The government is planning to fix portion sizes when it comes to our food, so we at TGLife thought of helping them by offering a few ‘helpful’ suggestions
Observer Research Foundation fellow Kabir Taneja, a verified user on Twitter, tweeted this recently: “The government is in your kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, restaurant...its everywhere except in the parliament.” This was in response to a few stories stating that the government, after an observation by Narendra Modi in his Mann ki Baat programme about food wastage, was planning to fix the amount of food being served by restaurants.
To apparently add more insight into this move, Ram Vilas Paswan, minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution, said, “If a person can eat only two prawns, why should he or she be served six? If a person eats two idlis, why serve four! It’s wastage of food and also money people pay for something that they don’t eat.” People went crazy on Twitter and Facebook. “How dare they tell us how much we can eat?” was the common refrain. “Nanny state,” were the two words oft-used in many a rant.
Paswan later clarified his comment, stating that the government was concerned with the portion sizes being dished out at restaurants, concerned that they were too large for one person to consume. He pointed out to the hungry in India, their numbers and that food wastage was not a good idea. Was this backtracking over a controversial comment, or an honest explanation? Only time will tell. But the PR machinery of the government is already in force, trying to wipe out that stain.
People already have their own mechanisms to deal with large portions. Some ensure that they pack the rest up and take it home, some don’t go alone and share one dish between two people. But even if there’s food wastage, it’s not the government’s job to fix portions and tell people what to eat. Oh wait, they do tell us, don’t they? *cough, cough* beef *cough*
So why don’t we figure out what else the government can do to ensure we get ‘good food’ to our plates, food that we will not waste?
Sausages
Many Goans cannot go more than a week without their dose of choris. But some ‘bullets’ have too much fat, or a mixture of meat, or even the wrong proportion of masala. It’s about time that we have a standard measure. Every ‘bullet’ must be 1.7 inches in length. That’s exactly the size that will become one mouthful for almost anyone.
Xacuti
There has to be half a cup of coconut to one kilo of chicken in a xacuti. If one puts even one third of a cup, it becomes a coconut curry with a dash of chicken. Not done. There also has to be atleast three 3 cm pieces of chilly in every serving. Why 3 cm, you ask? We’ll deal with it in our podcast called Mann ki Bath (registration pending).
Rice
All rice in a thali has to be exactly 27 tablespoons worth. Each tablespoon will take about 45 seconds to eat, which leaves us with enough time to finish up our sol kadi, wash our hands, and there’s also a few minutes at the start for us to place and then get our order. All in all, about 40 minutes of a lunch break. We’ll spend the other 20 minutes bitching about the state of our roads, the bus service and the weather.
Poie
The size of the poie has to fit in the average hand, and also fit exactly three choris ‘bullets’. Therefore, the diameter of the poie has to be 2.83 inches. If it’s 3 inches, someone will be eating plain bread, instead of bread with sausage, kappa or even omelette. Plain bread is a waste and cannot be allowed to happen. It’s is not a phenomenon we want to ever encounter.
Kappa
Speaking of kappas, this is the quintessential snack for many Goans and has to be regulated because of that. One kappa pao has three kappas, so they need to be 2.88 inches in diameter (some of it has to come out of the pao, come on!) but they also need to be sliced 2 mm in width. Any more and it will clash with the consistency of batter. No, we will not regulate that. What do you think we are?
Ros omelette
This is another snack that we love, and so we want to ensure that no matter where in Goa we go, we get a similar, if not an exact carbon copy, of our favourite snack. The eggs have to practically the same size so that the ratio of yolk to albumen is exact. Half a tablespoon of chopped onions and half a chilly, between 0.4 to 0.6 inches in length, per egg to be added. The mixture has to be beaten 7 times before pouring it on to a tawa with one and a half tablespoons of oil.
