Food

I've been getting lots of questions about the food here, so here's what it's like.

The staple of the Nepali diet is daal bhaat - rice and soupy lentils - which is entirely more yummy than in sounds. It is usually accompanied by a meat curry (chicken or buff, and far less oily than Indian curries), saag (a generic term for vegetables like spinach, kale and chard) and potatoes. There are slight regional/tribal variations on this. I've had a few versions in Kathmandu and no doubt will try many more as I pass through various villages when trekking (still a month to go until that adventure and I can't wait).

Another popular dish are momos, which are like the Tibetan version of gyoza, but a little bit doughier. Also delicious.

Unfortunately, I have developed a fondness for Indian sweets (unfortunate in the sense that you can feel your arteries clogging up as you eat them, but that's a small price to pay for such deliciousness). My favourite are 'gulab jamun'; dense, squishy deep fried dough balls in cardamon scented sugar syrup, best served warm. There are also a dazzling array of cold sweets which are based either on condensed milk or nuts or dried fruit. They always look beautiful, often covered in silver leaf and are delicately and deliciously spiced with flavours I can't identify. (The image below is not my photo but pulled from the web.)

As well as the local foods, you can get any kind of foreign cuisine in Kathmandu and I've had some very good restaurant meals with Sapna and Rabi, who know the places to go. At home we mostly eat Nepali food, but Sapna will sometimes cook something with a more continental or oriental twist. I made a fish pie once and that went down very well.

All the produce you can buy here is local and seasonal. You can get some imported stuff in the bigger supermarkets but at prohibative cost (a pack of three tiny salmon steaks was selling for 45 pounds/CAD$80!) A couple of times I've had a brief craving for a favourite food from back home - fresh asparagus, a hunk of cheddar, a juicy steak, decent ice cream - but overall I love the food here.

I also love the Nepali attitude towards feeding visitors. It is the custom for Nepalis to always cook too much food so that any visitor, or even stranger, who turns up at their home can be fed. This custom is upheld in the Thapa household (Thapa being Rabia and Sapna's surname - I don't think I've mentioned that before). Moreover, the Nepali equivalent to 'how are you?' is 'have you eaten?' and should the answer be 'no' that situation is quickly remedied.

So much for thinking that I would lose weight in Nepal.