eating with your hands || 用手吃饭

so i’m in kolkata, staying with a friend. her mom has been asking what i wanted to eat for a month now, and we have been feasting like (bengali) royalty every day.

fig 1: featuring okra with soy sauce, dal with cinnamon, & prawns in coconut curry||图1：用酱油，赤霞珠和肉桂，椰子咖喱虾

the first meal i ate here, her mother hovered around the table with a spoon and a fork.

“i’m horrible with table etiquette, i have no idea where to put these,” she tittered, before setting them gingerly down on a plate. “here in india, we eat with our hands.”

last time i was in india, i watched my (same) friend explain how to eat with your hands. there’s a lot of technique involved, like how you can only use your right hand, and how the food should never get past your second knuckle, etc etc. but i’d never gone and done it myself. at the time, we were always on the road, i never felt like my hands were clean enough, and i was worried enough about my stomach as it was.

i survived last time. and this time, in the comfort and cleanliness of a home, i had no excuse.

the first course was cold spinach, chopped and cooked so that it was almost paste like. i realize i’m not making it sound very good, but trust me, it was good. but it didn’t feel good when i awkwardly stuck my fingers into my plate. pushing down my squeamishness, i mashed a bit of it into some rice, and clumsily rounded it into a ball, trying not get any under my nails. i scooped the rice ball onto my hand, and pushed it into my mouth with the back of my thumb (this i did rather smoothly, i’m proud to say). I was promptly rewarded for my efforts: “you’re a natural!” my host applauded.

fig 2: my lovely hosts & that first meal||图2：我可爱的主人和第一餐

then came three ridiculously good courses (which included but were not limited to: fried eggplant fritters, mustard fish, and sautéed jackfruit curry), during which i had no room for any coherent thoughts except for how to shovel the next bite into my already full mouth. after, we sat around the table talking, hands dangling above plates, shining with gravy.

this kind of thing has happened a few times now.

unlike the places I grew up, here you cannot live in ignorance of the waste we produce to get through our every day lives, with the trash littering the streets and the men in underwear pouring water over themselves in the sewer.*

and a lot of these things have more to do with degree of development rather than anything cultural.

but there are other aspects, that do feel kind of cultural. like getting your hands dirty when you eat. or getting your feet dirty when you walk outside. when we were kids, we were better at embracing this kind of feeling. there is something generous and liberating about not only tolerating but embracing these natural consequences of human existence.

i often felt myself tense upon rubbing shoulders with a sweaty bare-shouldered man cramming into our auto, or feeling some mystery liquid land on my sandaled foot in the street. in these moments, i tried to breathe through the knot in my stomach, and lean into the natural entropy of the world.

i also think my efforts made the people around me more likely to treat me as one of their own.

or maybe i’m reading too far between the lines.

all i know is, for every meal after that first one, i never got utensils next to my plate again.

fig 3: chicken biriyani with raita & salad||图3：鸡biriyani与raita和沙拉

*see previous post

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我现在在加尔各答，和一个朋友住。她妈妈好几月前就开始问我想吃什么，所以我们在这儿每天都像孟加拉的皇室一样享受盛宴。

我们第一顿饭时，她妈妈拿着勺子和叉子徘徊在桌子周围。

“我完全不了解餐桌礼仪” 她一边儿嘟哝着，一边儿把它们放在盘子上。 “在印度，我们用手吃饭。”

我上一次来印度，我看到我那个朋友解释如何用你的手吃饭。其实很讲究，比如说你只能使用你的右手，还有食物不应该超过你的第二个指关节等，但我从来没试过。当时，我们一直在路上，我总觉得我的手不干净，而且本来就有一点担心我的胃。

可是上次我结果没出事儿，所以这一次，在一个家庭里，我没有借口：需要试一下。

第一道菜是冷菠菜，被切碎和煮熟，几乎就像糊糊一样。我知道我现在描述的不太令人馋，但你得相信我，真的很好吃。但是，不好受。当我笨拙地把手指插进盘子上的食物时，真感觉有一点不舒服。我硬硬压住我的吱吱声，把那菠菜和米饭揉成一团，尽量不让米粒儿进入我的指甲里。我把米饭舀到我的手上，并用拇指的前面把它推到我的嘴里（这我干得很顺利，我很自豪）。我的努力从我主人那儿得到了迅速的回报：“厉害！”

然后来了三道超乎意料好吃的菜（其中包括：油炸茄子油条，芥末鱼和炒熟的菠萝蜜咖喱），在此期间我没有任何思考的能力，除了如何铲下一口到我已经满的嘴里。之后，我们坐在桌子旁谈话，手举在盘子上，手指油亮油亮的。

这种事已经发生了好几次。

不像美国，在这里，你不能忽视我们每天生活中的浪费：街道上那儿都是垃圾，穿着内裤里的老爷爷在下水道里洗澡。

很多这些事情都与发展程度有关，而不是文化。

但还有其它方面，确实感觉像和文化有关。比如说，吃饭时会弄脏你的手，或在外面走的时候会弄脏你的脚。我们小的时候比较喜欢拥抱这种慷慨和解放的感觉。不仅容忍，而且欢迎人类生存的这些自然的状态。

一个大汗淋漓的男人挤进我们的小车子时，或在街上有某种神秘的液体落在我脚上时，我会感到自己心里有一点绷紧的感觉。在这些时刻，我试图揭开我肚子里的结，并向世界混乱的一段倾斜。

我也认为我这努力使周围的人更把我当成自己人。

也许我想太多了。

我只知道，那第一顿饭后，我的盘子旁再也没有放过餐具。