Carrots & Beans:
The first meal I had in Mysore was something I would never have eaten if my mother prepared it - carrots & beans dry curry with Puri. I like beans curry. And I like carrots in my plate, as a salad or best served as halwa but never as curry! That time I was happy to eat something which is not rassam, sambar and rice. So I accepted the 'meals' (Mysore word for Indian Combo or Thali) as it came. I had my lunch and went to a multi-brand retail store nearby. In vegetable section, I saw among other things, two crates full of hybrid all season orange colour carrots and large diameter beans. At that point of time, I knew Mysore like carrots and beans a lot. The only thing I didn't know is how much. That I discovered within first seven days.
The second day in Mysore, in office lunch was carrots and beans Masala with a lot of coconuts. But I still got chapati which I never expected in the first place. The third day, it was beetroot curry. So the inference is Mysore likes to convert salad to veggies. At least no carrots and beans, but not so fast, I got served with carrots and beans in Chinese fried rice. The fourth day, carrots and beans were served in sambar with dosa for morning breakfast. It was uncanny. I started having dreams of carrots and beans. My burps started sounding like ‘carrots’. In that week I had eaten radish sambar, eggplant sambar, drumstick sambar but I didn’t want carrots & beans sambar. The fifth day I went to a restaurant which serves North Indian food. After the first round of roti and curry, I ordered vegetable biryani. Pure fate or bad luck or my own stupidity, the biryani didn’t have any flower and green peas and spices. All it had was lots of carrots and beans. The sixth day, I was so frustrated that I decided to have just a sandwich. I ordered one. After taking just one bite I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what just I ate. I opened my sandwich in half to see whether I felt is true and sure it was – mixture of carrots and beans!
Then I started thinking maybe all the time I had food were not so good restaurants. All of them served economical food. So it was quite possible that carrots and beans are cheaper than anything else so it’s in abundance in every preparation. Like in Pune they serve cabbage every other day. In Amravati, they serve pumpkin every other day. To check my theory I asked a Kannadiga what he prepares for dinner. He replied, “Rice and sambar but not like what we get in office. Their proportions are not correct.” What you put in sambar? “Different vegetables; sometimes radish or drumstick or carrots and beans…”
Bath:
In any Mysore restaurant menu – especially for breakfast, you will find many ‘Bath’ a Kannada word pronounced as it is in English. Here is the list of most popular of baths.
Khara Bath – Equivalent of Upama in Maharashtra. Prepared slightly differently. In Kannada, khara means hot, taste of chillies.
Kesari Bath – Shira. They add orange colour to shira for no reason and call it Kesari bath.
Chow Chow Bath – One portion Khara bath and one portion of the kesari bath in the same plate is Chow Chow bath.
Rice Bath – Preparation of rice bath is very different in different restaurants. Some make it very close to masala rice and some make it close to simple rice with tadka of cumin seeds and mustard.
Rava Vangi Bath – Khara Bath with added eggplant.
Vangi Bath – Rice bath with added eggplant.
Like above two there can be any number of Baths simply by changing the vegetable which is added.
Bisi Bele Bath – translation Hot Lentil Rice or Masala Khichadi. This is one of the specialities of Mysore. It is a Khichadi preparation with mashed lentil and spices and carrots and beans.
Epilogue:
I like drumstick sambar and I like many other food items available exclusively in south India. It’s just the initial period that goes tough. Each region has its own speciality. Following are must eat while visiting Mysore.
Mallige Idli – Mallige means Jasmine. The idlis are super soft, snow white and melt in the mouth. It’s very rare, so if you are able to get it, consider yourself lucky.
Yele Idli – Idli prepared in betel leaf. Many hotels serve it. Kamath, Mane, Café Aramane to name a few.
Neer Dosa – Neer means water. It’s a delicate, translucent dosa, speciality of coastal Karnataka.
