> > Right - none of the yobs from IIT Delhi or IIT Kanpur could stand idli > vada; the fact that hostel cuisine differs in some remarkable way from MTR > might have had something to do with it. And no, there was no bissi bele > baath; the closest we could get to that would have been bissi bele hooli > anna, staunchly, proudly Tam to an, er, well, a man, and there was no way > that could pass the Mess Committee.
Ahem. IIT Kanpur, Class of 1999. The reason the 'yobs' can't stand it is because they were made in such Godawful fashion that they were virtually inedible. Those who hadn't really tasted the idlis and vadas before were given the worst introduction possible. First impressions and all that. It helped to make friends with Southie faculty on campus - with a nice variety in place so one could eat good food. Screw the Mess Committee and all that. Me, I'm Tam, and I had my contacts. If you want a Mason-Dixon Line, and that's what comes of freely allowing > lawyers on board, it was sambhar. You lined up on one side or the other. > Simple as that. And hostel sambhar, having gone from solid state to liquid > during the preparation, hung over the hostel as a cloud for er, many hours > after ingestion, for reasons that may not require much explication. That was > the overwhelming memory retained by many permanently shocked olfactory > systems of life in the Institute. Sambar is the easiest thing to make, and the Northies find unique and imaginative ways to screw it up. What should be a lentil preparation becomes a tepid, watery, tamarind-flavoured concoction with all of yesterday's leftover veggies floating about in it. How could anyone enjoy a cuisine that was so brutally misrepresented? -- Sumant Srivathsan http://sumants.blogspot.com
