'India Week' - Indianized Goods

Today's post is about things that I've found here in India that have been adapted to its culture. It's one of my favorite topics!

I used to think that when I had a baby I was going to be the number 1 customer of Gerber baby food. I had Gerber as a baby and I remember my younger brothers also having it. When a jar of Gerber is opened it makes a distinct popping sound, which used to let me know that a snack was on the way!... I even liked to have Gerber baby food for snack as a grown up: apple sauce, banana dessert, prunes, peaches, etc. I also remember tasting a vegetable jar once and discovering that it tasted awful!

Because the kitchen has never been my favorite place, I thought I would rely on ready-made baby food once Fabi would start having solids. But to my surprise...it's not widely available here. Anyway, I have to admit that cooking daily fresh food is a lot healthier for him, but I did want to have a couple of jars of Gerber for the long car ride when we went to visit his grandparents in Dhule for Diwali. I had to visit two different shops where they sell imported goods. None of them had what I was looking for, but I was able to place an order through one of those shops. The next day I had four jars of baby food. I don't remember the price, but I'm sure they were a lot more expensive compared to the cost of homemade food. It also turned out to be very impractical because Fabi ate more than one jar in a sitting. At least I got to taste some of it too :) Here's a picture of the empty jar. Notice the writing in arabic on the label.

Mc Donald's! I like it because as a kid going to McD's was a real treat! I grew up enjoying my visits to this fast food restaurant...and was very happy when the breakfast menu was introduced in Costa Rica. During my backpacking days in Europe, when I didn't have the time or money to find a good place to eat local food, McDonald's always made me feel 'at home'. I admit the food may not be the tastiest or the healthiest, but I still enjoy the ocassional visit. I think that a glass of Coke tastes MUCH better if it's from McDonald's!

Of all the things I had heard about India before coming here for the first time, the one that stood out the most was: "They have a vegetarian menu in McDonald's!", so naturally I was really interested in going to eat there to see if this was true. Actually, they have both vegetarian and non-vegetarian menus, but they don't serve beef. In other words: it's been more than two years since I haven't had a Big Mac.

Here's a placemat that I brought home with me. It shows a an indianized Ronald McDonald.

I scanned a menu to show it to you. Notice that the vegetarian dishes have a green 'dot in a square' symbol to identify them and the non-veg have a brown one. The prices are in Rupees (Rs.) . [1 US Dollar = 44.28 Indian Rs. according to this conversion.] I have made red marks in the menu to point out the interesting variations of the local menu.

(Click to enlarge the image.)

I like to have cereal for breakfast in the morning. I’ve noticed that there’s not a huge variety of cereal brands here but at least I have enough to choose from. Kellogg’s is a familiar brand, however I had never seen a “Mango Flavor” before. Mangoes are very common in Costa Rica…in fact, sometimes it has been referenced as the ‘Mango Country’. What I discovered later was that mangoes are originally from India and that the best type of mango is a variety called ‘Alphonso’. It’s SO good that during mango season, many ‘alphonsos’ are exported, mainly to Europe.

Speaking of cereal, Cerelac by Nestle is supposed to be baby food, but since Fabi doesn’t like it, I have it for breakfast. Notice that the box in the picture says: “Dal Palak”, which means lentils and spinach.

I’ve mentioned before that Fabi mainly wears cloth diapers. Of course, I have the advantage to have someone to help me wash them, but they are an advantage because it’s healthier for his skin, it’s more environmentally friendly, it’s cheaper, and it’s supposed to help him get toilet-trained faster. However, I rely on disposable diapers so that he can wear at night or whenever we go out of the house. I tried some Indian made disposable diapers, but those gave Fabi a rash. So I rely on the imported kind, mainly Pampers or Huggies. I took a picture of a package of diapers to show you the japanese (?) written on the it, because they are imported from Japan. Another interesting aspect is the size of the package – I wanted to compare it with something small and I only had a AA battery at hand. I find that here in India it’s very easy to get small things. USA and now even Costa Rica are submerged in consumerism and everything has to be BIG. In fact, when I was studying in Germany I used to find it difficult to go shopping at the supermarket because things also came in big packets. I didn’t like to use my refrigerator space in my hostel so it was hard to shop just for one person. Here in India it would be very easy to do that: I’ve seen tiny bottles of coke sold in street corners, or very small packets of soap (like hair shampoo or even Tide). It’s the complete opposite approach of warehouse clubs like Price Smart!

Here’s a favorite toy of mine: a bubble blower! Notice that the (somewhat blurry) picture below shows a 35mm film case to store the soap. The bubble wand is made of wire cable! I bought this for 5 Rs. during Diwali season. Fabi loves it when we go out on the terrace and make bubbles!

Indians have their own yummy snacks and potato chip brands like Lays are now also marketed under different flavors. For a snack to be well accepted it should be spicy and the latest Lays flavor is called Latino Style. I would understand it if such spicy flavor would be called Mexican Style…now Indians are going to think Latinos like to eat chips this hot! I think this small package of chips cost 5 Rs. and the chips were practically gone before I could finish opening it (it felt like it had only 6 chips in it!)

The last pictures in this category show bottles of the well-known beverages Coke and Pepsi. Both brands rely on famous movie stars to advertise them. The Coke bottle shows a label advertising the Mumbai Festival which took place at the beginning of the year.

Sometimes there are limited-time offers like ‘Vanilla Coke’ or like the one in the picture which suggests a cappuccino flavored Pepsi. The funny thing about this picture is that it shows the label: ‘Café Chino’, which in Spanish would mean ‘Chinese Coffee’.

(Click to enlarge the image.)