Evolving Indian food culture

A Nation of more than 1 billion people, with over a dozen languages, 800
recognized dialects, and several religions, India is as diverse as it gets! The
geography of India is extremely varied, with mountains, beautiful rivers, vast
deserts, and extensive plains. This allows for a wide array of crops, flowers,
wildlife, and climates — all of which are reflected in the diverse food culture
of the country. An extensive nation, populace second just to China, its dialects
are various and each state (of which there are 28 and seven Union regions) is
exceptional in its conventions and quite significantly, its food. In fact, food
from one region may actually be totally alien to a person from another region!
The common thread that runs through most Indian food though, is the use of
numerous spices to create flavor and aroma.

Influences

India's cuisine has been influenced greatly the many invaders throughout the
country's history; the Mughals, Turks, Europeans, and Portuguese all left their
mark and culture. By adding their own cooking styles and ingredients, they
provided a rich diversity, resulting in a unique cuisine. What holds these
diverse cuisines together are the aromatic and flavorful spices. The art of
Indian cooking is in blending the spices so that they are in perfect harmony in
each dish. Some of the predominant influences have been:

 Aryan - which focused on the mind-, body-enhancing properties of

foods;
 Persian and Arab - which led to the Mughal style of cooking with rich,
thick gravies and the use of dry fruits like cashews and almonds in
dishes;
 British - which gave India its love of tea and put the European twist into
some dishes. Anglo-Indian cuisine was the delicious result;
 Portuguese – which left its mark on parts of India in the form of dishes
like the world-renowned Vindaloo and Xacuti.

The diverse Indian landscape provides a variety of fruits and vegetables. In

addition, the abundant coastline provides a lot of seafood. Each region in India
is known for its own distinct cuisine — largely influenced by the physical and
social environments. In each region, however, food is served in a similar way
— all together, as opposed to the Western way of serving food in courses.
Tables are also jazzed up with condiments like pickles and chutneys, adding
pizzazz to any meal.

Cuisines in region, religion and culture

Regardless of the region you are in, Indians are known for their incredible
hospitality. As far as food is concerned, India can very roughly be divided into
four regions. Each region has several states in it and each state its own unique
food. Here’s a brief look at the cuisines of North, South, East and West India.
One must of course, always remember that no such description can entirely
cover the huge variety of Indian food. The true discovery of it, can take years
of patient and very pleasurable gastronomic experimentation.

Northern Indian cooking is rich in meats, nuts, and amazing breads. Western
India is known for simpler, focusing on rice and lentils. The eastern coastline
is blessed with abundant seafood, which is reflected in the cuisine of the
region. Southern India is famous for its legendary pickles and chutneys. North-
East India is known for various forms of meat preparation and vegetables
dishes.

Religion also influences the cuisine a great deal. To the western mind, India is
perceived as largely vegetarian. To a larger extent, religious beliefs dictate
what a person cannot eat. There are sects of Indians who don't eat any root
vegetables (avoid onions and garlic!), the Muslims do not eat pork, and the
Hindus do not eat beef. There are special ingredients used to prepare religious
meals, specifically for the purposes of breaking “fasts.”

Indian cooking categorizes foods into six tastes — sweet, sour, salty, spicy,
bitter, and astringent. A well-balanced Indian meal contains all six tastes. This
is accomplished, in part, by accompanying the dishes with a wide variety of
condiments.

Indians take their food very seriously. Cooking is considered an art and
mothers usually begin to teach their daughters and pass down family recipes
by show-and-tell, fairly young in life. Mealtimes are important occasions for
family to get together. Most meals comprise of several dishes ranging from
staples like rice and breads to meat and vegetables and rounded off with a
dessert. In a lot of Indian homes, foods are made from scratch with fresh
ingredients. For example, some families buy their favorite type of wheat, wash
it, dry it in the sun and then take it in to a flourmill to have it ground into flour
exactly the way they like, as opposed to buying flour from a store! This is
changing in bigger cities where people have increasingly hectic lives and are
happy to use ready-to-eat, pre-made ingredients.

Fast food and street foods

Urbanization and Street food go hand in hand. Across the globe, street food,
sometimes also synonymous with fast food, has become an important part of
daily life as local populations increasingly struggle to keep pace with their
hectic lifestyles. It is of particular cultural importance in India, where this
forms the means of livelihood for many pushcart vendors, dhaba owners and
their families. This cuisine also ensures that the connection with India’s rich
cultural heritage is retained, with influences ranging from the Mughal dynasty
to the British Empire

Street food is still an integral part of Indian life and though served from a
standalone outlet rather than a pushcart, On a Roll upholds this essential
Indian tradition while giving our customers a taste of the "Real" India.

