|
India without food is unimaginable. You'll find food-indulgence at its best in India . Collectively, India have more dishes to offer than possibly any other culture in the world. The list of even the culinary specialties is too large to cover here, leave alone mentioning all the casual food types on offer.
|
|
The wide array of not just the specialties and tastes, but everything from colours to flavors to the food-culture is mind-boggling. With too many regionally diversified cuisines, cooking cultures and eating habits it is impossible to define what constitutes the ‘Taste of India'. But on a whole one can say that, as there are very distinct spices and cooking styles for a wide variety of regional and festive dishes. One will find spices galore—strong and sweet, India is home to some of the world's finest and favorite spices. Turmeric, cardamom, dry coriander seeds, fenugreek, tamarind, and saffron are just to name a few mouth-watering ones.
Staple grains like wheat and rice come in a few dozen varieties and get made into a couple of hundred dishes. Even the vegetables of daily diet are cooked with many efforts. Typically, Indian women spend hours in kitchen everyday into making regular food, as well as, occasional specialties. Vegetables for daily meals come as either dry or in a sauce (in wet form), and are either roasted, curried, partially cooked, deep fried, stuffed, baked, mashed, or in a fritter. Lately, Indian food has grown beyond the bounds of being just vegetarian, including mostly meat, fish, and seafoods. Because of religious taboos Muslims forbid consumption of pork and Hindus forbid beef. At popular places and restaurants, decent varieties of non-vegetarian foods are on the menu. |
An account of food would remain incomplete by all means without a special mention of marmalades, pickles, chutneys, and relishes. It could be a casually made mix of day-to-day spices and salads, or an exquisite preparation of selective ingredients and spices. But invariably, these are all spicy to add that tingling sensation for the taste-buds. These are exclusively vegetarian, typically involving a mix of vegetables, onions, herbs, spices, and/or fruits. A word of caution though, that some of these could be amongst hottest, tongue-burning things a person can ever come across. Going a little slow with these initially and later on not binging on them, are both highly advisable things to do while indulging.
Sweets are another of those delicacies without which no Indian function, festival, or dessert is ever complete. Made from a wide variety of assortments, typically milk products and wheat/rice flours, some of the regional specialties are a must have.
Since it is impossible to get into details of each and every region and its dishes, it is strongly advised that one must seek out average restaurants, help of local people, and waiters in hotels to get an idea of the regional specialties the place has to offer.
|
