** DIY = do it yourself (make it better yourself and for less money)
Next page: make a money belt!
*
*
DIY = do it yourself (make it better yourself and for less money)
Next page: make a money belt!
Gourmet meals for budget trippers
One way to extend your funds when you set off on a longer trip is to make your own food. This can be as simple as buying fruit and other snacks in the local market. You'll be able to save between 50% and 75% over restaurant meals if you cook your own food, and you'll also avoid spending nearly two hours each day sitting in a restaurant.
In India, you can buy a minimal kitchen kit for around ten € / $. This will be useful should you plan to spend months in a place like Goa or Manali, but it will become tedious to lump around with you if you're travelling often. If the local market is large enough you will be able to get all you need in one place: a kerosene stove, two pans, and metal plates to eat from, plus a couple of metal tumblers to make drinks in. The kerosene stove will also need a large plastic bottle (5 litres/one gallon is best) for its fuel. While you're buying the stove, get an extra set of stove prickers as Indian kerosene is often impure and you'll spend a lot of your cooking time unblocking your vapourising jet on the stove. Planning ahead, and with a possible trekking trip in mind for the future, it can be a good idea to bring your own kerosene stove along. Don't carry a stove which relies on "white gas," Coleman fuel or alcohol, though, or you will be forever hunting down fuel for it. If your budget stretches to it, I recommend buying stainless steel cookware. Aluminium pans are cheap in India, but aside from the toxicity problem, they will have a shorter life than steel and burn food more easily.
Your "larder" can be replenished daily with fresh food such as vegetables and fruit, but you might like to buy bulk packs of common essentials like cooking oil, milk powder, sugar, tea and spices. When getting the oil, go for the best grades you can find. Mustard seed oil (toori tel) is cheap and terribly fishy tasting; sunflower oil makes a better choice. Likewise, "dust" tea is the cheapest of all the grades you will find in the market, but better, leaf tea is easier to handle and has a more subtle flavour. You will need plenty of the little limes if you want to cook Indian-style food. These wonderful things can be bought ten or twenty at a time as they have a life of about a week, even in the heat of south India.
The single biggest problem with the "larder" is likely to be ants. Since you have opened packets of sugar, nuts, milk powder and stuff, it won't take the local community of ants long to find you out, and then all your carefully assembled supplies will turn overnight to a seething mass of black insects. After experimenting with various methods (hanging larder, toxic powders laid near the cooking area), I have settled on the water-trap larder as the most effective. This is what it looks like:
It is really very easy and cheap to make, although you may need to hunt around for the stone slab for the top. The bottom dishes consist of four small stainless steel dishes ("katchori") as found on the typical Indian thali and available for less than ten rupees each. Sitting in these are the cut-off bottom halves of mineral water bottles - find these near any tourist centre, even if you don't buy water in plastic bottles yourself. The dishes are filled with water, and set at four corners of a rectangle. A heavy slab of stone, brick or tile tops the entire arrangement (the water's buoyancy will tip a lighter material over):
Be certain the water forms a seal around each bottle bottom and you will never again curse ants in your cashew nuts! If you have many flies around your kitchen, you may need a screen over your food as well. Plastic ones can usually be bought in the market for a few rupees.
Next - make a money belt!