Food

In rich and well-to-do Chitpavan families soon after harvest either in November-December or in April-May a year's supply of the different kinds of grain is bought and kept in a store room or kothi. Stores of oil and of fuel are also land in. From day to day little is bought in the market except vegetables and milk. The daily purchases in rich families are made by a Brahman manservant, and in middle and poor families by the head of the house or by grown sons. The women of the family never go to the market to buy vegetables or fruit. The daily supply of milk comes in most cases from the family cows and buffaloes; in some cases it is bought from a milkman. The dairy is entrusted to the women of the family, and in rich houses to Brahman servants.

Most of the grain, chiefly rice, wheat, millet, and pulse, is ground daily by Kunbi servants. Except at certain religious ceremonies, which very rarely take place, a Konkanasth should eat no flesh and drink no liquor. Their every-day food is rice, millet or wheat bread, pulse, vegetables, oil, whey,milk, and curds. Their drink is water, milk, and sometimes tea and coffee. Spirituous liquor is forbidden by caste rules, but its use, especially the use of European spirits, has of late years become commoner among the more educated.They take two meals a day, one between nine and eleven in the morning, the other between seven and nine in the evening. Men and women eat separately, the women after the men have done; children take a meal early in the mornin and again in separate dishes with the father or mother; after he has been girt with the sacred thread a boy follows the same rules as a man.

The head of the house, his son , and guests of superior rank sit on low wooden stools in a row, and in a second row facing them are guests or male relations of inferior rank. Metal or leaf plates are laid in front of each stool and to the right-hand side is a water-pot or tambya and to the left a cup with a ladle in it. On the top to the right are cups for carries and relishes. The pulse and grain are served by Brahman cook, and the vegetables and butter by one of the women of the family, generally the host's wife or his daughter-in-law. The dinner is served in three courses, the first of boiled rice and pulse and a spoonful or two of butter, the second of wheat bread and sugar and butter with salads and carries, and the third of boiled rice with curds and salads. With each course two or three vegetables are served. The plate is not changed during dinner. In each course the chief dish is heaped in the centre of the plate; on the right the vegetables are arranged and on the left the salads with a piece of lemon and some salt. In rich families the chief dishes are served by a Brahman servant, and the salads by one of the women of the family, generally by the host's wife or his daughter-in-law. Except on a few holidays and by a few strict elders the rule of silence at meals is not -kept. The dinner lasts about half an hour. After dinner a few chew -a basil leaf and sip a little water, others chew betelnut or a packet of betelnut and leaves. The ordinary monthly food charges of a household of six persons, a man and wife two children and two relations or dependents, vary, for a rich family from £.6 to £.9 (Rs. 60-90); for -a middle class family from £.4 to £.6 (Rs. 40-60) ; and for a poor family from £.1 10s to £.2