Trail food

The Anthropologist and I went on a 12-mile hike today with the Sierra Club. We were the youngest of the group by at least twenty years -- and we got our asses kicked by nearly all of them. We were left in the dust while the rest of the 22-person group sped off up the steep hills of the county park. I huffed and puffed, my legs and feet protesting as we came down the inclines toward the end of the hike. By the end, I was so sore I could barely walk up and down the stairs in my apartment.

Despite all of that, it was a good time. We stopped for lunch at some picnic tables overlooking the hills, watching a red-tailed hawk swooping over the trees. I had packed more than enough food, just in case we needed to immediately replenish all the calories we were going to burn: bacon sandwiches with arugula and slow-roasted tomatoes (from the freezer), tortilla chips, Pink Lady apples, oatmeal raisin cookies, toasted nuts and dried cherries, and Mojo snack bars. The sandwiches are this week's entry into the Dark Days Challenge, as all the components happened to come from local sources. The bread is a California black from Beckmann's Bakery (30 mi), the bacon is from Range Bros. (120 mi), the arugula is from Heirloom Organics (40 mi), and the tomatoes were from a U-pick at Full Circle Farm (20 mi), which I had slow-roasted back in September and had stashed in the freezer for mid-winter occasions such as these.

It was the sort of lunch that was nice to eat outdoors, even though it was suddenly gray and chilly (and the Anthropologist hadn't brought a sweatshirt or rain jacket). It felt appropriate to be in nature, enjoying the scenery, and eating foods that had come from relatively close by.

Pakora and other fried things

One of my favorite foods is anything fried: fried chicken, fried zucchini, fish and chips, fried won tons, and on and on. So, of course, I was very happy to find out that Indian street food included a delicious snack called pakora. Pakora is basically just about anything dipped in batter and fried — most commonly bread, paneer, and vegetables such as potatoes, cauliflower, or bell pepper. The pakora-walla ("pakora person") cooks up his tasty goods in bulk, then sets them out on newspaper to be sold. When it's time to be dished up, often the pakora or other fried foods are put back into hot oil to be reheated. Then again, sometimes they're not.

On the train to and from Shimla, we often hopped off when the train stopped to buy the fried goods that were on sale. At one stop, twenty rupees (about forty cents) got us two samosas with a generous squeeze of Indian ketchup. (One samosa at my local farmers' market is three dollars, so this was an exciting purchase for me!) Elsewhere, we had bread pakora — just plain white bread, battered and fried.



At the Amber Fort outside of Jaipur in Rajasthan, we had the best samosas I'd ever eaten. The food at the stall had been sitting out for who knows when, the flies were abuzz, and the samoses weren't reheated. But the crust was crisp and buttery, and the potato filling was nicely spiced. I was so glad we had eaten there, even though I joked that I was risking traveler's sickness for a pocket of tasty fried goodness.

Another fried food I discovered was at an expansive market in Delhi called Dilli Haat, which included goods and foods from every state in India. Lunch included momos, little deep fried dumplings filled with chicken. They were served with a bowl of steaming broth, which was quite bland but felt warm in the tummy. As recommended by the Anthropologist's friend, our guide through Dilli Haat, we made a mix of hot sauce and vinegar to dip our momos in. The wrapper crunched as I bit into it, and the sauce packed a much needed punch to the delicious but not particularly remarkable filling.



A word about street food and food in general in India: It's important to be careful when you're traveling abroad and eating food cooked in a stall or on the street. But don't let the fear of getting sick prevent you from having an amazing culinary experience. The truth is you are going to get sick. No matter how careful you are. I was fairly cautious, didn't drink the tap water (or use it to brush my teeth), avoided eating meat from street stalls — and I got mildly sick anyway. When you're in a country that's very different from yours, it's hard to avoid stomach bugs that your system isn't used to — unless you're determined to not eat anything that isn't from a three-star or above restaurant. Which would be too bad because you really would be missing out on a lot of new and wonderful foods.

