I was thinking about calling this post “What a pesarattu taught me about global understanding.” So I’ll just start off with that point. Today in India I had the most wonderful realization about why I love about learning about new cultures. And, as most of them do, this epiphany happened at a dinner table. While eating. Or, more precisely, while gobbling up new dishes here in India as if I have never seen food before.
It was an early supper tonight and our wonderful hosts here in India are ensuring that every day we have the chance to try something new. Now, being a large person, I have the dubious honor of being the guy at most dinner parties who people want to force second helpings of this or that dish upon.* It’s not been lost here on my friends in India. The Director of Hospitality where we are staying was quick to pick-up on my penchant for eating, and has taken me on a food tour of our buffet table each night. To my great surprise, the dish that most delighted me was also the most simple. It was a flat, round piece of ground lentil. A pesarattu. And it had a lesson to teach me.
I brought my pesarattu back to my table and started describing it to my colleagues. I loved the way it merged with different chutneys (mint was my favorite, but the coconut and tomato were close behind). One of my friends looked at my plate and then made the most astute comment. “Isn’t it funny how every culture has a pancake-like or ravioli-like dish?” My mind immediately raced to the places I’d lived, visited and, most importantly, eaten. And she was right! Most cultures do have some sort of a dish that is a flatbread or unleavened round cake of some kind that you can dress up or down.
Cultures are wonderful to explore because of their unique characteristics. But it is reassuring to find that there are points in common everywhere around the world. They can be things as simple as a pancake or ravioli or as complicated as love, the desire to provide for a family, to be valued and cherished, and the search for happiness. I wish more people took the time to identify the figurative pancakes or ravioli dishes that unite, more than divide, our cultures. The world would certainly be a nicer place to enjoy a dinner if all 7 billion of us on Earth remembered this more often.
So, for tonight, Indian cooking has filled my belly to the brim…and fed my soul quite nicely. There are so many lessons to learn here, and I look forward to what tomorrow’s buffet, or rather day, will bring!
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*The Italians have a wonderful saying for this, that I absolutely love. I learned it in Reggio-Emilia from my dear friends the Collis. Instead of saying “he’s fat,” they employ the ever-so-diplomatic phrase of “He certainly has a good fork.” Ah, yes, my fork certainly seems to be working well…that food finds its way to me at most meals. What better way to experience new cultures than through their food!
