Spicing it up with Indian food

Although I call myself a food fanatic, I try to avoid Indian food as much as possible.

In fact, the thought of eating Indian food makes me shiver in fear. I’m so sensitive to spicy food that I can’t eat Hot Cheetos without running to the nearest water fountain.

However, I finally decided to widen my horizons (actually, my editors decided it would be fun to send me to my death) and invited myself to junior Aneesa Mazumdar’s house to eat an Indian lunch over spring break.

I see her eat Indian food at school all the time and it smells delicious but looks absolutely terrifying. She always gulps down her food as if the spiciness has no effect on her whatsoever.

Although she told me that the food we would be having wouldn’t be too spicy, I decided to bring half a gallon of milk with me as a precaution.

When I first arrived at her house, I sat down timidly, not ready for my mouth to burn. I carefully smelled the dishes to check for spiciness levels (a great indicator, I’m sure) and didn’t smell anything too strong.

Mazumdar watched me with anticipation as I decided to eat gajar first. It is a mix of potatoes, carrots and peas and looked the most “American,” so I assumed it would be pretty mild. The dish tasted like what I had expected it to taste like: potatoes, carrots and peas with some mild spices thrown in.

Courageously, I moved on to eat band gobi, a cabbage dish that was also pretty plain so I didn’t suffer too much from the spices.

The last dish that we ate was her favorite, bhindi, an okra dish. This dish was the most daunting because it looked like chopped peppers. The okra’s texture was slimy, and it was the spiciest dish, so it left an unfavorable impression on me.

When I finished the meal, I realized that I drank only half of the milk that I brought. On the other hand, Mazumdar stared at me with narrowed, judgemental eyes every single time I reached for the milk. Nevertheless, I guess my tolerance for spicy food was higher than I originally thought, or more likely, Mazumdar had gone easy on a weakling like me.

In the end, trying Indian cuisine for the first time was a pretty tasty experience, and I’ve realized that Indian food does not automatically mean a mouth on fire. I don’t think I’m ready for any extremely spicy food yet, but for now, I have my next trial: kimchi.