Sizeable section of urban India now senses the need for something like fast
food. However, the formulaic concept of fast food has not made deep inroads
in urban awareness. A very large proportion of the clientele of fast food still
do not identify such food as a genre, with its specific limitations and problems.
In India, one rarely finds nutritionists or columnists on food lamenting the
growing popularity of fast food. McDonald’s is still viewed, as its
advertisements claim, as a moderately fashionable family restaurant and Pizza
Hut is seen as a haunt of the upper-middle class youth who have money to
spare.

Yet, the Indian fast food industry is not new. What could be called its primitive
version developed in the latter half of the 19th century in the presidency
towns – as Calcutta, Madras and Bombay were called – during the colonial
period. It was mainly a response to the needs of some of those who had
entered the colonial political economy and commuted long distances from
home to work in a metropolis – the ‘daily passengers’, as they were called in
Calcutta. One part of the menu on which the restaurants thrived were, at least
in name, English or French: cutlets, patties, chops, omelettes, and so on. These,
of course, had little to do with their namesakes in the West, in looks, smell and
taste. Though considered

In recent decades, the colonial fast food preparations have been partly
overtaken in popularity by South Indian food creations like idli, dosai, vada
and uthappam. Indeed, if you talk of Indian fast food, these are the food items
that come first to one’s mind. The second most preferred set now consists of
some of the North Indian, particularly Punjabi favourites, such as chhole-
bhature or chholekulche, tikki and dahi bhalla. More recently, a couple of
Gujarati preparations have joined the list. It is possible that in future, Gujarat,
with its rich array of farsans, will offer stiffer competition to the South Indian
preparations, but that is in the future. In the meantime, South Indians have a
clear edge as far as the popular Indian image of Indian fast food goes.

Dynamic changes in food habits

Different changes have been occurring in India since last few decades. Indian
cuisine has been regional for centuries but Indian food habits have undergone
a sea-change like the parallel regional wise food habits have now been
converge till some extent.
Dosas and Idlis are now a breakfast staple across India. How much have dosas
penetrated? Seen at a corneratta-chakki (a house-hold size grain-flour mill), a
Muslim householder, who wanted some dosa-atta to be dry-ground. Clueless
on how to make dosa batter, the family had decided to go the dosa way due to
children-pressure.
Punjabi paneer items are now lunch and dinner regulars across food tables in
India. Modern Punjabi cuisine, perfected in the last 500-years of gurudwara-
langar cooking has taken the country by storm. And Banarsi chaat has surely
spread across the country.
Food habits, in general are culture specific, but in the last few decades
dynamic changes have occurred due to the fast growing economy, a shift from
traditional to modern technologies, globalization, and industrialization,
constant travels across the world, evolving tastes and increased demands for
“fast” and processed foods throughout our country. We have a social divide
and therefore, the consequences also vary widely.
 On the one hand, we have poverty and hunger causing under nutrition and
related disorders while on the other hand, a substantial increase in the intake
of fats and refined foods such as white rice, Maida based items, sugars, and
salt leading to over nutrition related disorders such as obesity.
The evolution of the current food habits and diets of Indians reflects the
agriculture and industrial revolutions in the country. The one of the world’s
worst recorded food disaster happened in 1943 British-ruled India which is
known as the Bengal famine. This was a time when India faced an acute
shortage of food production and also gave low priority to food supply. After
World War II, poverty and hunger were in abundance, and this resulted in
various under nutrition related epidemic disorders such as protein-energy
malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency disorders such as night blindness,
pellagra, anemia, goiter, and rickets.

Almost 60 years after the famine, some Indians still face these problems due
to inadequate availability, inaccessibility and the lack of affordable “two
square meals” a day in the disadvantaged segments of the population. The
food imports, therefore, concentrated on cereal grains. Millets grown locally
such as jowar, maize, bajra (pearl millet), finger millets (ragi) were grown
along with legumes. Millets are the storehouses of macro and micronutrients.
They have higher contents of calcium, iron, phosphorous, and magnesium
than rice or wheat. They are also high in fibre, low in fat, and are gluten free.
They have the potential to reduce blood cholesterol and sugar and are hence
considered good for chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disorders, etc.
Traditionally, millets and wheat were unrefined, and rice was hand pounded
and parboiled ensuring better retention of vitamins, minerals, fibre, and a host
of useful phytonutrients such as antioxidants. As locally grown crops could
not meet the growing population demand, there was a need for an agriculture
revolution.

