The Desi Hokie’s “know how to chow” guide!

Getting a good meal, any time of the day is easy if you know where to eat and what to buy. Planning and shopping before hand can be helpful in cutting costs.

Choices

  • It’s easy to find food in the US that corresponds to your preferences (vegetarians or people with allergies or health conditions do not have to worry)
  • There are International Food Stores and Big super stores have all the basic supplies like rice, milk, vegetables, bread, eggs, chole and rajma, pasta available 24/7.
  • Blacksburg has many student friendly restaurants, pubs, coffee shops and eateries, so there is no way you could ever get bored
  • Stores like Kroger and Walmart have a wide range of cereals for breakfast and you get milk with different amounts of fat content, curds are also easily available.
  • Health enthusiasts have a wide range of organic food to choose from and weight watchers have access to fat free food and low carbohydrate foods.
  • If you are a vegetarian, just be specific about your orders in eat outs, specify that you do not want meat, people are friendly and there are a large number of vegans so do not worry.
  • The University has a big range of food outlets, so getting a bite to eat is never a problem.

Getting started

  • Learn the basics of cooking from mom. Learn how to make a dal/sambar, subzi/curry, rice and you can easily manage the rest.
  • Just remember that you can prevent getting sick and save food from spoiling by cooking you food to above 165 F and keeping leftovers in the refrigerator (32-40 F)
  • Planning your cooking and cooking at home you can save a lot of money and time.
  • Save up on coupons and use all the resources in the University, there’s a lot of discounts that you could avail of and a lot of free food that you can enjoy.
  • It’s a good idea to get a starter kit of masalas like Chili powder, turmeric powder, jeera, mustard, dhania powder, sambar powder, chole masala, garam masala, tamrind concentrate, hing
  • Basic kitchenware could include a pressure cooker with extra gaskets, tongs.
  • Kitchen ware is usually cheap if you get them from Walmart or some stores during sale

Cooking tips

  • Vegetables are much cheaper if you buy the frozen or the canned versions. Frozen veggies are just as nutritious as Fresh vegetables but much cheaper. You get most of the vegetables you find in India here such as spinach, green beans, potatoes, onions, capsicum (peppers), peas, cauliflower and cabbage.
  • You can get canned fruits like pineapples and fresh fruits, juice of different types are aplenty.
  • All food items sold in the US have a nutritional label telling you the nutritional level with information about trans fats, saturated fats, protein and carbohydrate content
  • It would also be useful to look at the ingredient label,to see if the food in completely vegetarian because some of the soups may be made from chicken or beef broth or might contain animal lard.
  • It’s easy to make chole and rajma because the beans are canned and are ready to use, for tomatoes you could even use the pasta sauce and that helps in making a great gravy.
  • For dosa enthusiasts, pancake mix with onions tomatoes and peppers makes a decent uthapam clone.
  • Frozen veggies are usually cut so making food shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes.

Contributed by : Govindaraj Dev Kumar, MS Food Science 2008

Disclaimer: The opinions and nutritional information mentioned in this guide, if any, are the authors own and should not be treated as scientific facts.