Gujurati thali for lunch
Breakfast dosa and dal in New Delhi
Late-night street food in Ahmedabad
Woman preparing lunch in a small Gujarati village
A seed saver in Dhera Dun picking vegetables from her garden
Smoke from street vendors in Old Delhi
One of the thousands of chai vendors
Schoolchildren in Ghanerao, Rajasthan
Family cow taking in the morning sun
Indian girl in Mumbai
Cilantro merchant in Udaipur
Daniel and Mirra together (a rare occurrence since one of them is usually behind the camera)
Hanging fish in Southern India
Man making jalebis in Mumbai
Jalebis
Market at dusk, Mumbai
Mumbai lunch
Breakfast on the farm in Valsad, Gujarat
Panipuri in Mumbai
(Credit: Perennial Plate)
Daniel Klein and Mirra Fine of Perennial Plate are back from the second leg of their epic journey around the globe, funded by tour company Intrepid. And let us tell you--these guys truly never stop. When we caught up with them after they returned from India and Sri Lanka, they were shooting cooking videos that will air in February on YouTube and Tastemade.com. The videos feature Daniel cooking a dish from each country the pair have visited.
"It's almost a cooking video as documentary, so it's a lotmore realistic," Daniel says. "I screw up a lot and Mirra makes fun of me, so that will be funto see."
Until those videos debut, check out these exclusive photos and the first video from their adventure in India, as well as Daniel's stories about playing cricket, street food, and feeding cows for good luck.
We've heard stories of people getting sick from food in India. Did you guys ever run into any problems like that? Daniel Klein: We did get sick in India. We got to a tourist town, where the only option was to eat in tourist hotels. The first night we were in that town, we ate at the nicest restaurant we'd been to so far on the whole trip and got sick. We'd been eating mostly street food before that--which I think is the best way to eat in India--and didn't get sick. I believe it was palak paneer--spinach with cheese. It's a North Indian dish, and up until then we'd been eating South Indian food. And it's actually Mirra's favorite Indian dish. So I told her that when we get to India, we're going to be arriving in Mumbai and that's not the kind of food they have there, so wait until we get to Rajasthan to have your favorite dish. Now she'll never eat it again.
There were a lot of animals in your newest video. DK: There's always some animal roaming around at your feet in India. Whether it's a herd of cows, a pack of dogs, a bunch of goats, or monkeys. Herds of cows and goats will just lay down in the middle of massive traffic. You'll see more goats in the Muslim neighborhoods and more cows in the Hindu neighborhoods. Sometimes you'll encounter a person sitting next to a cow with a pile of hay. You can go up to that person, pay a rupee, and get some hay to feed the cow. Cows are sacred--so if you pray to the cows or feed the cows, it brings good luck.
Does that mean nobody eats beef in India?
DK: It's pretty hard to find. In Goa you might be able to find it, where there's more of a diversity of religion. In the rest of the country, you'd never see beef--or pork--on a menu. It doesn't mean people don't eat it, it's just respectful to other people's religions not to put it on menus.
We saw in your new video that you ate dosas, which are popular in the United States. How do they compare?
DK: I've had good dosas in the United States, but everything tastes better in India. So many aspects of enjoying a meal comes from the experience that you're having. When you're standing on the street in the morning with a hot cup of chai and watching a vendor make crisp dosas, it really enhances your experience. But yes, the dosas were amazing. They're a breakfast food in India, so that was my favorite thing to eat in the morning. Mirra really liked idlis, which are steamed rice flour cakes. Both dosas and idlis are served with a cilantro chutney, coconut chutney, and sambar, a vegetable stew.
We also saw that you tried to play cricket.
DK: I grew up in England, but I never really played cricket. I still swing like a baseball player, which is definitely not how you're supposed to do it. It's hard! And I ended up hitting it into a pond. Which the kids got on a piece of Styrofoam and paddled out to get the ball. Pollution and garbage are noticeable issues in India. There is garbage everywhere. I love India and traveling in India, but the trash thing gets on my nerves. Everyone just throws everything on the ground. It ends up being a real mess.
What was your favorite thing you ate in India?
DK: Our favorite thing to eat in India was thali, which a lot of people get for lunch. You get a platter of bread and several different sauces and spreads like dal or sautéed okra to eat with it. It's prepared en masse in the kitchen, and it costs less than a dollar. My favorite snack in India was vada. It's spiced potatoes that have been formed into a ball, battered, and deep-fried. Then they're put into a soft bun with tamarind and cilantro and mint chutney. So it was a sweet, sour, crunchy, soft combo. When done right, it's amazing.
Did you try anything new or surprising?
DK: I don't like Indian desserts very much--they're usually way too sweet. But I tried this dessert called jalebi, which is basically little swirls of fried dough that have been soaked in this honey-flavored syrup, usually made on the street. This time I had it at a nice restaurant, and it was still warm and soaked in actual honey, and it was incredible. So I had an experience of liking something I usually think is gross.
What can we expect from your next video?
DK: Our next India video is about the dabbawalas. It's a system of delivery men who bring home-cooked food to office workers arcross Mumbai. They deliver something like 200,000 lunches a day. They show up at the worker's house, pick up the lunch box from the wife, bike it to the train, take the train, take another bike, then deliver the food to the office. They do this for hundreds of thousands of people and they never lose a lunch or bring it to the wrong place. It's impressive. We traveled with two guys. It was wild.