From: mgundeko@ad-6.Naitc.Com (Murthy Gundekota)
Subject: Devon [Short Story] (Re: Nutritional Values on Indian Food??)
Organization: Somewhere near Chicago
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 18:52:44 GMT

In article <1992Jul20.214619.16126@awdprime.austin.ibm.com> usp@futserv.austin.ibm.com (Uma S. Pandey) writes:
>
>Hi guys, I would like to know about the Nutritional Values of Indian food,
>like how much calorie, fat content,  does one "naan", malai kofta, jalebi,
>chana masala, and other indian food we eat in Indian restaurants. What is the
>protien values of Dals (lentils). I know I used to study these things in our 
>Biology class in 9th-10th grade. Does anybody remember?
>
>
>Thanks.


Hmmm....quite interesting. Can you also post the .gif file of the food
treats in question, so one can size them up somehow? Of course, the
flying bytes of information wouldn't have any mass, in the Newtonian
sense. So you might take care to add that info too. Now to the point I
really wanted to make:


			A Short Story:

                     Devon for lunch, anyone?
	             ------------------------


An eternal quest of life is finding your geneto-gastronomical fuel
outlet in the neighborhood. Devon, in downtown Chicago, is not just
any wide Chicago street under seige by the summer road repair crew and
consequently narrow. It is a living, breathing, walking, cursing,
pushing, feuding, clashing, contrasting, winding, humidifying passage
where the Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Christians have consented to share
the ten or so mile stretch of the road for their respective
geneto-urinary purposes. One finds many urinals there. The restaurants
house them. Beside urinals, there are also ethnic food shops, barber
salons, bars, electronic shops, currency exchange centers.

As one passes the Jewish neighborhood heading east on the Devon, the
Hindus surface with all the patriotic fervor for the land free across
the globe. A Gandhi restaurant to celebrate the Mahatma, almost a
contradiction with the original `satyagrahi,' which serves nothing less
than a buffet, eat all you want grub, for lunch (if you needed a
siesta, just drift into the mattress shop in the next block). Then
there is the Moti Mahal where one won't see any topless waitresses,
but instead jackasses pretending to be epicureans while chewing the
cud. The Vice Roy, situated right across the Moti Mahal, hardly
projects the respectable image for an overbearing expatriate like me.
So why even care to stare at their jackasses? And there are many more:
Share-E-Punjab, Hyderabad Restaurant, Annadata, Kamadhenu and
Kalpataru.

The reason I mention only restaurants is to direct the issue to the
food they present. It is not out of generosity that almost every
Indian restaurant on Devon has buffet for lunch and/or dinner. I think
they serve an ulterior purpose. They keep ONGC in business while they
rip my gas money. It works like this. When ONGC fails, as usual, to
find oil, they rap their ``finds,'' whatever they are, in wooden boxes
and ship them to Devon. C.O.D., of course. Also, the Devonian
geneto-gastronomical places have intimate connections with the farmers
producing castor seeds, industries making epsom salt in India. Such
are the ``bread baskets'' for the restaurant business of Indians on
Devon.


Before I stopped going to Devon to couple my geneto-gastronomical
canal with the restaurants there, I've never carried an iota of
antacid. That was a serious aberration, given that many Indian
restauranteurs are refraining from serving the dubious `somp' at the
end of the meal. Too many law suits from the customers who crunched on
the stones in the somp have caused them to pawn their golden teeth. So
now they merely flash a blackhole for a homely smile. More than for
the meal, I had to pay dearly for burping all over the Chicago land.
After a few citations and neighborhood clean-air standard violations,
I have resolved to cook food for myself, by myself. 

``Anyone to Devon, for food?'' is now my euphemistic invitation to the
anally retentate.  

Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,sci.systems