Utensils

Depends on whether you guys plan to cook alone or with your housemates, since most people don’t get time to cook daily, stuff is generally prepared for two days at a go – so keep this in mind when you buy vessels. It might be more useful to bring big vessels, if any, as you tend to cook in large quantities here.

Typical stuff you may want is:

• 2 plates – one big and one small.
• Forks (2 each).
• Serving spoons.
• Couple of cooking vessels.
• Pressure cooker – 5 liters.
• Cooker containers and spares (rings and valves).
• Small Non-stick frying pan with turner.
• Tongs & knives.
• 1 pressure pan (Prestige), ask your prospective roommate to get one too.
• 6 spoons and a couple of steel glasses.
• Kadai.

Food Items

Some of the common food items that students carry are:

• Spices, Masalas, instant masalas
• Mustard packet.
• Asafoetida powder.
• Indian instant coffee + Indian tea (it takes time to get used to the American stuff)
• Elaichi, clove, cinnamon

Get a couple of bags each of haldi, red chilly powder, Garam masala, Dhania, Pickle bottles. Bring approx. 1-month supply of masalas.

Most Indian foodstuffs are available even in small cities here. Don’t come loaded with foodstuffs as you may have problem with customs. Try to get “instant” stuff, as people don’t have much time for cooking in the US. In general the tendency is to use readymade powders rather than stuff which needs cooking. So instant masalas are much more useful compared to spices for say sambar or rasam.

Summarizing the lists here: