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THE PEOPLE
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FOOD.
Cultivating and labouring classes take three meals a day. In
the morning ambil (jowar or rice gruel) is drunk and some food
left over from the previous evening is taken. The midday meal
which is freshly cooked consists of ghata a sort of porridge of
wheat or jowar flour and vegetables. In the evening khanya, a
thick porridge and bhakar or chapatis, cakes of wheat or jowar flour
are taken. A great variety of vegetables and oil of tils are used
to form appetising curries and sauces. Among the lower castes a
good deal of flesh and large quantities of fish are used and are
esteemed as delicacies. Evening meal is taken about 8 or 9 and
cultivators usually bathe before taking it. Malguzars and better
class people eat rice and usually take only two meals a day, one
at midday after bathing and the evening meal. Many people
bathe a second time before taking meal, but by some it is considered sufficient to wash the hand's particularly in the cold.
season. Rice is prepared in a variety of ways, with ghee, milk,
sugar, vegetable sauces and chatnis. It is the mark of a good
housewife to know a large number of recipes for such sauces. No
Hindu of high caste eats flesh, but come of the vegetable pulaos
and curries they prepare are excellent. On festivals, all classes
prepare special dishes and dainties, which are generally some
delicacy or other made from the crop or fruit which happens to
ripen at the time. For example, puranpoli a variety of gram
cake made with sugar is eaten on all festivals but especially at Pola, modaks balls
of wheat chapatis rolled round a kernel of coconut are a speciality for Ganes Caturthi and til and sugar must be taken on the Sankrati day. Tobacco is used by all classes and nearly all lower castes and forest tribes do not abstain from liquor, whenever possible. Tea, coffee and other beverages have penetrated the villages as also drinks like soda-water, etc.
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