Lunch: Have you tried Indian food?

Somehow most people are amazed and flabbergasted that I've had Indian food before, let alone cooked it in my home. They ask "have you tried this?" "Is rice ok" "You might not like, it's spicey." My conclusion is that the entire department staff at Dr. MGR University is like a Jewish mother. They worry that the food won't agree with me, that the spices will upset my stomach. Each person asks me every day what I had for breakfast and if the food at the YWCA (where I am staying) is alright. ( I get free breakfast, which is Indian + eggs and toast usually).

When it comes time for lunch, I order either rice with sambar (spicey sauce based on lentils) or chapati with another sauce from the canteen for 20rupees (50 cents). I pay a woman who brings it up from the canteen and we all sit and eat together: professors, students, lab techs, and myself. Everyone brings a little metal canister full of rice from home with a little metal dish or bottle full of some sort of vegetable curry or sambal, or other sauce. Then everyone passes the sauces around, takes some from everyone elses and puts it on their rice. The custom is to eat with your right hand (left hand is for dirty stuff). You put your hand right in the saucy rice and scoop a bit and put it in your mouth. This is hard, since it's not like sticky rice....and since I'm left handed, using my right to do this is tougher, but I'm getting the hang of it. And, since I am new here, everyone asks "Rachel, have you tried this bitter melon? Have you tried this vegetable? This sauce? Yogurt curd?" Please take some! And someone even broght me idly, which is a rice batter that is steamed into a spoon shaped cake, used for dipping in sauce. So I bought a little rice and then people gave me part of 6 other meals! And I feel all eyes are on me to see if I like it. Which is ok, except me eating rice with my right hand isn't quite smooth yet, so I get nervous that they're watching me smear sauce and drop rice everywhere....
I brought a chocolate bar for everyone to share....that was a hit!

I'll write more about food at some point I'm sure, since people (mostly my parents) have lots of questions...