand. We then follow a strict routine for doing the washing-up, first rinsing in cold water, then sponging in warm soapy water, then back to the cold water sinks once again, before a final rinse in hot water and then onto the draining racks. The silence is then broken, and we may talk again.

My restaurant background has come in useful, but has made me very unpopular with the ladies. Every morning, after breakfast, the guests spend an hour peeling, scraping and chopping vegetables. When I read about this on the website, I decided to bring my speed-peeler and one decent chef’s knife in my luggage. While the women peel one onion, stopping to finish a sentence or two between each time they lift the knife, I have halved, peeled and finely chopped two or three onions with the rat-a-tat-tat of a fast-moving chef’s blade. The women give me the sort of glare a shop-floor trades-union representative would give to an over-energetic person on the production line when a time-and-motion study is being carried out. I am glad I brought my own knife because I pity the women when they try to cut up carrots with a blunt bread-knife. I can be such a nasty person sometimes, to think such unkind thoughts, but it does at least give me something to confess at Morning Prayers next day. The other reason the women positively dislike me is that while they are smothering themselves with mosquito repellent, I rarely get a single bite. I almost feel guilty.

But only almost.  

Fully-equipped artisan laundry. All garments receive personal attention

Veg-Prep is the only domestic chore expected of guests, though I have been known to sweep the dust off my veranda just because my neighbours were starting to show me up. 

I gave up doing any laundry in a bucket in the bathroom, when I discovered the dhobi-wallah would love to do a far better job than I could possibly do. This delightful man turns around any laundry in 24 hours for a fixed price per piece, whether that’s a shirt or a pair of socks. He charges 10p per item.

Yes, there are one or two things I shall miss when I’m back in Lincoln.