To See the World in a Grain of Rice

In more than a decade of travel in India and outside I have observed the dynamics of food behaviour of people keenly. As a military wife and diplomatic spouse I have had my fair share of “entertaining” and being wined and dined. Thus, I have seen the “five-star” culture practised by individuals, institutions and industries such as hospitality and tourism, from close quarters. I have seen unconsumed food on the table being dumped into trash cans in top-end resorts in the middle of nowhere. On the flip side, I have seen gut-wrenching deprivation where getting one meal a day is a God-send for many. I have come to realize that the traditional Indian precept of eating and cooking is, by far, the best model there is for savouring and saving food.

Conspicuous consumption is obscene in itself, but wasting food is downright criminal.

A legendary anecdote in the Indian epic Mahabharat is of “Draupadi’s Kitchen”. When Draupadi (wife of Pandavas) and her husbands were in exile, Lord Krishna (their ally and well-wisher) came visiting. He was hungry and asked for some food. Living in dire straits, having been banished to the forests, Draupadi had nothing to offer. Torn between poverty and hospitality, shame-facedly, she showed him an empty plate. Lord Krishna saw a leftover grain of rice and said that would suffice for him. 

The moral of the story is that: “every grain counts.”  As children we were fed on a diet of such lofty stories which have endured. Lessons such as, “every morsel is precious” or “every grain is someone’s rightful share”, are ingrained into our psyche. There are shlokas (sayings) in our scriptures which equate Food with God.

When we made faces while eating vegetables or food we disliked our Mum would say, “If you spurn food, food will spurn you­­.” There was no question of leaving food on the plate; we had to take only that we were sure to consume. So, even today, whether we are at a restaurant or a party, we instinctively serve ourselves modestly. Not for us the misplaced notion that it is fashionable to leave food on the plate, that it is a sign of prosperity. “Waste not, want not” was the order of the day. 

Meals cooked at home were in measured quantities. But there was never any dearth of food with enough and more to go around and to entertain friends and family. Surplus food, if any, was passed on to the domestic helper and her children. Titbits of residual roti (Indian bread) or rice went into the bird feeder, happily lapped up by sparrows and mynas.

A lot of thinking went into the way food was cooked without compromising on taste.  In my Mum’s kitchen, stems of spinach and cauliflower and leaves of beetroot and radish were equally cherished as the “real” thing. The stems added to the crunchiness quotient and texture of the curries and stir-fries while enhancing nutrition. Often, creative and innovative recipes were concocted from unconsumed food. For instance, leftover lentils were mixed with multi-grain flour to make delicious savoury pancakes to be relished with pickles and chutneys. It could pass of as a gourmet accompaniment for high tea!

What we learn early in life stays with us forever. Like me, many Indian mothers (even fathers) pass on these traditions to their children as natural legacy. Tragically, in recent times, even in India, people have turned away from these cultural influences, but the time has come to reclaim the tender doctrines that have been etched in our DNA.

-        By Padmaja Parulkar

NOTE: This is my entry for the UNEP World Environment Day 2013 Green Blogging Competition. The theme is Think. Eat. Save. Reduce your Foodprint.