Food for the distraught

“Found a bolt in chicken dopiaza”<EOM>Tony
“Nine safety pins found in Navarathna Kurma” Sharma
“Today’s Roomali Roti sent to Thakur Leather Upholsteries”Security
“No Chicken Fried Rice today. All gone in smoke”<EOM>Food committee

If these sound familiar to you then you are part of the brotherhood who suffer from canteen food sucks syndrome. The sufferings such people go through dwarfs the regular pains of an IT guy like low download speeds or password lockouts. I personally know several martyrs who had to be operated because of undigested Idli’s stuck in their appendicitis or folks who have gone into frenzy after having Chicken Jalfrezi.

Jeez, some of the items served in canteen easily violate the Geneva agreement on prescribed food standards for Software Engineers. For example I have seen the shocking case of a dosa which was made elliptical instead of circular. A clear violation of Law 32/C of Dosa standards Organization (DSO)!!

Canteen food is the most talked about thing in IT companies or basically any campus based firm. The canteen is after all the breeding ground for many of our creative engineers besides the bacteria’s. Infact most of the wildlife photo enthusiasts I know take their best snaps in office canteens. People are actually happy if they manage to find one of the rare insects in the Sambhar that would test the best features of their SLR cameras! No wonder why these wannabe photographers hurry up to the canteen during lunch hour, after all the early bird gets the worm. ;-P

But do these folks who complain have any idea about the PDS ration rice that used to be supplied to government employees. Vintage grandfathers and grandmothers used to queue up in one of those shops to get the quota or rice and kerosene which they were entitled to in the prime of their youth. Those times in the 80’s housewives competed fiercely with each other to find rice from the stones. The stones were then packed and send in lorries to huge construction projects like the famous Narmada dam which was built exclusively on stones from Ration Rice…Food quality has actually drastically improved over the years because we don’t anymore receive grains from the USA.

Though it’s not the same everywhere like my office canteen, where the Spanish Paella, the Italian Pizza and Mexican spring rolls come from the Yinchuan province of China…It is almost impossible to buy anything non-Chinese in this part of the world. I pity the global Chinese tourists who can’t buy anything coz even authentic French wine has the label ‘Made in China’!!

Well coming back to the pet peeve of canteen food, I agree it is sometimes bad and sometimes misconstruing too...My mallu friends don’t particularly like Aloo Gopi or Kadai chicken (they can’t believe people actually pay for spoilt chicken)!! And for my north Indian friends it’s not exactly a cozy code to pronounce 'Kozhikode chicken biriyani' nor do they like 'Anupam Kheer'!! I remember myself staying away from ‘Kesari Bath’ for several months due to obvious reasons...

It is unfortunate that we don’t enjoy the food in corporate canteens like in college where having hostel food was an adventure everyday …You know those programs in AXN where they ask people to eat beetles and scorpions...eh... Buddies!! They are a cakewalk!!

The food quality in hostels could be best described as lethal.
There even used to be a board outside the hostel canteen which served as a reminder.

“All products made here are tested on hostel inmates before allowing any guinea pig consumption.”

Am sure even the most hardcore inmates in Guantanamo would not survive the ordeal. Some of the things they used to serve in hostel were virtually unrecognizable and the cooks, they were masters at making fish curry without fish...And we realized why after a few months when the cooks were getting healthier and the inmates tuned into ishant sharmas. The good part is I don’t remember anyone who had fallen sick in my college hostel. Actually most of them did not even manage to stand up after a bite.

Well compared all that food our office canteens sound like ambrosia. But then we are IT guys and not supposed to be happy with what we have got…We love to bemoan over little things and for us cribbing over the food is part of our job that motivates test engineers to find bugs in code and quality engineers to achieve CMM level 5 standards.

For every bad meal we have had in canteens we know we have had worse before. But then this is our guilt buyout to have a burger or a pizza from one of the international chains…Btw which reminds me of something for which I still haven’t found an answer…

“Have you ever seen a Pizza Hut which was actually a HUT??’ ;-O