12 Hours of Slow Food

Last Sunday was an interesting day. It was a day of slow food, with the SWĀD team.

It began early with breakfast at my all time favorite -- Veena Stores! Apart from the usual idli-vada (with sugar, if course!) we tried almost everything else on the menu.

Breakfast at Veena Stores

From there on, the day was in the hands of one Mr. Jayaram HR. Trained as a lawyer, Mr. Jayaram is passionate about a traditional, ethical and healthy approach to food and life. He was excited that a group of students shared his interests and wanted to learn more. We met him after breakfast, and spent the day visiting some of his projects around Bangalore.

First we went to Hasiru Thota, a restaurant he is constructing. The concept for the restaurant is a very interesting one -- it will serve food made only of locally, ethically, and organically produced ingredients. In fact, it is not one single restaurant, but a cafe, a buffet outlet, a fine dining restaurant and an organic store all under the same roof! Everything at the restaurant is about sustainability -- with solar panels on the roof and the interiors built out of up-cycled pinewood from old shipping containers! I'm quite fascinated, and can't wait to try it out once it has opened.

Getting a tour of Hasiru Thota, under construction

From there we headed to The Green Path. It is Mr. Jayaram’s “ecohotel” that aims to provide hospitality with as small a carbon footprint as possible.

The serene entrance to The Green Path - you could feel the ambient temperature drop a few degrees on entering!

Next, we left for Sukrushi Farm, Mr Jayaram's organic farm. On the way we stopped by at GKVK to see Oota From Your Thota. This was a fair on organic terrace gardening and organic food. We tasted several interesting things, including a malted ragi and chocolate drink, and a dosa made of 7 cereals and millets!

Oota from your Thota fair at GKVK (University of Agricultural Sciences)

7 grain dosa - it was much more flavorful than regular dosa

Then, to Sukrushi Farms we went. The farm is located in Nelamangala, quite a long car journey away. At the farm we were greeted by Raja, their young Mudhol hound -- Mr Jayaram prefers to keep indigenous Indian breeds of animals, too! We were given a traditional welcome with flower garlands and kumkum tikas on our foreheads.

Raja, the Mudhol hound

The SWAd team after the traditional welcome

We were served a hearty lunch. It began with a soup - a sort of consomme of green leafy vegetables, transparent and flavourful. And then there was radish salad, brinjal curry, daal, maize flour roti (jola rotti) with groundnut chutney and lastly, rasam-rice. It was 3pm by the time we sat down to eat, a good six hours since breakfast. So boy, were we hungry! We whollopped the food, then energized, we proceeded to see the farm.

A traditional karnataka meal

It was a beautiful property that extents for hectares and hectares, green on all sides. We saw the multi cropping fields, where they grow papaya, chilies, cocoa, banana and other crops, all together. This method is much healthier for the soil than mono cropping, where the entire field is sowed with a single crop. With mono cropping only a few select nutrients get used up from the soil. Over time this leaves the soil infertile and weak in certain key nutrients.

The multi-cropped field growing papaya, chilies, cocoa, banana and several other crops

Apart from multi cropping they also used other simple organic methods of farming to replace the need for chemical additives. For example, beans and other legumes, which are susceptible to attack by birds and insects, were grown in a greenhouse for protection.

The team walking down the Cyprus-lined paths that ran all through the farm

After several hours of walking around through the cyprus-lined lanes of the farm it was finally time to go home. As we thanked Mr. Jayaram for the amazing day of exposure and learning we thought about how many different aspects there are to the concept of slow food. And how on that day we had only scratched the surface.