Over to a friend!!!

A friend of mine wanted to share her thoughts and efforts on ‘Paryushan’ and hence has

devised a ‘special Paryushan Menu’, including food related do’s and don’ts for the festival and captures the essence of what to eat in fasting with enough nutritional requirements.

Binal Shah is a full-time mother of a 3 year old, a part-time Information security Consultant

and Trainer and an all-time food and nutrition enthusiast. Cooking, though got introduced in her life as a need, has now become her passion. You can reach her on binalkshah@gmail.com

Over to Binal –

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Today is the second day of Paryushan 2011. Paryushan is the Festival of Forgiveness.

Paryushan is the most important Jain religious observance of the year and the most important and auspicious part of the “Chatur maas” (4 months of monsoon).

During this 8-day period, we Jains avoid use of green vegetables, including lemon and raw

bananas (and certainly root vegetables, which are actually forbidden through the year). Also, most jains also follow “Chauviyaar”, which means no eating after sunsets and breaking fast the next morning only after sunrise (the daily sunrise and sunset timings are as prescribed in standard jain calendars or as we call it – “Panchang”.

Being in a city with crazy work and school schedules, it becomes quite challenging to observe these do’s and dont’s, while ensuring that daily nutrition is not compromised. Besides, there are only certain dishes that can be packed / had in school and office tiffin, which is so much a part of our life!

Hence, here is a “Special Paryushan Menu”, that I have put together, taking into account the food related do's and don'ts, so that we can all follow the Paryushan Sayyam (observance of abstinence) in eating (since most of us do not observe fasts ;-) ) during those days, without compromising either on the paryushan rules or on the nutritional requirements of the entire family.

Please feel free to write to me at binalkshah@gmail.com in case you have any queries or need any specific recipes and I will be glad to revert.

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Contact Binal in case anyone wants any particular menu or any other clarifications. Honestly, I was quite surprised to see some of the regular recipes included – idli’s, dosa’s, chana-daal pulav, paneer burji, shrikhand, dahi wada. But, all of this are made differently and does not contain our regular ingredients.