Cusine

The food of a rich household is for every day, rice, pulse, vegetables, pepper, [All classes are fond of red pepper and spices.] clarified butter, oil, salt, and dried fish, and once or twice a month, mutton or fowls and eggs. On special occasions they eat fried cakes of rice and udid flour, vadas ; wheaten cakes staffed with gram flour and sugar, puran-polis; and though rarely, sugared and buttered wheat balls, ladus. Brahmans, Lingayats, and Gujarat Vanis, whether Vaishnavs or Shravaks, are an exception to this, as except the Gaud Brahmans or Shenvis who eat fish, they touch no animal food. The food of a middle-class household is rice, nachni bread, curry, and vegetables, for every day, with vadas on special occasions. The every day food of a poor household is nachni bread, and occasionally rice and curry with vadas. Those who drink liquor and milk, and have not a supply of their own, buy their liquor daily from a Bhandari or Christian liquor-seller, and their milk from the milkman generally a Gavli. Except dried fish, which is usually bought in October, stores of rice, pulse, salt, and red pepper, enough to last from four to six months, are laid in during March and April. The well-to-do pay in ready money, and the poorer re-pay at harvest with twenty-five or thirty per cent interest. The supply of animal food is bought when wanted.