I Love Camping: Part II, The Cooking Adventure

Camping: The Cooking Adventure

Yes, I missed the cyberspace to some extent, but hanging out with real people, a primitive, Stone Age activity, was in fact a mind and body stimulating, refreshing experience.

On Saturday morning, after stuffing ourselves with aloo-parathas and tea, which tasted a lot different in the open air, once again we rummaged our packages to prepare lunch for the battalion. The men were trying to be extremely cooperative and wholeheartedly involved in cooking and washing the pots and pans, thus making the job more time-consuming and complicated.

At this time, we saw the shy youngsters with pink faces and blond hair at our neighboring site pulling down their tent. These same rogues had kept us awake the previous night with loud music, shouting, and screaming. The administrators might have had asked them to leave the place.

Until this day, I have recurrently faced only one problem in this country. It is just so bad that on each occasion, my thoughts get twisted, my stomach starts churning, and I feel helpless like a cockroach on its back. The problem is—the over-the-top pursuit of equality and homogeneity. Don’t these people know that asses will be asses and horses will be horses? Why try to squeeze them into the same mold? Now, for the two days of culinary needs at the campsite, we had been planning and packing the disposable tableware, cooking utensils, like tava, chakla, belan, kadhai, pressure cooker, and food articles including tea, sugar, oil, rice, dals, wheat-flour, more than a dozen spices, vegetables, fruits, curd, milk, and other drinks, for a whole week in advance.

Even after putting so much effort, we had to drink salty tea, and eat sweet curries and sweet pulao for absolutely no fault of mine. Furthermore, we had to lie to our children that this is the kind of food one has to eat while camping. Initially, we did think that the air and the water were causing this change either in food or in taste buds.

Now, equality and homogeneity are all very good to an extent, but what is the point of making sugar and salt look alike? Why not ban the powdered sugar altogether and sell only the granulated variety, as in India, which has to be dissolved with a lot of stirring with a spoon in a cup of tea. Oh, how I miss that sweet and lyrical sound of tin…tin…tin…tin....

Even after eating all that unpalatable food, I was still left with a big jar filled with a mixture of sugar and salt. And my wise friends who had also used the same, keeping their own salt and sugar packed, enlightened me, saying that the mixture could be used to make electrolyte drink if and when I had diarrhea. I’m actually inbred against throwing away food products, so the jar filled with sugar and salt has left me wondering if I should self induce diarrhea to put the mixture to good use.

Right now, I’m in a moral dilemma whether I should use it all for myself or take help of my large number of friends. Umm…I think, I will make small Ziploc packages as giveaways, and then invite them all to dinner. Meanwhile, let me google which food product gives easy and painless diarrhea….

Happy Halloween :-)

(Continued in Part III)