Seems to be a popular dish in almost every Commonwealth nation. And reading up on the subject, it seems its popularity spread to other former U.K. colonies as far back as before the U.S. gained independence, even though food like curry doesn't seem to be a popular meal there. Which is weird, given the large number of Indian-Americans. But to stay on track, even if South Asian cuisine was immediately popular in what would eventually be Canada, did immigration from Pakistan in the late 20th century, perhaps, help to popularise this type of food?
So, I was having a conversation with my girlfriend, who is Bengali, and it came up how things like potatoes and chilis were from the Americas. Apparently, she didn't know that and was initially insistent that they couldn't be, because of how ingrained in South Asian cooking they are. So that got me wondering: what was South Asian cuisine like before the introduction of those? And further, about when did those become introduced and popularized in the region? At first, my guess would be to imagine modern food but with those ingredients removed, but I know lots of European cuisines changed wildly in that time frame, and not just in terms of new ingredients.
Edit: I have no idea where this photo came from. It's not at all what I'm describing...
I live in Central America where corn tortillas are made on a flat/slightly concaved ceramic comal. I'm curious as to why in other regions they use a convex metal griddle to cook flatbreads as opposed to a flat one.
Is it simply that traditionally they can have two instruments in one - a concave pot/pan for cooking food and the convex side for making their breads (since it would be hard to make them on the concave side)?
Or is there an actual benefit from using the convex shape for the breads - perhaps that by having the center further from the flame, it will result in a more even temperature and less burning?
Perhaps its a matter of materials - comals are ceramic and thus not useful for most cooking, whereas saj/tava are metal? Also the ceramic of a comal helps even out the heat better than a thin metal surface would - ladies here are unanimous in saying that ceramic ones produce better tortillas than a metal one, be it a comal or a flat-top stove.
Some pictures of cooking on both sides in this wiki article Tava - Wikipedia, and comals Comal (cookware) - Wikipedia
I cant think of any cured meats from Indian/South Asian cooking, but I could just be ignorant so lmk. I think this could either be due to the climate or the fact that many people are vegetarian or the climate, but I know that southern china which has a somewhat similar climate to some parts of the subcontinent has a large cured meats culture. Anyways i'm just curious as to why South Asia doesn't have a larger cured meat culture.
Edit: I posted this on r/AskFoodHistorians and think I found the answer.
"There are 2 main approaches to curing meat at non-cooking temps. First is low temp smoking in low humidity, which dries out the meat before bacterial growth can take over. The second is drying in casing with nitrates, which requires mild humidity and circulation to avoid the casing drying out and trapping moisture. This first is common in Nordic countries where temperatures can drop very low, humidity is low, and wood is available for smoking. The second is common in Mediterranean countries where the climate is balanced (think salamis).
SE Asia is too humid and hot for these two approaches, and the meat is likely to spoil or have excessive fat melt. Not impossible, but far more difficult to do, and the lap cheong style asian sausages tend to not have a developed bacterial fermented flavor, rather are more cooked and sweetened."
Link to the other post, some interesting stuff there as well that dives deeper. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFoodHistorians/comments/jez5k3/why_doesnt_south_asia_have_a_larger_cured_meat/
TDLR:
So basically it was too hot and humid to effectively cure meat historically and SA wasn't a big meat eating culture so it didn't develop curing meats as a part of their cuisine.
Butter Chicken
Masala Dosa
Pav Bhaji
Rasgulla
Title says it all, my friend's looking for a place where she can eat Biryani (rice) with her hands, specifically biryani. Obviously we'll settle for something else if we can't find it but I want to jump in here to see if anyone's had any direct experience.
Thanks.
EDIT:
Spoiler alert: I live in JH so I may succumb and just bring her out here to save myself the commute. Seems like I really can't go wrong with my hometown.
Hi guys! For this year, I'm hoping to expand my cooking skills and I therefore challenged myself to make at least one new recipe every week. What better way to do this than by forcing myself to follow and try every single recipe from a cookbook on, in my opinion, the region of the world with the most delicious dishes!
The only problem is, I have no clue which recipe books are suitable for this challenge as a bit of variety in the types of dishes/ingredients would be great. I mostly love Chinese, Thai and Indian cuisine, but a combination of multiple cuisines within one book would be amazing!
I look forward to hearing your recommendations :)
I just finished reading Shogun a little while ago, and throughout the author talked about rice, raw fish, and pickled vegetables as the staple meal for the culture. Would brown rice have been the primary rice eaten at this time, or would hand-milled rice been much more prominent among the nobility/samurai classes at the time?
Hello everyone!
Some time ago I had the absolute pleasure of eating a glorious stir fry with gravy from an Asian restaurant. I can't be any more specific about the restaurant itself because it happened during a business trip out of town and we were just handed the food, all I know it was an Asian dish because I selected the "Asian meal" option for myself.
Anyway, it was super delicious as I mentioned, a really fun flavor, couldn't really tell exactly what it is, but I was pretty sure I smelled and tasted celery, specifically celery root. There were even slices of some vegetable which at the time I was sure it was celery root because of the smell, taste, and appearance. I work a lot with celery root in my cuisine and I took the slight differences in the smell and taste as just the result of a bath in the spicy gracy. I didn't see any celery sticks, so I don't thing they were responsible for the smells and flavors.
Recently I wanted to look up some recipes for stir fry/gravy, Asian style, that includes celery root, but to my surprise, I found almost nothing, definitely nothing that would at least resemble whatever I've eaten back then.
My question is this, are celery root slices, aka celeriac slices, used in Asian cuisine that way, or did I confuse my good friend celery root with some other vegetable? Is there any chance that it's just a "europeanization" of an Asian dish and someone who doesn't really know what they're doing had the brilliant albeit counter-intuitive idea to add celeriac to the usual set of veggies?
Thanks!
Cheers!
I thought soybeans and soybean products like tofu and tempeh were more an east/southeast Asian thing, but once a girl from Kerala told me it wasn't uncommon in some parts of India and insisted it wasn't "just" an east Asian thing. Still, all the Asian cuisines I've encountered where soy was considered an "authentic" part of the diet were those from east of the subcontinent.
It seems like soybeans aren't as common as other beans, whether they be lentils, chickpeas, all those other beans etc. in the subcontinent, whether for vegetarians or otherwise, was there any place where South Asians commonly consumed it/made dishes with it, whether in the native cuisine or among the diaspora?
Any asian cuisine recommendations?
