Yesterday I landed in a Food paradise
Yesterday was meant for all good food. After celebrating the morning at home with my family, I had to come to my native place to attend a function - one of my very close childhood friend's function - his daughter's birthday. This was special, since, it was her sixteen birthday. There are so many traditions in my place - people celebrate the sixteenth birthday by holding a nice feast, calling hundreds of people to eat and bless. They did all the rituals at home in the morning and all the food was prepared outside by a team of chefs, whom I know since 30 years. So I drove straight to his home to have the lunch first. Here are the items, that were on serving as starters. Recognize this ?
Panipuri, Golgappa,Gupchup - so many names but its one of the most common street food. You will always see some ladies hanging around. I personally do not eat this on streets - there is a reason for that. I have seen many pictures / videos where the vendors do not maintain proper hygiene and I have seen these people growing them in unhygienic conditions. Only if I know the person's origin and where and how he prepares these then only I eat. So this fellow is a known person in my native and we know how he prepares - so I did not miss the opportunity to grab 10 of them 😀
And then comes the famous Dahibara Aludam - another mouth watering starter. This recipe originally started in my place but now quite famous all over India.
There was no rush - so we took a little break before getting to the main course. We have a very close group of friends, who would always stand with us any moment. That is how the relationship is in village or rural life. They don't have lot of money but the social life is much better there. These functions serves the purpose of meeting with many people at one place. I met some people and their family after almost a decade. I cannot explain, how happy it feels to meet them and talk after such long time. Whoever meets you asks about where we are now and how are we doing, how many kids, how is the family doing etc - in the city, the very next neighbor does not even ask. We have 100 families in our apartment society and very few know about others.
Here were the items in the main course - rice, daal, cauliflower fry, Pointed Gourd curry, pineapple khataa ( sweet and sour) and Paneer.
Each of the items were so tasty that, we just took time and eat slowly 😀 These were all prepared without onion and garlic even - yes, food can be super tasty with other ingredients as well. And the taste is a bit different than what we eat at home - these are like more yummy and mouth watering, you can eat then sometimes, but not every day. They are cooked using big containers in traditional chullahs using wood - that may be another key contributing to the taste.
And here comes the sweets - my favorite kheer. I grabbed six of these - there was ice cream as well, was happy with just one scoop. If you do not know, then kheer and khatta tastes better next day, so carry them (if you can) and keep in fridge and eat next day.
You can see these containers here - a lot of food was remaining, so we decided to give away to nearby people and carry some to home. If you do not know, then kheer and khataa tastes better on the next day - I brought all most everything to home because we have a family staying on rent at my native and there is a pregnant lady. So I thought, it would be good to give some delicious food to her. Usually people call pregnant lady and give them various delicious food ( another tradition).
By the time I came home, it was almost 3.30 in the afternoon and my mother also came at the same time from a nearest place where she had gone to attend the marriage. Recently she recovered, but she had to attend her close friend's function.
On my way saw these monkeys planning to take over the house - the way they were sitting, I felt, they could read that TOLET paper and have come with the entire family to inspect the house. 😀
Good food brings good sleep - yes this is told at our place. So I slept for an hour but when I got up , found out this sweet surprise - the last custard apple from our tree that my mom had kept. What a day....
And the evening - our friends called in for a meeting to discuss about our yearly cricket match - about to happen next month 25th with some delicious lunch - rice and mutton - sometimes you enjoy the food when you have very specific items.
Village life is way better socialized than city life I must say....Money cannot buy these happiness. And people care for you..
Looks Yummy.
Hey, welcome back. Hope you will show some great arts and try out @nftshowroom
I'm going to start with what you said at the end. it is very true money cannot buy happiness. There is nothing more beautiful than celebrating our traditions and spending time with the people we love.
I really like the traditions of your town
I appreciate that you let us know these delicious dishes
I wish you a great dayhow are you dear friend @sanjeevm good afternoon
Wow.. All the dishes are Mouthwatering
Golgappa is my favourite too,, at some places it is known as puchka too. 😊
Yes village life is better than city life in many aspects.
Thank you for sharing this nice post.
Greetings to your mother. She is lovely 😊
Thank you so much - she is 71, but she is very strong mentally and works a lot, when fine.
Tasty and yummy looking food. Usually in such events food is so tasty and nice. Great photos
Ya, may be the way they prepare using the wood fuel, is the key.
Ha ha ha... Those are women or girl's favorite food. This is the fun of the village. Here you can meet everyone at any festival. It is true that many rural people do not have enough money but their social standard of living is much better. Have a wonderful day. Just food and food all around.
Ya, gained a kg on yesterday itself - takes a week to loose that much 😏
I love spicy food. You look so happy today because you are in your hometown today. And I love meeting friends and relatives.
Such an amazing food I love to eat this types of food😋😋
How nice it is to spend a nice time with the family to relax and have a good time, especially at this time of the year when someone has a birthday! Everything we can observe, it looks so delicious..... I agree with you in the part you said that we have to be very careful when we eat in the street, maybe the hygienic conditions are not always very optimal.
Let's keep working and supporting each other to grow at Hive!...Hello @sanjeevm… I have chosen your post about “-The Grand feast in villages-” for my daily initiative to re-blog - vote and comment…
You have rekindled old memories in your hometown today. It would be nice to meet old friends and relatives.
All small villages have that particular spirit of comradeship that is so close, yet too similar to being family, and is a great feeling to share, because it shows you another side of man kind, one side that we usually do not see as citicens of mayor urban areas, but is so good to see it alive and well on small villages, what i intent to point at, is the sense of familiarity and care, all small villages have it, you can sense how the neighborns actually care for each other, and mayor citys sometimes lose that, in my city noone even knows the people of the same block they live in, and that is something awful, basically they do not care about the fellow man, and that is no way to do good.
Loved the photos, you can see the celebration of life on their faces, good group of good people :D
Honestly I feel, they are more happy because of less aspirations. Once you go to the cities, there is a competition which never ends. But people in rural are happy with what they have - they spend more time socially.
And they spend more time being Happy, instead of being envious of others and their "stuff". A content and happy society makes people more happy, simple yet so hard to see.