What is this? What is this? What is this?
Bala Gopal dasi: In Rome, Prabhupada wasn’t very well. So he was traveling with his own personal cook, who was Satsvarupa Maharaj. But when they arrived, they had just come from India, Satsvarupa had hepatitis. So then it was decided that I would be his cook. Because of that, Prabhupada was very involved in the cooking.
On three different occasions he came into the kitchen, and on this one particular time he came in to cook lunch and he cooked the whole meal along with me and whoever was helping, Narmada. For some reason, I’m pretty sure we made asparagus that day.
I had cooked for him previously, but one of Prabhupada’s endearing qualities was his pure innocence. He would come into the kitchen, and this was a very, very tiny room. Prabhupada would walk into the kitchen and he’d see a bowl of chickpeas. He’d point at everything, “What is that?” He was just so curious, but never imposing. He would just be pure innocence – “What is this? What is this? What is this?” – curious about everything. So we had a couple Italian devotees cook an Italian preparation on a few days and Prabhupada inquired what it was before he ate it, but he enjoyed them.
Reference: Following Srila Prabhupada – Remembrances