Food has always been a great passion in my life. Somebody has said"We eat to live". So its important for living, to keep oneself alive . It may be that it is other way round for someone too. Anyway its food ,what we enjoy when we want to celebrate our happiness, our times. Dictionary says a foodie is a person" who has ardent or refined interest in food". so here I am, a foodie.
Any one can be a foodie. To be a foodie is not only to like food, but to be interested in it. All you have to do is like food, learn about food and most importantly eat food. I love to cook food, learn about new food and eat food. Being born in a typical Odia family, my taste buds are dominated by Odia cuisine. However I like eating Thai,Chinese ,Mexican too, like yellow curry with steamed rice, chili coriander fish and sticky rice, chipotle ..tell me the name and am game for it. And then I can also mention hot spicy sambhar, Hyderabadi biriyani, Mangalorean fish fry , Goan curry, Maharastrian vada pav,aloo paratha,dal makhani,chhole bhature,lassi as my favorites
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In Odisha we eat fresh water fish more than any sea fish. When I stayed in Maharashtra for seven long years, I got some very good friends from different regions and having different cuisines. I had my first taste of sea fish there. And it too tastes awesome.
People of Odisha love to eat vegetables. All the seasons have something to offer. Summer vegetables are different from winter vegetables. When you live in a Metro, it is the same season always , when buying vegetables. But the winter grown cauliflower ,coriander and spinach have a unique taste from the frozen ones . They have different taste, smell and charm.
I was born and brought up in a district, which is close to West Bengal and Bihar. So our food is fusion of both the regions. We eat a lot of mustard oil, mustard paste, posto in our day to day cooking. We Odia's do believe in "na tiana, chha bhaja" or nine curries and six fries. the spices we use during cooking makes it different from other region. Potato is a main ingredient in all of our day to day meal. I remember my mother cooking delicious mutton curry with big fried potato and green papaya chunks. We put potato while making chicken, mutton, pulses, vegetables, and in fish. In general an odia family can live with a simple dal, chawal and potato meal.
My district in Orissa is famous for "Mudhi". There is a belief in odisa that if any girl is getting married in Mayurbhanj , for the feast you should brought mudhi to feed the "barati" or the accompanies of the groom. After the main course with rice ,we prefer eating a small quantity of mudhi with the mutton. it may sound very odd to anybody , but we do love to eat that. Mudhi can be relished with anything and everything. You name it and we eat it. Mudhi mansa, mudhi machha, mudhi tarkari, mudhi aloodum, singada aloochop mudhi, ghia mudhi, dahi mudhi, mixture mudhi and list is endless. Try it once and ,who knows,you may start to like it too.
