SITA cooking class

I just took another cooking class, this one in Pondicherry. 

It was done very well by the cultural center, SITA. The class consisted of six students all around my age mid 20's to 30. There were three French, two Australian, and me. So the instructor said everything in both French and English, then spoke to the locals in Tamil, it was very impressive. 

The class started off with going to the local market and purchasing all our ingredients, a few of us watched as they slaughtered the chicken, it was so foreign to see all the animals alive before buying the meat, American markets are so sterile and desensitized to where it all comes from. 

One funny thing that happened at the market was the teacher told a vendor the countries we were all from, and they looked directly at me and said they would paint their daughter white and send her with me to America. This is not the first time a parent has tried to pawn a child off on me in India. This time though, it was in front of French and Australian people, with no regard to their countries. I'm no Gung ho American, but it's nice when everyone is impressed I'm American. Even though I didn't actually do anything to achieve that status.  

I took pictures only in the market and got so wrapped up into the cooking I forgot to take more during that time. It all turned out very well, it was interesting to hear the differences in cooking in general from the three different countries. 

I have the rest of today in Pondi, then off to Goa tomorrow.

(various lentils)

(tomatoes)

(lots of coconuts)