Williamstown is known for one of the best liberal arts colleges in the USA and its Summer Theater Festival.
Weekdays are easy to spend. College libraries are enormous, and they allow outside visitors to browse through shelves, pick up a book of poems, choose a comfortable corner, and gaze outside the window towards the valley and the mountain ranges beyond. Since the college has huge endowments, it manages to get rare visiting displays put up at its museum.[break]
For an outsider, weekends are little trickier. Other than leisurely walks through campus grounds and short hikes into woods and mountains, there is not much to do in Williamstown. The mountains of Massachusetts are actually hillocks. Ralph Waldo Emerson termed Mt. Greylock a “serious mountain.” Henry David Thoreau climbed it immediately and described the trail “a road for the pilgrim to enter upon, who would climb to the gates of heaven.” If that gives visions of Himalayan peaks, Emerson’s “serious mountain” stands all of 3,489 feet tall, and the route is actually some kind of hiking path easier than the steep tracks passing through the forested slopes of the Chure-Shivalik Ranges.
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The Main Street of the town, less than half-a-kilometer in length, however, offers astonishing variety for hungry souls. In addition to a world-class café, the street has a Chinese (Chopsticks), a Thai-Japanese (Sushi Thai Garden), a Vietnamese (Saigon Vietnamese), an Indian (Spice Root), and a Mexican (Coyote Flaco) restaurant—all within less than five minutes of walking distance. An Indian family runs the local franchise of Subway who takes genuine delight in preparing a vegetarian sandwich at eight o’clock in the morning, advising ingredients that are appropriate for breakfast (“butter, cheese, beans, sprout”) but may not be very suitable for lunch (“go for cream, cucumber slices, tomatoes and greens”) in the bus.
Down south from Williamstown in New Haven, Connecticut, students of Yale University claim that there are more than a hundred restaurants offering bewildering variety (Malaysian, Spanish, French, Greek, Latin, Mexican, Italian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Cuban, Peruvian, Syrian, Lebanese, and Turkish, among others!), all within two blocks of the Green. Townies claim that the hamburger was invented here and its unique pizzas—called Apizza—are one of the best, if not the best, in the world. On a cloudy April afternoon, the Thali served what can only be called Punjabi Dosa with ladles of butter and weak Kannad Lassi. The Thai Taste, on the other hand, tries its best to live up to the name. Strangest of all is perhaps the experience of dinning at Lalibela, an Ethiopian eatery close to the Greens.
Closed minds
Ambassador Shyam Sharan made the term ‘land-linked’ fashionable among a section of Nepalis for a while. The neologism, however, merely says that the glass is half full without promising to change its half-empty status. Ethiopia, like Nepal, has remained independent for most of its history. It is a country of peasants, warriors and craftsmen and boasts of a rich culture dating back millenniums. Once again, like Nepal, Ethiopia has huge potentials in agriculture, tourism and water resources. And yet, it has suffered droughts, famines and civil wars. Many explanations for its misery can be forwarded; but its geographical location probably has a lot to do with its woes: Ethiopia is the largest landlocked country in the world.
Economic hardships of landlocked countries are apparent. It robs these places of immense resource base called sea: fishing, pearl farming and possibilities of exploring for oil and gas. In addition, there must be some natural reasons for the fact that nine out of 12 countries with the lowest Human Development Index in the world are landlocked ones. It is probably the impact of closed minds that robs countries without access to seaborne trade that makes their people unnecessarily arrogant, complacent, and smug, all at the same time. It makes them courteous and confident, but robs them of their ability to innovate and try out new things in humility and with a willingness to learn.
Among cosmopolitan connoisseurs, the Japanese Sushi has lost its allure. The Continental and the French cuisine are considered snooty. The Thai, Korean and Vietnamese food are good for everyday meals. Chinese cuisine was once gourmet; it too has now come down to the level of grub. Despite a lot of tempering, an Indian menu is still an adventure for the palate. The Ethiopian sounds sufficiently exotic to lure new customers, and the service at Lalibela in New Haven is courteous and gracious—signs of imperial heritage—enough to turn them into regular patrons. What sets the eatery apart, at least with respect to vegetarian dishes, is that almost everything tastes almost the same.
Apparently, landlocked countries aren’t too great in coming up with fusion cuisine and innovating ways of cooking the same dish in many different ways. With the exception of Newari fare—a legacy of entrepot traditions of the Kathmandu Valley for many centuries—the range of Nepali dishes has remained almost unchanged. After all, apart from a couple of ‘–stans’ in Central Asia, including Afghanistan and Mongolia, Nepal and Bhutan are the only two truly landlocked countries of the largest continent. Laos has the privilege of having access to the sea guaranteed through the Mekong international waterway. The ‘–stans’ have their breads and Keemas. Nepal has Masu-Bhat. Same difference—great grubs, but it can get somewhat repetitive to those exposed to cosmopolitan tastes.
Sterile traditions
Chauvinistic countries anywhere are not too well known for diversity of their dishes. At Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, a vegetarian may have to make do with bread, cheese and some green leaves tossed in olive oil. In Tokyo, chefs aver that a meal without fish-paste is inconceivable. At the only vegetarian eatery, Eat More Greens, in the vibrant Azabu Juban neighborhood of Tokyo, they serve soya milk instead of regular but no sugar substitute. “You can safely use half-a-teaspoon of brown sugar,” replies a charming attendant helpfully. It’s not the fault of Paris or Tokyo restaurateurs: The reason lies in their sincere belief that nothing can match their superlative preparations.
Immigrants bring variety to cuisines. Restaurants in the USA, a country of settlers, go out of their way in catering to the special needs of their customers. In Manhattan area of New York, surprisingly, the most affordable and convenient place for a vegetarian meal is a Mexican fast food chain: the Chipotle Grille. Incredibly, they even ask you if you want the attendant to change his gloves and use a fresh serving spoon to maintain purity. Part of the explanation may lie in the fact that throngs of Indians from Silicon Alley nearby swarm to the place. But there must be a realization among those who have to run a global empire that there are all kinds of people in this world.
Isolated places take ages to learn that variety in cuisine adds to the attraction of a place. Despite six decades of tourist trade, Kathmandu is yet to have a decent vegetarian restaurant that serves something more than Punjabi Dosa dripping oil, Dilli Chaat that burns down the throat, and Bihari Samosas that leaves a bad aftertaste in the mouth. Mocking the ‘Samose me Aaloo’ slogan, the late writer-journalist Arvinda N. Das had once pointed out that the line was pure fabrication of New Delhi dream merchants: Samosa did not exist in Bihar. What they had traditionally instead were called Singharas that relied more on beans and onions than potatoes.
When cultures clash, dress is perhaps the first to change. After all, it exists outside of the body. The language is the next to adapt to new realities. Tongue is the most resistant of all: It takes quite a while to acquire new tastes. Once the initial hullabaloo over Brazilian chicken and dough mixed in New Delhi was over, Newar youths with pierced earlobes and torn fancy jeans spouting Americanism with faux accent went back to MoMo joints of Kathmandu’s backstreets.
Only Buff MoMo is authentic, having the killer combination of salt, sweet, and fat. However, MoMos are MoMos even when filled with vegetables if they put some Aaloos with the filling. For Nepali students in Williamstown and New Haven, MoMos are quintessential Nepali national food.
Lal contributes to The Week with his biweekly column Reflections. He is one of the widely read poliitical analysts in Nep
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