Social Tables by ForkTales – Mahaprasad
The first event by ForkTales Social Tables had auspicious beginnings with the event on the Mahaprasad served at the Jagannath Temple in Puri, Odisha. The traditions of the temple in cooking and serving the prasad were followed to the extent possible. In keeping with that, the entire meal was cooked out of these pots.
If we have to believe the words and expressions, the guests loved experiencing the food along with the story telling (if anyone has a any second thoughts on hindsight and sends an anonymous hate mail, I will let you know). All the hard work that we had put behind it was worth when we heard many of then say generously that this was one of the best vegetarian meals they ever experienced – non-spicy, subtle, light and fragrant. They loved being introduced to hitherto unknown vegetables and spices.
Now that the event is over, I can look back at all the skepticism that I had. Would anyone be interested in trying vegetarian temple food? Would I be able to cook following such stringent norms? And looking at the final guest list, would it be a food which is, if I can say, too alien to their palate?!
Though I am not new to cooking in earthenware, this proved to be an endurance test. It was not easy to cook for 10 guests (actually 14 including the Social tables team). We are glad it worked out the way it did. The pots did ot crack while on fire. I did not drop the the super heavy ones and of the thousand other things that could have gone wrong, thankfully none did.
