Lunch

It was team lunch time again. We went to a Candianised Caribbean restaurant where my colleague opted to have coconut water, and their food plate contained couple of Plantain Chips. Plantain got the attention to be the discussion topic for 5 minutes may be, but kept me astonished of the basic contrast between east and west.

Back home, plantain is considered to be one of the "common" stuff, and always taken for granted! This is the basic thing when it comes to Tropic and Temperate weather zones, you find people astonished for something that's pretty basic and you will be astonished for something that's basic here, which makes you look weird.

Anyways, I decided to make this post about and south Indian food ;-)

These are some of the common uses of plantain in India. Every part of plantain is used. The fruits, when ripe is called banana, when not ripe is called plantain. The stem of the plantain tree, is used as a vegetable and is usually eaten, so is the flower. The leaf however, is used as a natural plate for food. Given the size of the leaves, they are typically used as plates, umbrellas etc.

Here is what a Tamil food looks like on a plantain leaf: (Oh! BTW the staple food in South India is Rice)

Items on the leaf are: (clockwise, from top left)
Jaangiri
Raita
Koottu
2 types of poriyal
papad
vada
boiled white rice
pickle
banana fruit

Oh and the major thing I forgot. In the west meat is considered to be de-facto food item anywhere, but in India, veg takes that spot. Chicken is considered meat there, and so is fish. So a default Indian meal would normally contain mostly veg items with one/two non-veg items (yes, they are called non-veg)