<-- Back To All Posts

MM..FOOD

I have been asked a few times about what kind of food I've been eating here, so I will give a rundown of the types of food my host family prepares, as well as the general diets of folks in Nepal.

A Quick Overview

Broadly, if there is one thing that you eat an absolute ton of here, it is rice and lentils, or daal bhaat (daal meaning lentils, bhaat meaning rice). In nepal, they generally focus two main meals a day around rice and lentils, the first one being a sort of brunch often had around 10 AM, and the next one being a sort of dinner often served at about 7 or 8 PM.

In addition, most days people will have something small when they've just woken up (often tea with biscuits or an egg), and something small or medium in the early afternoon, such as soup.

Daal Bhaat

You can't really discuss food in Nepal without going over Daal Bhaat. Everyone seems to do it a bit differently, but in my experience so far the standard is this:

Take a huge plate of rice (I mean seriously a small mountain of rice. I get a bit less because I have repeatedly stated that I have a small stomach) with some vegetables and maybe some achaar (pickled spicy sauce / vegetables) on the side, and a small bowl of lentils in a sort of stew - this will be mostly liquid, and sometimes will be substituted with a small bowl of meat with the same deal, mostly juices with meat mixed in. You pour the lentils or meat over the rice and mix it all together with your right hand, then eat with the same hand. Often the food will be a bit too hot to mix by hand immediately - in this case I will usually just prod the food around for a while to try and get it to cool off.

Daal Bhaat  
     
Unfortunately I have failed to get a picture of daal bhaat before I've mixed it all together. Frankly, this isn't the nicest picture, but it really is quite good. I believe in this picture it's pork mixed with potatoes over the standard daal bhaat.
 

Daal Bhaat can be served with really any combination of meat and / or any vegetable. Because my family is Gurung, we happen to get a lot of meat. Chicken, pork, buff (buffalo), pig - you name it. My previous host family was vegetarian, so I was exclusively eating vegetables at that point - lots of potatoes, spinach, mushrooms, etc. On rare occasions I've had a sort of pumpkin puree which was quite good. It seems like every family does daal bhaat slightly differently, with the one consistent staple being generous portions.

Khaaja (Snack)

What you eat for khaaja will vary much more than daal bhaat. At my host family here I have had several different foods for this - from regional snack staples like chatpate and chicken chilli, to dishes more familiar to us in the west, such as ramen and french toast. Granted, I don't think this is the case for all the other PCVs - my host sister in law used to work as a cook in Kathmandu, so she has a lot of experience cooking many different foods that are slightly less traditional here. I consider myself pretty lucky in this regard.

French Toast  
     
And yes, it is as good as it looks
 

Chiyaa (Tea)

If rice is the number one thing most copiously consumed in Nepal, chiyaa is a close second. during breakfast and khaaja you will usually also have a cup of either black tea or milk tea. Alternatively, my host family will sometimes do coffee, but I think they're a bit of an outlier in that regard.

P.S.

Since I promised last time, here is a photograph of Lucy and Pixie, two of the 3 dogs that live here. When I have food, they suddenly become very fond of me.

Pixie and Lucy  
     
They're a couple of good dogs.
 

P.P.S.

As a sort of food "honorable mention" I want to point out the various berries that grow here. This time of year, there are a ton of each of these growing on trees and shrubs here.

Aiselu, or golden Himalayan Raspberry  
        
These grow on a rather thorny shrub and are a bit similar in flavor to a raspberry.
 

kimbu, or Nepali mulberry  
     
These ones grow on trees all over the place, and each tree has tons growing on it. They are a bit similar to blackberries, both in look and taste. They do stain your hands quite a bit as you can see in the picture.