Tales of the kitchen
Before I accepted the spiritual life, I used to eat fish and meat to my heart’s content. The Western world eats mainly chicken and beef, but we ate duck, goat, lamb, turtle and pigeon.My sisters used to cook. A brahmin servant and one other servant also cooked. God alone knows what my mother cooked! Her cooking was sitting in the temple for hours and hours praying and meditating. I do not think she ever cooked.
Normally we would all eat together, but on Saturdays and Sundays, when my father was home from town, my mother would not eat with me or my brothers because of her respect for my father. She would eat all by herself or with my sisters while the father and sons were eating together.
On my mother’s side of the family everyone was thin. My grandmother and grandfather were both thin. On my father’s side they were all fat. I was blessed by my father. He was stout. All of my brothers and sisters were also like my father, except Mantu, who is very, very thin.
