Using our teatime read aloud as an excuse to eat good food

We started reading A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth this week at teatime. I had forgotten how many characters the book is filled with and how many of them appear in the opening chapters. Even my very experienced listeners were having a little difficulty keeping everyone straight. I ended up paying more than once to review who a character was and how they were related to everyone else. There are some family trees in the front of the book for reference and I may yet photocopy them so everyone has a reference sheet. I think by today everyone had begun to find their footing. 

I also want to preach a brief sermon about how valuable reading good books out loud can be. It is more than just hearing a good story and becoming familiar with the sound of written English. It also provides myriad of opportunities for learning other things as well right at that moment. 

The book is set in India in 1950, several years after independence from Britain. So far, in the four days we have read aloud, we have briefly covered Indian independence, partition, how India is a mix of religions, the caste system, where the cities the story mentions are located, purda, arranged marriages, and fountain pens. Would we have talked about these things otherwise? Who knows, but probably not. 

My tendency when reading is to pause and add commentary when needed. If I come to an idea, a period of history, or something in the book that hasn't aged well, I will stop and discuss it right then. My children are rather used to my asides and commentaries and don't seem to confuse it with the story. If I had them read the book themselves, these things would never be covered and probably as skipped over. It is too valuable a teaching tool to miss out on.

Of course, there has been many mentions of food even in just the first pages. It makes me want Indian food. So tonight I had planned chapati wraps with spicy vegetables (shaak bhareli rotli). A child had an appointment this week in the general area of Patel Brothers, so we stopped in on the way home to get paneer cheese, chapatis, and samosas. I also happened to see a can of gulab jamun which had been mentioned several times so got that as well. 

We've made this before and everyone loves it. 

It's from an Indian cookbook that we've had good success with.

The gulab jamun was not an overwhelming hit.

It's essentially little donut like balls drenched in a sugary syrup. It reminded me very much of the cottage pudding dessert that my grandmother used to make, but with Indian seasonings. I loved that dessert as a child so didn't mind this. It was a texture issues for most people, but they all gamely gave it a try.

We'll be reading this book while, so I see an uptick in Indian food for us over the next six to eight months that it takes us to read it.