Is it just me…

… who thinks that eating at lunches and dinners in most South Indian weddings is like running a marathon?

Sit in a long row of guests, be served 20 varieties of food by an army of serving people in under 5 minutes, start eating your sambar rice to find that the rasam rice has already arrived,  refuse the sambar rice, just about finish eating your rasam rice and tasting the various curries and salads and raitas to find that the curd rice has arrived, just begin to eat your curd rice to find that the people around you have finished eating everything on their banana leaves and are staring at you, and that the cleaning women have arrived to clear the tables for the next batch of people. You realise the women are giving you dirty looks, and that you have to get up if you don’t want to get murdered. Then, you realise you have barely had time to eat the various sweet dishes that you had kept aside for later.

That’s me, quite a slow eater, who believes in relishing her meals. Clearly, South Indian wedding food is not my banana leaf of food. Much to the amusement of my family and friends, I am almost always hungry about an hour or so after eating at a wedding.

I don’t want to eat for hours together, you see? I just want to not have to gobble up my food without tasting it. I want to taste everything properly and determine my favourite dishes, not just ensure that everything served goes at least once past my gullet, into my tummy. I want to do justice to the huge costs of throwing such a lunch or dinner party, to do justice to the efforts of all the cooks involved. Phew!