Food Diversity: A Unique Feature of Indian Cuisine Tradition

The history of Indian cuisine is more than 5000 years old. It is globally famous for its rich diversity and high flavors. The food diversity is one of the cultural and regional identities of the people of India.

Indian cuisine signifies a variety of regional cuisines native to India. Due to the diversity in climate, soil type, religion, culture and ethnic groups, there is a significant diversity in cuisines. Each state is famous for its typical food. If we dig the history of Indian cuisine, it would be apparent that outsiders had also played a major role in framing food diversity in our country.

Years of Mughal rule had its tremendous influence on north Indian cuisines. Later, trade with British and Portuguese influence added to the already diverse Indian cuisine. In the modern era, with the rapid growth of science and technology, the sharing of cultures has become the new reality. The concept of global village has gained its momentum.  A considerable number of Indian settle in abroad and they bring back home with rich experience in all walks of life. Hence Indian cuisine has directly or indirectly influenced cuisines in other countries like US, UK, Sri Lanka, Australia and other countries across the world.

Most of the north Indian states consume lentils, vegetables, and roti as their staple food. North Indian states have a range of snacks, side-dishes and drinks such as mirchi bada, buknu, bhujiya, chaat, kachori, imarti, sharbat, aam panna and aam papad.

 Rice is the staple grain in Eastern India. The popular vegetable dishes of Orissa are Dalma and Santula. The most popular vegetable dish of Bengal is Sukto. Deep-fried, shallow-fried, and mashed vegetables are also very popular. Fish is frequently featured in a regular meal. East Indian cuisine is famous for its desserts, especially sweets such as rasagolla, chumchum, sandesh, rasabali, chhena poda, chhena gaja, and kheeri. Many of the sweet dishes now popular in Northern India initially originated in the Bengal and Orissa regions. Apart from sweets, East India cuisine offers delights made of posta.

Rice is also staple food in south Indian states. The unique feature of south Indian cuisine is sambar. Other typical foods include Rasam , a variety of pickles, dosa, poori, idli, vada, bonda, bajji and biryani.

Western Indian cuisine showcases a wider choice of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. The cuisine in the western region is simple with dishes like alloo bhajis, karhi, dal batti and preparations polished off with rice and pooris.

The north eastern food items are very different from other parts of our country. The cuisines are  influenced by neighboring Burma and China. Typically the cuisines in this part of the country are comparatively less spicy. 

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