November’s just gone by and December’s just stopped by. It is the holiday season; we eat a lot and talk a lot, without ever a mention of our weights. It’s the time of colder nights, boozy days, and guilt-free indulgence.
Nothing’s more indulging than some good ol’ chocolate. Besides, it’s not this time of the year without it.
On my first trip to Pondicherry, I had gone with my over-protective parents and my over-supportive brother. And so, we had to stick to the basics; we didn’t experiment with new cuisine, we didn’t have ice cream, we didn’t stay out after eight, and we never skipped breakfast.
This time, however, I went with a friend. It was easier to try various foods with her than it had been with my parents. She was much more adventurous than I, daring to drink orange juice just fifteen minutes after a cappuccino. And though I preferred to savour the lingering effects of my cortado than to wolf it down with sugary juice, I didn’t say no to trying new cookies. Vegan, they were, and chocolatey.
Perhaps that doesn’t read as dramatic as it sounded in my head, but that’s because, for me, veganism is an expensive affair. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try. But where I live, being vegan costs you at least double of what being non-vegan costs. It’s a treat I couldn’t treat myself to too often. I can afford it once a while but making it a lifestyle — just for the sake of an adventure — isn’t wise.
In Pondicherry, however, we found a bakery that sold vegan chocolate cookies. My eyes bulged at the name tag while my heart soared at the price tag. It wasn’t too pricey. I bought a pack, because no matter how it tasted, I knew I’d appreciate it.
I don’t like sugary stuff, but I’m always game for chocolate cookies. And making the perfect dough and baking the perfect delight is an art I’m trying to understand. So when I saw the vegan cookies, I grew curious, not just for the taste, but also for the ingredients. Since vegan diets shunned cow milk, I wondered if they had used coconut or almond instead. And I wondered which butter they would’ve used. And the sugar — did they use brown, white, fine, caster — perhaps stevia, or agave?
With questions buzzing in my head, I picked up a single cookie and held it in both my hands. It was much smaller than a standard cookie. And yet, the cracks on the surface intrigued me. It seemed dry, and cookies are either chewy or crumbly. I wondered which category vegan cookies fell into. Holding the cookie in my fingers I tried to break a piece of it. It didn’t budge. It didn’t crumble. Chewy then, I decided and gave it a little more pressure. A small brown piece broke off of the cookie.
I looked at the other piece and saw that the inside was also pretty dry. It had no Instagram-worthy chocolate sauce oozing from within, and neither did I see chunks of chocolate chips broken in half. It was plain, and it looked dry.
I put the piece I had prised away, into my mouth. My first thought: it had no overwhelming sugar. It wasn’t mushy, it wasn’t hard. It wasn’t too dry either. As I bit into it, I could chew the buttery flour while the cocoa flavour seeped down my tongue. It felt rich like a brownie, and the crumbly-chewy texture lingered long after the piece had gone down my throat. And then I realised that they hadn’t used any sugar or artificial sweeteners. They had, instead, used honey.
Huh, I thought to myself. Honey. It made sense. Honey makes everything it touches a little chewy and sticky. Perhaps it had made the cookie how it was.
I grew curiouser and curiouser. Perhaps another bite of the cookie would clear it up. And it did. It was honey, I concluded.
Unless, it was something else similar to honey, something I couldn’t recognise. Another one wouldn’t hurt anyone, I thought and grabbed a second cookie. And then a third. And a fourth. And before I knew it, I was down to the last cookie, and I still had doubts. But I knew one thing for certain: I loved the various flavours that vegan cookies blew up in my mouth.
It was worth another trip to Pondicherry.
When I was still young, I hated my vegetables. I’d eat my treats and leave the rest for the trash. Beans involved too much effort to pop into my mouth and cabbage was too rubbery to chew. My mother wouldn’t notice the oddity, though, and neither did my father. They just told me I complained too much and it was wrong not to eat the gnarled vegetables.
I was avoiding the minerals and nutrients that cookies lacked, my mother said. And no matter how much I argued that mashed potatoes were good enough for me, my parents never considered me serious.
But they did more than doubt me. They gave me a reason to finish my whole meal, unattractive though it was. I’m lucky, they said, to have a plate groaning with spinach while poor kids halfway across the world didn’t get a proper meal a day. A double-hazelnut and chocolate chip cookie is a luxury they can’t afford. And therefore it only made sense that I ate all the vitamin-rich foods I got.
How that helps starving kids remains a mystery, but I was much too young to think about the nuances of logic.
It messed with my head, though. It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand poverty and global hunger. I was eight and my mother said, “Don’t waste food, there are plenty of people starving.” And being eight and eager to remain the apple of my mother’s eye, I ate the final slice of apple even when I didn’t want it.
I was dining with my friends last night and knew I had eaten enough. But there was some pasta left over, so I grabbed a fork. I can’t help it that I can’t waste food. Because even though I’m twenty-two, I don’t feel satiated until I’d wiped my plate clean.
While at another table sat a kid with tears in her eyes. Her mother coaxed her to finish her meal. And the father threw a stern look at his daughter. “You should be thankful you have food on your plate.” He growled cutting through his wife’s gentle reproaches. “Now eat!” And she eats.
As I sat there, I saw a girl who had already eaten her share, eat the rest too. Just because somewhere someone doesn’t have enough to eat, another young girl gave into the pressure without even realising it could make her sick.
When she walked into the threshold, she stepped into the unlit “World of Clink Clanks”. She looked down and could make out the outline of what she knew were her hands. She flexed them and gasped as her gold ring glittered suspended in mid-air.
The room was silent except for the occasional throat clearing and the clackety of ceramic on ceramic, which seemed to come from somewhere beyond her vision.
On one corner stood a man behind a counter with a light bulb over his head. He seemed out of place, shuffling with his foot, wringing his hands nervous to get away. She wouldn’t have noticed him if it hadn’t been for the light, but she could see his look. It was a familiar, the look of a man on his first day in a job. He flashed her a warm smile as she approached him, and she returned it without hesitation.
She felt none of the warmth herself, though. It bothered her that the inside mimicked the darkness that enveloped the outdoors. And it didn’t help that the street lights had died.
She steadied herself long enough to walk into the range of light coming from the counter. The employee seemed confident and asked what he could get her. She looked around the counter at all her favourites: mustard, ketchup, parmesan, salami, sausages, and on the other side, five kinds of bread.
“I’ll have a hot dog with parmesan and extra mustard, please.” He nodded and asked her to wait. And as he gestured towards his right, she noticed a small table lit with a single candle. It was just enough for her to figure the outline of a round table draped with a red cloth. She took her place at the edge of the seat. The next moment, the young man at the counter came over with her hot dog, placed it in front of her, and left to man his station.
A chilly breeze grazed her ear, making her shiver. She should’ve stayed home and made instant ramen. Her stomach growled again. As she signed, reaching for her meal, blinding lights flooded the entire restaurant, and Sinatra began singing “The way you look tonight” in the background. By the time her eyes adjusted to the lights, her best friend had come from nowhere and stood before her. She now saw the restaurant was empty and much larger than she had imagined. About thirty round tables lay vacant, expecting to groan with food. She raised her eyebrows at him. He was her best friend and her longest friend. He smiled, his blue eyes glittering with joy.
“I don’t want you to eat alone ever again.”
And he went down on a knee.
The Chaos Within 