Midnight capers

However,the idea of a midnight snack is that as little effort as possible should go into its making. It is a meal that can be prepared fast,with taste rather than health being an objective. Thus,these easy-to-prepare dishes are usually a quick-fry affair. “Chips are a great way to get rid of late-night hunger pangs,but buying chips on an everyday basis is an expensive affair. So I chop up a couple of potatoes,deep fry the pieces,and then season the resultant with salt and pepper,” says Rahul Sen,a final year engineering student.

Junk food and instant food are other ways to beat that midnight hunger pang. Pooja Mukherjee,a first year computer science student,says,“For the last two weeks,I have changed my body clock entirely to prepare for my exams. I sleep around 4 am and get up by 11 am so I am bound to eat at night. I take all my meals on time,but because I am awake at night,I tend to keep munching on something or the other. Apart from coffee,which helps me keep awake,I keep hogging on popcorn and instant noodles. I am surviving on a junk food diet these days!”

Some snacks are just spur-of-the-moment inventions. Anand Tiruwa,a second-year law student,likes to have something that he calls ‘toast-pizza’ while he is studying. “I chop mushrooms,carrots and green onion stalks and deep fry the lot for a couple of minutes. After that,I take a toast,spread a thin layer of ketchup on it,add the vegetables and then top it off with a light sprinkling of cheese and oregano flakes. The entire process takes less than 10 minutes.” Another such person is 19-year-old Ruchali Rade,who stays up late at night for her submissions and projects and tries her hand at ‘new’ recipes. “I tend to eat more when I am working,and since I stay on my own I don’t have a lot of variety. So I try to experiment with my food,making an ordinary dish with a few improvisations. For example,when I make instant noodles,it will always have a dash of oregano and chilli flakes with cheese. Sometimes,I put left-over vegetables from the dinner table between two slices of bread and grill it.”

Often,a midnight snack can be nothing more than a breakfast dish cooked at night. Rohit Mishra,an MBA aspirant,says,“When I’m studying at night,I don’t like to take breaks that are too long because that disrupts my concentration. So,when I’m hungry,I make myself a quick three-egg omelette. I keep some of the ingredients ready,and when I’m cooking,I break the eggs and mix them well,adding chopped onions,garlic and cheese,that is already ready. It makes for a quick meal,and doesn’t take too long to prepare!

However,there are a few people who feel that a meal,no matter when it is taken,should always be healthy. Pallavi Rajesh,who is currently pursuing her BA in English,agrees that studying late at night can cause hunger pangs. However,she doesn’t subscribe to fried food,preferring instead to have a healthy snack. “I find that eating fried food at night almost always makes me drowsy,which kind of defeats the purpose of having a midnight snack. So I have a salad instead. It could be a salad of sprouts,or slices of cucumber,tomato and onions,but it is a nice,healthy way of keeping awake!”