Topic Research: A Cooking Adventure

Ganesha, from Wiki Commons

Hi there! 

I am really excited to challenge myself with this project. I want to create really beautiful stories and compliment them with a recipe. Finding stories was actually pretty easy, picking a few was super difficult. The three stories listed are my absolute favorite, but there are many more stories that could work!

I am still not 100% sure the direction I want to go with this cooking book.

For retelling the stories, my idea is to create a narrator. Someone who is involved in all of the stories and is retelling them as a food blogger would. Due to this, I will have to pick a narrator and then wiggle them into other stories. This has proved to be a huge challenge. 

I am currently having trouble picking a narrator. One option is to ditch some of these stories and only tell stories about Ganesha from his view point. I know Ganesha is an avatar, but I had trouble figuring out which stories tied with each avatar. If I can figure this out, I may be able to retell a story from three of his eight avatars.

Another option is to make up a character and rewrite these stories around them. This is what I am leaning towards. 

Lastly, I could always just tell the stories with a narrator that was not involved in the storied directly, just retelling ones he/she has heard. 

The current story and the recipe pairings: 

GANESHA THE VIGNAHARTA (link here) 

This link also has several Ganesha stories. This includes his birth story and explanations of why his tusk is broken and why his truck is facing the right. 

• This story mentions a divine fruit. From my research, in India the divine fruit is a mango. Here are a few good recipes for mangos!
• mango ice-cream, aamras, or Mango Dal
• I also found a variation of this story that replaces the prize of a fruit with Modak balls.
• This is why Modak balls are Ganesha's favorite. 
• Characters:
• The Devas
• Shiva
• Ganesha
• Karthikeya
• Parvati

Akshaya Patra (link here)

• I absolutely love this story!! It is an amazing story about sacrifice.  
• This story mentions rice. 
• I found a link of the 10 most popular south Indian rice dishes here and main course rice dishes here.
• Characters:
• Krishna 
• Draupad
• Pandavas

Hanuman and Surya (the story of Hanuman attempting to eat the Sun that looked like a fruit) (link here) and (link here)

• I could use this story with a focus on Surya. There is the Pongal festival in his honor. They serve a Pongal dish, which is similar to a rice pudding.
•  Pongal
• I could also focus on Hanuman and do either a mango dish or another dish that includes fruit. 
• Characters:
• Hanuman
• Surya
• Indra
• Shiva

I love all of these stories and their characters. I would probably change characters as needed depending on the narrator I select.