A big American breakfast is bacon and eggs, hash browns, toast and coffee. A big Indian breakfast is chapati, (warm flatbread) chutney, (a spiced paste with fruit and/or vegetable chunks) idli, (a spongy rice patty – that’s not it under the flatbread but pretend) and tea or coffee with milk and sugar (more on that later).
If anything, the Indian breakfast is bigger than the American one. It needs to be. Why? Because there’s no bacon. Why? Because most Indians are Hindus and all sattvik-practicing Hindus are vegetarian. They say a sattvik diet helps purify the mind and body. The rest of us (including most regular Hindus) are happy to sacrifice a little mental and bodily purity for a few bites of bacon.
Nearly all other Indians are Muslim and don’t eat pork so they’re no help. Most hotels serve bacon because tourists like it. But if you like it crisp, like I do, you may have to send it back to the kitchen a couple of times.
A big American breakfast will run you $15 or $20. A big Indian breakfast is around three to five bucks. (A buck or two more if you want that bacon.)
You can get the best breakfast tea in the world in India. You can get very good coffee as well but you can’t get it just anywhere because most Indians are indifferent to Starbucks and seem perfectly content with Nescafe.
It’s amusing for Indians to watch a coffee snob like me suffer the slings and arrows of instant coffee. Even after resigning myself to order it, I have to be very clear on what I’m asking for.
Me: “Black coffee please. No milk. No sugar.”
Waiter: “Coffee. No milk. Just Sugar.”
Me: “No. No sugar.”
Waiter: “Just milk?”
Me: “No. Just coffee. NO milk. NO sugar.”
Waiter (TO MANAGER): “This man wants coffee. No milk. No sugar.”
Manager: (LOOKS AT ME SUSPICIOUSLY. LOOKS AROUND TO SEE IF THIS IS “CANDID CAMERA” FINALLY SHRUGS.) “Okay. Do as he asks.”
The above conversation is a verbatim encounter. The waiter wasn’t dull. He just never had anyone want coffee without milk or sugar. It was as if I’d asked him to ignore my cup and just pour the coffee straight onto the table.
They watched me taste it. I had to express lip-smacking, eye-winking satisfaction before they finally believed that I did indeed want what I ordered. And to my surprise, they remembered. Weeks later, I was greeted like a celebrity.
“Oy! Coffee Black! No milk! No sugar!”
I was at the Delhi Airport McDonald’s one time staring at a menu board and trying to decide between a Chicken McMuffin or something called an “Egg and Mutton” sandwich. Suddenly, I had an inspiration.
“May I help you, sir?”
“Yes. But first I want to help you.”
(SHE BLINKS.) “Yes, sir? May I help you?”
“I would like to give you a million-dollar breakfast sandwich idea. One that will make all American tourists want to come to your McDonald’s.”
(SHE LOOKS ON THE BOARD TO SEE WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.)
“No, it’s not up there yet. But it should be. You should call your Egg and Mutton sandwich The Egg McMutton!“
(SHE BLINKS.) “You want Egg and Mutton sandwich?”
“No. I want you to call that sandwich ‘The Egg McMutton’! Americans will love it! And I give you this million-dollar idea, free of charge! Just take it and run with it!”
(I WINK AND NOD AND SMILE WINNINGLY TO DRIVE THE IDEA HOME.)
“You want Egg and Mutton sandwich. You want fries?”
My presentation deflates. Customers behind me lose their brief enthusiasm for the idea and grow restless. I order a chicken sandwich and move out of the way.
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