India- Wedding Receptions

               Yesterday, I had the pleasure of going to a wedding reception for my friend Navin Thammadi and his new wife Sneha Sunila Golloboina. This made Saturday a day where I focused on India. My two friends that got married are Christians from Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, in Southern India.

               Many Indians living in the U.S. will have two receptions for their wedding. One the day of the wedding (or within a week of their wedding) in India, and one a little later in  their residing country. That is just what this couple had done.

               Navin had been living in the U.S. for quite some time, and I had already considered him a good friend of mine. His marriage to Sheha had been arranged by their parents, and she moved here soon after their wedding.

               Being that my husband is from India, I have a lot of nice Indian attire, but I rarely get a chance to wear it. So it is exciting for me to go to functions like this and pull out my Indian garb. I wore a black Salwar Kameez and red stole, with bangles that my sister Abby bought a few birthdays ago.

 

               I spent some of my time talking to the wives of Navin’s friends, but spent most of my time people watching. There were many young children at this event. It is amazing how different the taste in young girls clothing Indian parents have when compared to American parents. Many of the young girls were dressed in western frocks that were bright purple and pink. The kids clothes had frills and sparkles that reminded me in many ways of princess and fairy Halloween costumes. When I was a child I would ask my parents for similar dresses, only to be told that it was too tacky, but these parents obviously didn’t see it this way. To them it was just nice dresses for a nice event. Many of the women were dressed in traditional Indian attire ranging from Salwar Kameez to beautiful silk saris.  Most of the men on the other hand were dressed in suits or other conservative western attire.

Food:

Food is an important part of any Indian function. They had there’s brought in from the next town over, Bloomington, IL. There was a lot of food. We were amongst one of the first guests to arrive, and they already had appetizers out. This included, vegetable curry that was served over bread crumbs, and corn Manchurian.

Corn Manchurian is considered Indochinese. Indochinese is Indian’s answer to Chinese food. Just like how Chinese restaurants here cater to American taste, Chinese restaurants in India cater to Indian tastes. Corn Manchurian (or anything Manchurian from an Indian restaurant) is the vegetable lightly breaded then stir fried in a dry chili sauce.

For  the main dinner the couple did have chicken curry and eggplant curry, neither of which I  was in the mood for. Instead, I tried two of the biryanis that they were serving- vegetable biryani and chicken biryani. For those of you who do not know what biryani is, it is a spicy rice dish where the meet or vegetable stew is placed between two half cooked layers of rice and then cooked longer to fully cook the rice. My husbands favorite is lamb biryani, while my favorite is his mom’s green biryani which she makes with chicken.

Breakfast and Lunch

The entire day was devoted to Indian food, not just the part where we were at the reception. We ate leftover Indian food which we had purchased on Friday from Rasoi Indian restaurant. For breakfast we ate Dosa which is normally eaten with either a chutney (like coconut chutney) or spiced potatoes. Dosa is a little like a crepe. For lunch I ate okra masala with chapatti (like a whole wheat tortilla).

               For those of you in the Peoria area who have not eaten at Rasoi, I highly recommend it. Rasoi is my favorite Indian Restaurant, with fresh South Indian dishes. South Indians seem more likely to eat there dishes with rice then they are with flat breads. There curries are generally a little drier, and less oily. I notice that some people don’t like it, because they judge them on their North Indian dishes, like there butter chicken, and Alu Palak, which isn’t bad, but is not their

 

specialty. I have posted there website here: www.rasoipeoria.com/.