Food production revolution

The ‘Green Revolution’, promoted record grain output and ensured self-
sufficiency in cereal grains and reduced hunger. The green revolution mainly
emphasized on cereal grains, especially wheat and rice, to reduce hunger.
Food imports, therefore, concentrated on cereal grains. This resulted in a shift
in the dietary patterns. Support prices given by the government in favor of
rice and wheat production, further reduced millet and pulse productivity. The
staple food of Indians soon shifted from millets to rice and wheat.
The ‘White Revolution’ by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in
the 1970s made milk and other dairy products easily available to the
community. The usage of ghee, butter, paneer, and cheese enhanced the diet
especially of the urban Indians. Milk by itself is a wholesome food and helps in
building bones and is essential for growth and development. But again in the
well-to-do communities, excess intake of milk products like ghee, cream,
cheese and paneer – rich sources of saturated fatty acids – led to obesity and
related heart diseases.

The change in the diet pattern related to fat intake in the population was not
dependent on the white revolution alone, but was actually the result of the
combined effect of the white and yellow revolutions. The ‘Yellow Revolution’
in oilseeds owes its success to a spectacular increase in output during 1998-
99. It was at the same time that an oilseeds production thrust project was
initiated by the government to accelerate the production of major oilseeds –
groundnut, mustard, rapeseed, soybean, and sunflower

The ‘Industrial Revolution’ added to the changing food patterns in the country
by introducing bakery food items prepared from hydrogenated fats
(vanaspathi) and trans fats – major culprits that cause cardiac disorders and
insulin resistance. Higher production of sugarcane and a rise in sugar
industries led to the production of sugar confectionaries, candies, and
sweetened aerated beverages resulting in the consumption of “empty”
calories. Many processed and convenience foods, pickles, and papads, now
easily available, added to the salt intake thus increasing the occurrence of
hypertension.

While processed and convenience foods have entered the market targeting the
youth with energy dense and salty foods, the intake of colourful green, yellow,
and orange vegetables and fruits is becoming pitiably low due to their high
prices, seasonality, and farm wastage. National surveys indicate the same,
highlighting the need for a ‘Rainbow Revolution’ to enhance vegetable and
fruit production. Our intake of these power packed items should ideally be
around 500g/day/person.

The erosion of the “healthy diet” as an outcome of modernization and

industrialization has led to the development of dietary supplements and
functional foods in India. Dietary diversification is the best approach as
Nature knows what is best for mankind. Some of our traditional food items
contain functional ingredients, which play a major role in the prevention of
diseases and promotion of health.
Pharmacological and technological advances cannot replace healthy diets and
physical activity as the means to safeguard against both under and over
nutrition. It would be worthwhile for us to consider going back to our
traditional diets for controlling the modifiable risk factors (diet and physical
activity) and tackling the emerging epidemic of chronic diseases. Even in
the Bhagvad Gita, Lord Krishna has mentioned that foods which promote life,
vitality, strength, happiness, and satisfaction, those which are succulent,
nourishing, and pleasing to the heart are satvic in nature, and form the basis
for a healthy life. Whole grains and grams, limited intake of refined foods,
plenty of veggies and fruits, traditional/blend of oils, and freshly prepared
foods are the cornerstones of health and well-being.

Re-visioning ethnic food and Conclusion

The popular culture of food is influenced not merely by the political interplay
of cuisines and mutating tastes but also by less institutionalized roles for food
that collective experiences in contemporary times have created. These
experiences ensure that food in some cases gets associated not only with
traditional concepts of health, illness, and nutrition or serves as a cultural
marker of status, taste, and cultivation, but also carries the reflections of
personal and collective milestones and traumata. It begins to mirror new
constituents of self-definition. When a child has the first taste of rice, it is an
important and auspicious moment in many eastern Indian households and
indicates membership of a social net. Similarly, in some parts of India a
patient is seen to be decisively on the road to recovery when the family doctor
allows him or her to go back to normal food. However, these are no longer the
only milestones and crises to which food now bears witness.

In a globalizing world, while the culture of ethnic cuisine and ethnic dining can
become more and more a symbol of multicultural sensitivities and
cosmopolitanism, it also increasingly becomes a major symbolic substitute for
the culture it supposedly represents. Nowadays, distinctive cultural styles of
food are paradoxically becoming more autonomous from the cultures from
which the cuisines come and the civilizations or lifestyles they represent .And
this is the way things should go, most people seem to believe. Ethnic cuisine is
expected to be autonomous of the demands and requirements of culture from
which it emanates, and becomes a manageable representation of an alien
culture for the cognoscenti belonging to other cultures. As the contemporary
world pushes more and more cultures into extinction, talking incessantly of
multiculturalism and democratic tolerance, ethnic cuisine becomes more and
more like a museum or a stage on which a culture writes its name or signs an
attendance register, declaring its survival for the sake of appeasing our moral
conscience.