Indian cuisine

Indian cuisine consists of a wide variety of regional and traditional cuisines native to the Indian subcontinent. Given the range of diversity in soil type, climate, culture, ethnic groups, and occupations, these cuisines vary substantially from each other and use locally available spices, herbs, vegetables, and fruits. Indian food is also heavily influenced by religion, in particular Hinduism, cultural choices and traditions. The cuisine is also influenced by centuries of Islamic rule, particularly the Mughal rule. Samosas and pilafs can be regarded as examples.

Quotes

• Ibn Battuta’s description of the preparation of samosa would make one’s mouth water even today: “Minced meat cooked with almond, walnut, pistachios, onion and spices placed inside a thin bread and fried in ghee.”
  • Ibn Battuta. Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1

• Pāṇini, ArthŚā, BṛSam and Vṛkṣ(S) define the word [for wheat] as a type of grain distinct from barley and rice [...] Additionally, NāmaMā makes a curious remark: it is a mlecchabhojya, 'a food of barbarians‘.
  • About the Sanskrit word for wheat.
  • WOJTILLA 1999: The Sanskrit Godhūma Apropos of a short Incursion in Indo-European and Indo-Aryan prehistory. Wojtilla, Gyula. Akademiai Kiadoi, Budapest, 1999. (WOJTILLA 1999:228). Quoted in Talageri, S. G. (2010). The Rigveda and the Avesta. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

Quotes about biryani

• Bullets for the kar sevaks, biryani for the Kashmiri militants.
  • L.K. Advani commenting on the contrast of the Government's treatment of the Hindu agitation by Hindu kar sevaks and of armed Kashmiri militants who were provided with biryani during the siege of the Char-e-Sharif mosque. Quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 58