Mother Teresa at the table

At Mother Teresa's sisters in Calcutta, the meal is anything but a three-course menu. You sit on the floor or on a bench, sharing the same staple dish of rice and lentils served in a metal bowl, eaten with the right hand. Everything revolves around rice: it fills you up, it welcomes a few vegetables, it's drunk as porridge when you're sick. The meal is deliberately frugal, identical for everyone, sisters and the poor they welcome alike. In counterpoint, the Balkan flavors of her Skopje childhood emerge (sweet rice pudding on feast days) and the hot chai that punctuates Indian days.

The pairing of rice and lentil dal, perfumed with a simple pinch of turmeric and ginger, is the backbone of the entire table: nourishing, cheap, shared without distinction. The yellow turmeric is the gustatory and symbolic red thread.