The food in India has been, let’s see, interesting. If you are a person that can take hot and spicy food, this is the cuisine of choice. If you are a person that likes to eat the same food every night, Rising Star food is for you.
An hour after dinner on my first night at Rising Star I threw up due to heat exhaustion. After that, red rice and I had a horrible relationship. Unfortunately, that is the main dish practically each night at Rising Star. It is healthier and unshelled rice that is a little heartier than brown rice. Sometimes yellow, vegetable rice is served. It has a soy based meat product they put in it in place of chicken. You have to watch for the little black things they put in it or your mouth will be on fire in 0 to 60 seconds.
Also served is a watery, yellow curry that has cut vegetables in it. It usually has a kick to it and resembles chicken soup. You put it on top of the rice. Sometimes they had this off- white curry that was goopy, and again, spicy. 
Side dishes were a hit or miss… usually the latter. I liked when we had sliced green beans. It had spices in it that gave it a gourmet twist. There was also a dish that is made from the banana tree that resembles a yellow green bean if it was chopped up. It was not a favorite for me or Quincy. Unusual tasting beets were served sometimes. Some people liked these, but I have never been a lover of beets. Another side dish was these pureed beans that were extremely spicy. They tricked me as they looked like they were refried beans. Sometimes the spicy food would make my lips and the inside of my mouth feel numb and tingly as if I had just had my mouth worked on by the dentist. As you can see I'm a wimp when it comes to spicy food. Many of our volunteers loved this food.
About once a week they have chicken. It is little bony chicken pieces with, again, spice added to the coating. Sometimes they had fish that had bones in it with a coating and the skin. It was always a nice surprise to scoop up some curry and find a fish head giving you a smile.
We also, every day, sliced up a variety of vegetables and fruit. This was a life saver because on the less than desirable fish nights or ultra-spicy evenings, we would fill up on these somewhat American tasting options. As you can probably tell, we are India food’s number one fans!!
I was disappointed that we missed the mango season as I was itching for a fresh mango plucked off of a tree just outside my window. Those and coconut trees are all over the Rising Star campus. We did get to eat pineapple often and we got to have pomegranate fruit daily.
Chupati night is always on Friday. This is bread that has a pita consistency. Everyone likes that bread when it is offered. Occasionally they serve tipuli, a rice circle patty bread. I wasn’t a fan of it. It tasted like perfume.
Eating with the kids when I was on the education rotation was a treat. We all met in the open air dining hall. White rice is always served with three different curries and another side dish. They serve this one milky, watery, white one that was not too tasty. The kids like to put it on their rice and drink the left overs. Everyone would sit with their families in a circle. Each kid has her own tin plate with his own name on it. No silverware is used. The fine-tuned technique of eating with your hands is displayed. I tried it once and was not too successful. The curry was too hot on my hands and I had it on my face and everywhere else. The girls schooled me on this with smirks on their faces.
Being secluded from normality in ingestion and digestion, I often craved chocolate or something a little salty. That is something you don’t get there unless you bring it or buy it in one of the villages. Village snacks are much different than what we were used to, so even that was not much of a break. They have chocolate hard biscuits. In the villages there isn't the funds for refrigeration for soft chocolate and extras like that. It just gets too melted. Although, they sold packaged ice cream in old freezers that tasted exactly like what we have in America, we definitely took advantage of that option. That would happen once in a while as we were coming home from the leprosy colonies.
Every night, the group ate dinner on the roof of the hostel using banana leaves as plates under a colorful canopy held up with bamboo poles. We would each stand up and share a high and low for the day. We would have an inspirational thought that someone would share and go over any announcements. It was always nice to gather together at the end of the day.
Some of our highs consisted of something precious that one of the children said, an especially rewarding experience in one of the colonies, or discovering another reason why we have fallen in love with India.
Some of the lows were usually reactions to the heat, or to the large masses of mosquitoes, or being incredibly tired.
Chef Chanelle, one of the volunteers, saved us many of the nights when we could not bring ourselves to eat red rice one more evening by making us french toast, sometimes even at 10:30 pm. I love that girl!
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| Chanelle enjoying some paratha. |
Sometimes when we came home from a weekend excursion we would stop at this little road side place that served Perattha. It is bread that is a cross between a tortilla and a croissant. They serve it with a light green dipping sauce and a mini omelet with onions in it on the side. It was only 10 rupees for each item you order. We usually had three Paratha and one omelet, which meant we spent less than a dollar for a whole meal! Oh how we love the exchange rate in India.
When we went to Northern India on our Taj Majal excursion the tour guides took us to a nice Northern India restaurant. I was excited to see Korma chicken on the menu. It is a yellow mild curry. When I had it I was very pleased to know that the Indian restaurant, Ghandi’s, near my house tasted just the same. All of the volunteers filled up on the naan bread. It is dry bread that looks grilled on the outside.
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| Quincy and I shared a chocolate chip sundae at Pizza Hut. |
Because of our constant craving for food that did not burn our taste buds off, we experienced Pizza Hut, India style. It is a sit-down restaurant and always full of customers. Many of the pizza options would not be found in America because they cater to the Indian palate. Quincy couldn’t find Canadian bacon and pineapple on the menu. A lot of cheese bread and pizza were ordered that night. Ice Cream cones were ordered at McDonald’s. I had a diet coke there from the soda fountain; they don’t have ice offered in any drinks in India. I wouldn’t have had it anyways because the water is questionable for Americans to ingest. I received the wonderful gift of traveler’s diarrhea that night. I swear it was either from the soda fountain pop or just eating more than I had that past two weeks. Thank heavens for the travel nurse’s recommendation to get a prescription for that.
Luckily, we didn’t go to India for the food because we would have been devastatingly disappointed. The people are what make us want to go back… but not the ones that cook.
After that we toured a Jaine Temple that was located down an alley. Before entering we had to read a list of rules. One of them was that a woman couldn't be in menses if entering. Strange. Shoeless and leaving cameras behind, we all walked through and viewed the ornate carvings and designs inside and at the end of our short tour we got a hard sell for donations. I didn't like that.
We ate lunch at a tasty, Indian restaurant and got some authentic northern Indian food. It tasted more like what I have eaten at home. It was nice to eat the type of food I like. You can never go wrong ordering korma chicken accompanied with rice and naan bread. Naan was a big hit for some of the volunteers. Some even ordered some to go for a snack later. With full bellies we all left for our next stop. 
