(Yaata-yaamam) — A day is divided, in our old calculations in the Shastras, into eight Yaamas, wherein a period of three hours constitutes a Yaama. Therefore, food cooked three hours earlier, ‘gone cold’ is that which is considered as spoiled. In these days of canned food, preserved fruits, stored vegetables and refrigeration facilities, almost a substantial majority of us have come to love stale food.
TASTELESS (Gata-rasam) — In South India, we find a peculiar hunger for taking rice that has been kept soaked in water the previous night. The next morning, it becomes both stale and tasteless. I suppose, in the north, some like old roti.
FOUL-SMELLING (Pooti) — Men of inertia have a natural liking for stinking food that has an insufferable smell for others. The pulav of the modern tables perhaps belongs to this category; so too, prawns — we can multiply examples. ‘Men of purity,’ however, would instinctively revolt against a diet that has any stink about it, e. g., seafood.
STALE (Paryushitam) — Food that has been cooked over-night, or that has been kept for days together. Here we can include all the fermented drinks, which the Tamasic people love to drink. All drinks are fermented and the ‘kick’ in them increases as the time after preparation increases.
Unsanitary and unclean food seems to attract the taste of all despicable men of insufferable ignorance and low culture. They love to eat ‘refuse’ (Ucchishtam) that is left over, and impure (Amedhyam) filthy food that is not fit for human consumption. The above-enumerated list is a comprehensive report on the base and disgusting tastes of Tamasic men of low culture and dull discrimination.
WHAT TYPE OF SACRIFICES THESE THREE CLASSES OF MEN WOULD THEMSELVES ENGAGE IN, CHEERFULLY?
