Diet

Mizo folks are just not very interesting cooks.  Everything is very plain, although extremely fresh.    Many people have gardens behind their apartments, terraced onto the side of the hill. I guess they eat a lot of pork, but I have told everyone that I don’t eat it, so they serve me chicken.  The chickens here are huge; the ones I saw in the market must be 10 pounds, the size of a small turkey.  However, they don’t tend to buy whole chickens, just some pounds.  They chop it all up into pieces about 1” in size, cook it, sometimes with spices, and serve it bones and all.  Very messy for eating.  They have cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, daikon radish, peas, kale and similar green leaves, potatoes.  Vegetables are mostly steamed and served cold.  Mizo salad is very finely sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions, no dressing.  Dal (very thin lentil soup) is requisite at every meal.  Some people make it with some spices, but some just boil it.  And rice and rice and rice.

Every meal is required to have at least 4 or 5 dishes, which is quite Asian and common in other countries.

Some friends took me to the nicest restaurant in town for my birthday.  The menu is strictly Indian food, which was fine, but really, I've had better Indian food in Athens.

The apartment was not really ready when I moved in, with no means for cooking at all.  The second day, a rice cooker and a microwave arrived.  I have been making do with this and eating at other people’s homes.  They offered me a countertop gas stove, but it would take the whole countertop in the kitchen, so I turned it down.  If the electricity continues to go out every day, though, I might have to see if I can still get one.

So, yeah, I’m on a diet.