Experiences with Five senses tour

The cool morning breeze on January 3rd brought in many surprises. As I did my daily chores ,completing  the Kolam in my Vaasal padi and made yummy flavourful Pongal and recited the thiruppavai little did I expect that my day would turn out to be so eventful and interesting.

I had heard of culture tours but had not an inkling that I would be part of it. I received a call from Vijay -  Co director in ‘Five senses tours’ ,a company which offers unique experiences as part of their tours.

Vijay wanted me to Co-host and be chef for the day to an Irish couple .

This sounded quite challenging as I didn’t know about their palate preferences .

We picked them up at their hotel and went to the local vegetable market to give them a first hand experience of buying local country vegetables. Much to my surprise,  the couple in their mid 50s enjoyed the shopping quite a lot ,asking many pertinent questions about the vegetables their source and how they are used. 

As it was a Dwadeshi day (the 12th day after full moon). I designed a menu around the days needs.

As we had fasted the day before I explained to Ann and Julian that we break the fast by having an early lunch which had coconut as a main ingredient.

We had bought country vegetables and some gooseberries too and a few banana leaves thrown in.

At the kitchen I washed all the vegetables and started the cutting process.

Before which I put the pressure cooker on the stove and put in rice and dal. Having explained the process in which a cooker worked I gave them a knife to cut some vegetables into thin slices for Avial. The coconut was grated to perfection in the traditional grater.

Ann and Julian were amazed at the way the grater worked.

The rice was done and we had cut the vegetables for the ‘fusion dish’ as Vijay called it. Now it was time to show them some magic and I put a smaller pressure cooker on the stove added some oil to it and mustard seeds and gave some curry leaves to Ann to add , She was thrilled  and wanted to also cut mangoes for pickle .

The beans was done in exactly 4 minutes.  I used the now popular method called OPOS  which is one pot one shot ...which reduces cooking time and retains flavours and colour  and is a great saviour when we are rushed for time.

The avial or fusion was cooked in exactly same way as the beans ,meanwhile I showed them how the manga pickle was tempered and offered them a chance to make it using tempering in a kadai...all of which was very new and interesting to them.

All this done I made the dessert, which was of course the Sakkarai pongal….for this, I showed them that mashed rice with  a little moong dal was used. As I added ghee to the tawa my guest wondered about its cholesterol contents and I again explained that ghee has been used for eons in our country and how it cleanses our body and helps digestion... cashews and raisins and elaichi (cardamom) powder did the trick, as the divine fragrance wafted to their noses they were already hungry for the meal.

We washed the banana leaves and laid them on the table and explained that a host never eats with the guest as she wants to serve them first,they loved the concept and as I explained the Athithi Devo Bhava concept  and how we respect our guests they were blown away.

As they sat down we told them to eat with their hands as it is an experience of feeling the food and its texture ,they tried it and enjoyed every morsel they put in their mouth.

With many photographs taken we dropped our guests back at their hotel with a lot of appreciation from them.