What We Ate With Vijay

At a park with Vijay in Tenali.

I thought my mother was the epitome of showing love and care through food, and she is, but so is our friend Vijay. 

Scott and I were very lucky to become friends with Vijay while we lived in Bhutan. Vijay is one of those extremely giving people who never wants a “thank you” or to be given anything back. One night during our time in Bhutan, after walking Vijay back to his place on the Sherubtse campus around 9:30, he invited us in for tea and coffee. Tea and coffee led to conversation, of course, and when 11 pm rolled around, Vijay was offering to cook us dinner since none of us had a proper one. By midnight, we were eating a delicious multi-part dinner, and by early morning, we left his place full and tired. 

When Scott and I left Calcutta, we boarded a 19-hour train headed to Vijayawada to visit Vijay in his hometown of Tenali. We ended up spending three comfortable days and nights there and were just completely stuffed full of food and drink by Vijay, his brother Kiran, his friends, and his mother. Scott and I tried a whole gamut of new foods, fruits, and beverages with Vijay in Tenali. Here is a sampling of what we consumed:

a bucket of KFC, fresh coconut juice, grilled corn, grape juice, badam (almond) milk, hot lemon tea with mint, samosa, plam tree root, guava, raw sweet corn, grilled chicken with a green sauce, chapati with chicken curry, savory curd, fresh coconut, raw sweet potato, sweet potato cooked in a fire, idlies with daal, roti with potato curry, slices of unripe green mango with salt and chili powder, sugercane, biriyani, fish curry, pickle, daal with drumstick (a long green vegetable that grows from a tree), a brown fig-like fruit, mosambi juice, a coconut cookie, a dairy sweet, buttermilk, chili chicken, chicken biriyani, upma with pickle, banana, chapati.

Vijay's mother's upma. This was the best new thing that I tried. We've had upma since but it wasn't nearly as good as this one.

Kiran, Vijay, and Scott at the bakery. Here, Kiran and Vijay were buying yet more food.