When I was in India...

Despite that all my posts this month have referenced India in some way or another, I have yet to actually regale you with tales of the food there. And there was certainly food to be had: Good, bad, and mediocre. Biryanis, naan, kulfi, and kebabs. Spicy, salty, sweet, and savory. India has all these things and more.

I will first tell you about the hands-down best food I ate during my five-week stint abroad.

You may be looking at the above photo and thinking, "That's not India." Because "India" probably conjures images of elephants and camels, crowds of people in bright clothing on the banks of the Ganges, or grandiose buildings like the Taj Mahal. But that photo right there was most certainly taken in India — the part of India that is tropical, hot and humid in December (when, despite what us Westerners might believe about India, it gets cold in the north), and has sparkling blue water, white sand, and palm trees galore.

Goa is a tiny little state on the western coast of the country. Originally colonized by the Portuguese and now a haven for both retired European tourists and hippies of all ages, it was different from anywhere else I went in India. It's laid-back, has beautiful sunsets, and has the freshest seafood I've ever eaten.

On our first night there, which was Christmas Eve, we found ourselves wandering the road that ran alongside the beach in Colva, the village just south of the village we were staying in, feeling rather hungry. As the sky darkened and we weren't quite sure where we were going, we came upon a hotel/restaurant called Sam's Crow's Nest. It was still fairly early for dinner, being that it was only 6:30 (the locals eat around 9pm), so the place was mostly empty, which generally gives me reason to pause and question what my culinary experience is going to be.



Our appetizer, however, was amazing. We ordered Sam's Golden Prawns, and they were the best battered and fried shrimp I have ever eaten in my entire life. I'm not kidding. The coating was light and crisp, and the shrimp inside was perfectly cooked and so — for lack of a better word — shrimpy. The freshest, most delicious shrimp taste a little bit like clean, clear ocean water, and that's exactly how these tasted. To top it all off, they came with a dipping sauce of mayonnaise blended with carrots. Simple? Yes. Crazy delicious? You bet.

Our entree was a pomfret curry, which was not photoworthy because it was simply pieces of a local flat fish in a red Goan curry sauce. But it was amazingly good. I couldn't stop raving about the food at Sam's the entire time we were in Goa. And no matter how many times we ordered battered shrimp elsewhere, they never compared to Sam's Golden Prawns.

Even better, however, was our lunch the following day. To celebrate Christmas, we staked out two lounge chairs under an umbrella at a beach shack on Betalbatim beach, about a mile walk from our hotel. We had beers, we read, we collected shells along the water — and we couldn't believe it was actually Christmas. The day's fish and shellfish offerings were written on a large blackboard in the shack itself, and without inquiring about prices, I ordered the tiger prawns to share.



What arrived were the biggest prawns either of us had ever seen. The guidebook had noted that there were shrimp in Goa as big as your fist, and they weren't kidding. The prawns had been grilled, topped with a little butter, and served with a side of bright yellow fries.

They were fresh, tender, and tasted of the sea, almost like eating little lobster tails. I was so happy that all that needed to be done to them was grill them — because the prawns were already so good on their own. They most certainly had been caught just off the coast that very morning. With every bite, I couldn't stop exclaiming how fabulous they tasted. We ate every last morsel, and I was sad when we were done.

When we finally got around to actually looking at a menu, we discovered that our taste bud extravaganza cost 800 rupees — about 16 bucks. And sure, that's what you would expect to pay at a restaurant here in the States. But we'd been eating meals that cost that much (or less!) for two, including drinks and appetizers, so we were a little shocked at the expense of those lovely tiger prawns. In the end, though, we were glad we didn't know how much they cost in advance because we would have never tried them. And, after all, it was Christmas.

I still think about those prawns, both small and large. If I ever make it back to Goa someday, I fully intend to indulge on tiger prawns as often as my wallet allows — and to go back to Sam's and eat there as often as possible.