I am just back from a physio session.
My current physio is a Mangalorean. Most of the other patients who come to his clinic seem to be East Indians or Goans. Which is why it almost feels like one is in the Bandra Gym when there.
Today I entered the tiny clinic to find myself in the middle of an animated conversation between the doc and an East Indian patient about the beef fry at Sneha. Doc told us about how difficult it used to be get the beef fry as it would almost always get over when he reached. It’s now off the menu of course because of the beef ban.
Turned out they had it one day at Sneha when he went there before they stopped serving need and the doc placed his order for the beef fry.
‘One mutton sukka parcel’ said the guy at the counter.
Doc said that he got frazzled. ‘ I like food but am not a foodie. I don’t remember names of dishes. I thought I got the name wrong and that my wife would get angry man.’
The Sneha manager reassured him that they referred to beef as mutton to avoid controversy but it was beef.
Doc almost doubled up in laughter as he recounted the story.
The other patient was done and as he got up said ‘doc I will get you the pork chops from Bandra Gym’.
My ears perked up though I was in the middle of a back extension.
There! I knew there would be a Bandra gym connection!
Exercises over, I lay down for diathermy. I prefer to close my eyes and nap as I get zapped. Except today the conversation was too riveting for that. Doc went into a monologue about the difference between the Mangalorean sannas and idli (former is fermented with toddy) and how the use of sugar was once a sign of being rich in mangalore where jaggery ruled. Now apparently it’s all sugar and you get jaggery only in one shop there.
He then went on to speak about how memory, rather than taste, influences how one reacts to food. That his mother used to make soft cutlets which is why the harder cutlets that his wife makes don’t work for him. That if your mother made watery daal (like mine did) no other daal that your wife (she hardly cooks) makes would work for you.
He then told me about he defines ‘best’ by the price of a dish. ‘If a tea costs Rs 200 I am going to see if it gives me as much incremental pleasure over my 15 Re tea’.
The machine beeped and it was time to get up.
Amazing how most of my docs love to talk about food.
Update, 17 April…today the doc and a patient had a vivid discussion on Goan sausages and how it is important to buy home made ones which are much better than store bought ones. on how Goan and East Indian sausages are different. Our doc, a Mangalorean, is more concerned about the taste than the origins. The conversation was sparked off when I said that the narrow physio bed reminds me of train bunks and that he should serve railway omelette breakfasts. To which he said he will provide beef sandwiches, I suggested choriz pao. The conversation on sausages started
if you drink tea with the "real" jagggery you will never have another tea with sugar.
We are spoilt by bad food these days.
Beef if it is grass fed and consumed occassionally is not bad – eating it every day as if the beef grows in 10 days is the RED flag.
if doctors needs to treat a patient , it has to be about food . Food is medicene ,Hippocrates said that years ago. Your pharmacist is your cook at home. The composition of the food and the continued consumption elicits healthy cells or inflammation of cells ( diseases )
Laila.
Laila
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It's you! You draw out the foodie in people. Look what you've done to me 🙂
Hang on, are you sure you're not putting this restaurant in trouble by revealing they're still selling beef?
Actually I mentioned that beef is off the menu Anon
Made you a fitter woman Gia? 😉
Laila, the doc said they would find it difficult to get used to jaggery in the tea as they had grown up on sugar in tea in Mumbai
Interesting that tea originated in China, where it is not consumed with sugar. Neither in Japan. Whether they are drinking green or black teas.
So it is the Brits that started milk and sugar with tea?
One German study has shown that the milk proteins bind the beneficial tannins and phenolics in tea, and diminish its value to the consumer.
Given that Indian city populations have such high incidence of diabetes, Indians should learn to drink pure black tea for the liquor and flavor.
On the issue of "value" – Rs. 200 vs. Rs. 15 tea – in complex matters, price often stands in as proxy for value. Wines are a good example. In blind tests done at Caltech, same group of tasters said one wine was much better than the other, when both were the same wine, but one "blinded" bottle was priced much higher than the other. Value is in itself a complex attribute, often relating to many other factors. Same cup of Darjeeling tea consumed in a tea garden in Darjeeling will probably "taste" better than when consumed in hurry at home!
Yeah right! How I wish I could turn the tables 🙂
I've stopped having sugar in coffee
Instead of tea & coffee, everybody shd start drnkng hot chocolate, so that it will be easily available everywhere:-):-):-)hee hee:-)
Mummy missed our hot chocolate date this weekend
I used to drink milk with bournvita and sugar but once I had it with jaggery alone and there's no looking back. It tastes like heaven. So glad I live in a village and don't have to depend on toxic A1 milk of the cooperatives.
Your doc has already decided in his mind not to accept flavours different from his childhood and ergo he won't like new experiences.
yes, he did say that he is strongly influenced by the memories of his childhood