Free Lunch #1: Hare Krishna - Food for Life

Gathering around you at the front of the Newtown Community Centre is a motley crowd of young punks, middle-aged men with cheap backpacks and adenoidal bike couriers. They’re waiting for the Hare Krishna Food For Life minivan with an air of studied indifference, like they just happen to enjoy watching the peak hour traffic perastalsise past. But it’s a hungry looking mob, and there is a palpable sense of relief when the van mounts the kerb. Rations are distributed in a green cardboard tray with a plastic spork, and you can make a picnic of it on the steps of the centre. The ambience is pleasant – it’s more like an open air bistro than a soup kitchen.

The large gelatinous mound on the right hand side of your plate is kitchari, a savoury conglomerate of rice, yellow lentils and desultory vegetables spiced and stained with tumeric and cumin. The yellow spheres are corn kernels, the pale green ones are peas, and together they provide an aggregate to help this passive aggressive risotto set in your guts. The Hare Krishna interpretation of Ayurvedic cooking doesn’t allow for the use of onions, garlic and chili, because they’re considered too spicy and might lead to unhelpful urges. Like Soylent Green, the meal in front of you contains everything you need to live a long life, if not
a happy one.

To the left is a dollop of halava–a slightly nauseating mix of semolina, butter and mango juice. It is a great myth amongst backpackers that halava is delicious. It is not delicious. On its own, it is barely edible. But mixed with the Kitchari, it has a sort of schizophrenic charm that will make you tempted to go back for seconds. It’s not sophisticated food, and not advisable for a first date, but really, at that price? Just shut up and eat it.

Cnr Australia St and King St, Newtown 2042. (0404 187 390) Daily, 6–7pm. By donation

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