臺灣文學虛擬博物館-Curry and bread complete the life with lost love.

The End of Love, the Start of a Journey

Curry and bread complete the life with lost love.

As the old chef answered questions, the fried rice suffusing an exquisite fragrance was completed. He fetched a pottery pot with cover. When he was about to put the rice in with the ladle, the vice-CEO in yellow stropped him with his hands and said: “Wait a moment.” Abdu Bali took over the ladle from the chef, fetched a white pottery plate, put some fried rice on the plate with the ladle, then passed it to me and said: “Try it.”

The young chef hurried to pass me a soup spoon. I took some rice with the spoon, moved my nose towards it and amazing fragrance came to me. It was a complex fragrance, with the smell of sheep fat and multiple dry curries on one hand, and aromatic rice and fresh herbs on the other. I put the rice in my mouth. It was surprisingly soft and waxy, which was more like the taste of rice made by Taiwanese or Japanese, rather than dry and separated grains that people normally imagined. After some careful chewing, I found that the viscosity came from the sheep fat and curry sauce, not the rice itself.

Excerpt from “In the Indian Kitchen” in Have BOOK: Will TRAVEL by Zhan Hongzhi.

Su,

You often said few curry in Taiwan were satisfactory. On the third day after arriving in India, I experienced the most authentic curry making in a local habitant's kitchen. In front of me, various spices stimulated my nose, and the chef’s passion for cuisine led me to spy on the secrets of Indian cuisine.

As I watched the chef Susan mixing the spices with ease, rich curry sauce flew between ingredients. Golden light came from the top of perfectly cooked rice, just like Ganges Delta. It is said that Ganges Delta can wash off people’s sadness and sorrow. I was thinking of healing my wounded heart with self-made curry instead of Ganges water.

If bread and love were an everlasting dilemma, then this time I was willing to abandon love, and compensate life with the most authentic curry and bread after losing my love.

Immersed in curry　Bin

（Photo credit: You Zhiweil）

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