Last Updated on May 22, 2019 by Christine Kaaloa
Travel Tips: Eating Indian Food with your Hands
Eating Indian Food with your Hands
1. Be patient with your fingers.
It usually takes me a while to warm up when eating with my hands because in my western etiquette, my fingers are used to not touching my food.
Like hiking up your skirt when you’re walking in mud, my fingers don’t want to get dirty. They naturally lift themselves up! Most of us are used to the 3 pronged fork, because you know what it’s like to eat corn on the cob or a drumstick. It’s kinda safe. But this only good enough for picking up solid foods like samosas, not hard to hold foods like rice and curry. Next meal, I’ll venture the fourth finger. But I’ve still got tea cup pinkies and this is ineffective because I’ve still not got a good grip on my food. It still drips through my hands. Then finally, I throw the pinky in there and I’m going all in.
2. Which hand do you use?
3. How do you clean dirty hands?
4. Try not to be a princess.
As a westerner there are certain things I take for granted~ like napkins or rubber bands, plastic bags for takeout. Some vendors are making cents to the dollar, so when you order one thing but want napkins and a takeout bag, etc… that vendor is taking a loss.
I started realizing that everything costs something to an Indian. When I order takeout, everything from the bag to the rubber band adds up for the vendor.
5. Additional tips: Bring baby wipes and hand sanitizer.
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6 Comments.
This is a fun to read article. I eat with own fingers. I am from Kolkata. Want to have food with you together.
Lol! Well, I’m half filipino so I grew up watching my grandma eat neatly with her hand! Some foods just taste more ono when you use your fingers! !
Interesting Tina. Another person commented the same about being raised filipino and eating with hands. I think it was mentioned before but there’s hawaiian food– poi and laulau. My Hawaiian side, my dad and his siblings used to eat with their hands. …Did not sit well w/ my Japanese mom. Took years to break him of the habit..
I don’t understand the taboo thing about eating with hands. Westerners eat with their hands all the time. I suppose not rice thali slopped all together, but sandwiches, hamburgers, fries, ribs, chicken wings, ice cream cones, potato chips, etc are all eaten with hands without them being taboo.
True but it’s more or less considered finger food and we have utensils for the rest. I think to understand the taboo thing, you’d have to go to a western restaurant, order something like spaghetti or chili, eat it with your hands. And see the reactions or notice the feelings that well up inside. 😉 haha.
Is there any other way to eat spaghetti, besides with your hands? Lol