Cooking for 40 hungry Nepali… why not?

Arriving back at school at three pm after our walk you would think some general relaxation was in order, but far from it. What better way to rejuvenate aching muscles than throwing a dinner party for 40 people?

This was the culmination of a rash comment made by Wiebke a few weeks ago that we should cook everyone some European food in exchange for all the Nepali food people were urging us to try.

The principle seized on this idea with zeal, and the next thing we know we are in a basic kitchen with one chopping board, three gas burners, some gigantic pots and mounds and mounds of vegetables.

Bravely, we were planning to cook a meal without rice.  To understand what a radical idea this is, bare in mind that all present would have eaten mounds of rice twice a day every single day of their lives. Our menu was as follows:

To start, creme crackers with a tomato, cucumber, lemon and coriander relish.

For main, ratatouille made from aubergine, onions, tomatoes and a strange Nepali vegetable, almost, but not entirely unlike a courgette, served with boiled potatoes.  

To finish we provided fruit salad (apples, pomegranate, pineapple and bananas) served with yoghurt and nuts; toasted and mixed with honey.

Luckily we had lots of help with the chopping - it took 6 people over two hours to prepare all the ingredients, but we were ready for the 7.00 start with a punctuality that can only be described as Germanic.

So it was that 40 Nepali boarding students, school staff and teachers sat down to their first taste of European ‘cuisine’. The starter was an unreserved success – wolfed down by every table. Next, the main course. In the end we had bottled out of only providing potatoes and also cooked some rice – fearing some sort of uprising if we didn’t.

The ratatouille was immediately rejected by the boarding students as utterly disgusting and although the teachers were very polite we could tell that they too had some reservations, although we thought it had rather a good flavour. The desert, however, saved the reputation of European food at the school. It went down very well indeed and one of the teachers, smilingly commented that “this is better!” After helping a little with the clearing up, we retired to bed in a state of utter exhaustion!