Eating with Banana Leaf

Let me write an interesting topic today that struck my mind while eating...."Eating Banana Leaf". Oops sorry...I have not gulped the word "WITH", let me call it "Eating with Banana Leaf". 

It is Very common in South India to have food with banana leaves. Banana Tree is called as the Kalpavriksha. Traditionally brahmins have their breakfast, lunch and dinner with banana leaves...most of us now have in ceremonies and in temples.

At times in ceremonies, my MOM asks me to help my relatives in serving the food. GRRRRRRRRR....would be my first reaction and would feel embarrassed as I do not know "In what order to serve and where to serve". So I decided to put some effort in gathering information around it by asking people around me. 

Finally was successful in coming up with an Image that looks interesting. The food item placeholders are mentioned with the name and ordering of serve is indicated by different colors. In the Image, I am there with my head facing you and an image to your left shows how people actually sit and eat. You can see them do a prayer too.

Firstly the leaf is laid with the broader side to my right. Then the drinking water is served.  Before being served, you need to clean the leaf with the water served or water is sprinkled on the leaf for cleaning. Traditionally we eat sitting on the ground and now it is served in dining table as well. 

Round 1 of serving now starts. In Round 1, the squares or circles marked in WHITE are served. Serving starts from top left corner item (Salt) to the top right corner item(Masala Palya). Then the bottom right corner (Payasa, Thove) and left bottom corner (Chitranna, Kadubu, Papad, Prasadam/Fruits) is served. Finally the rice is served. That ends Round 1. Now what? Start eating...not Yet...Priests signal people to start eating by telling Govinda. Now start eating.

Then after 5 min, Round 2 starts (Light Blue). Sihi bajji, Tambli, Mosary bajji followed by Rasam completes the Round 2. All the items from Round 1 are served twice. If one does not not want the item, then one need to put his left hand across the leaf (parallel to leaf) indicating "No Thank you. Please do not serve". The person serving keeps telling the name of the food item being serving. 

Then Round 3 starts (Sky Blue). Here Rice, Dhodda Huli, Menaskayi and Bolu Huli is served. 

Now it is the time for Round 4 (Red and Green Color) that is awaited eagerly. 

WHY?. Because it's sweet and spicy (kaara) item time!! The sweet items are called as baksha. There would be around 3, 5 or 7 baksha (I guess all odd numbered) depending on how much money one wants to spend. Based on the number of baksha generally the food is appreciated  and is one of the Richness Indicators. To neutralize the sweet there would be around 2-3 spicy items.

Then comes an interesting Money round. The person organizing the event generally gives Rs 5/10/20/50/100 rupees to brahmins/priests). It is termed as Dakshina. The brahmins are supposed to remove their shirt and have the food. Mostly these days we do not have this round as we have "Presents in Blessing only". So no give and takes. Close relatives and friends have no exceptions though :). Meanwhile the event organizer visit everyone eating and conveys his "Thanks for coming" feeling.

Then starts the final round Round 5 (Dark blue). Here the Rice, Curd and Neeru Majige is served. Salt and pickle is used along with curd rice. Between all rounds people keep  asking if one requires any cold or hot water to drink.

This completes the lunch or dinner! Do not dare to see the size of your stomach now!!! The tough part is to get up and wash your hand after eating so much. The cleaners then come and clean the place. You are supposed to leave the leaf there itself.

Do we eat so much? oh yes....when I retire, now I know for sure what to do...just attend ceremonies and eat. Need to make sure that my health is good without any diabetes or blood pressure.

Some open ended questions still are why eat with Banana Leaf? Some obvious reasons which I could think of without reading any books, without asking people or without a Google are: 

• One time use and then throw the leaves. No washing plates. SAVE WATER
• May be some health benefits are there.
• Those days plates were not there and our ancestors followed cause their ancestors followed and there was no logic..

Why do we sit down and eat?. There were no tables in earlier days or may be it helps better digestion....the readers can add some logic here....

Hope I can help serving now...ha ha...and not just eat, come home and sleep.

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