Just curious. The “Indian” style restaurants in my town are run by Pakistanis. Is the food more or less identical or is “real” Indian cuisine distinct?
Indian food various enormously by region of India. It’s a huge country, with many different subcultures.
Northern Indian food is similar to Pakistani.
Southern Indian food (yum!) is a different proposition: much more vegetarian, more emphasis on soup-type things (sambas and rassams).
Of course, you won’t find beef in Indian food, since most of India is Hindu and the cow is considered sacred.
By the same token you wouldn’t find pork in Pakistani food – but then, I’ve never seen any pork on the menu in an Indian restaurant. I have seen (and eaten) beef, as well as lamb and chicken.
Was the pig ever domesticated in India? Anywhere?
I enjoyed eating the same Indian restaurant for over 20 years (not continuously!). The manager told me:
- the staff, including the chef, were all from Bangladesh
- almost all recipes were altered to suit European tastes (more meat etc)
- Chicken Tikka Massala was made for an Englishman in India who wanted sauce with Chicken Tikka. So the chef used tomato soup, cream and a few herbs / spices and voila! probably the most popular English dish
- nobody back home ate Bangalore Phal (the hottest dish on the menu) - it was to satisfy young men demanding a ‘really hot’ curry
I enjoyed eating the same Indian restaurant for over 20 years (not continuously!). The manager told me:
- the staff, including the chef, were all from Bangladesh
- almost all recipes were altered to suit European tastes (more meat etc)
- Chicken Tikka Massala was made for an Englishman in India who wanted sauce with Chicken Tikka. So the chef used tomato soup, cream and a few herbs / spices and voila! probably the most popular English dish
- nobody back home ate Bangalore Phal (the hottest dish on the menu) - it was to satisfy young men demanding a ‘really hot’ curry
In my experience, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and north Indian food is heavier, has a lot more sauce, and uses a lot more tomato and root vegetables, than food from the south of India.
In fact, most people probably wouldn’t even recognise food from Chennai and south of there as being “Indian”. Bel puri is quite delicate and tangy, goes easy on the sauces, and uses lots of coconut chutney and savoury wafers. It’s delicious.
From what I’ve seen, hanging around Punjabi Muslims, Pakistani food has a lot more meat, and a much greater Persian influence. There’s a lot of kebabs and such, and biryani was pretty popular as well. A lot of meat-based dishes – keema (stewed minced lamb), halim (sour shredded meat stew), and many other meat-based dishes that I never learned the name of (although curried calf brains were quite good, and I recommend them if you can still find them in this BSE-infested world we live in).
In restaurants, food was eaten with a never-ending supply of naan. In homes, usually chapatis were served. Rice was pretty much eaten only with biryanis and pulaos.
I’ve seen pigs in India. I guess they were for food.
As well as the regional variation, it’s worth noting that even in India restaurant food is not what most people eat most of the time. Home cooked meals and cafe fare are lighter and much less meaty than what you get in restaurants. A thali (meal plate) would often contain a couple of tablespoons each of dahl, a dry veg curry, chicken/ lamb/ goat in a sauce, pickle , a piece of bread (or dosa/ uttapam/ puri) and a pot of yoghurt.
Hard to imagine what else they might be good for.
Yeah, there is a difference. The Indian restaurants cook their food in microwaves they just got from U.S. manufacturers. The Pakistanis have some microwaves, but they’re upset that the U.S. firms are giving the Indian restaurants more. After all, whoever can nuke the most food will probably win in head-to-head competition…
I’ve always read that CTM was invented in the UK (the BBC and Wikipedia confirm this, although there’s some doubt as to whether it was in Glasgow or London). Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary, called it “Britain’s true national dish”.
Finding truffles? 
Heart valves? Footballs? Unlike cows (milk, draft animals) and sheep (wool), can’t think of the use of live pigs other than truffle finding.
Brian
Thanks for the cite.
I was only commenting, and am happy to amend to ‘Chicken Tikka Massala was made for an Englishman **who had visited ** India…’
Recycling food waste into fertilizer. They also make great sheepdogs.
I always assumed that restaurants labelled Pakistani and Indian mostly served a very similar, and to some degree Americanized version of the same cuisine. The South Indian places I’ve eaten (there are quite a few in Jersey City, the Jackson Heights section of Queens, and “Curry Hill” on the East Side of Manhattan) seem less catered to American tastes to me, but I’ve never seen to southern India so that’s just a guess. They also seem to be uniformly vegetarian, which simplifies things, I guess. Oddly enough, I have seen beef on “Indian” menus on occasion but never pork, which makes me wonder whether most of the Indian restaurants in the NYC area are operated by Muslims, not Hindus, whether they’re from Parkistan or India.
And the waste that comes out of people, if my friend’s stories are anything to go by. Happens in China too.
In the southern Maharashtra/Goa area where my family originates from, the Christian Indians keep and eat pork, although neither the Muslims nor the Hindus will touch it.
Interestingly, though, the Brahmins from this area of the country have given themselves license to eat fish, although they’re supposed to be vegetarian (seeing as they are Brahmin). I’ve heard that the Brahmins in Bengal and parts of Tamil Nadu have done the same. I know in Coastal Goa/N Karnataka it has to do with the fact that it’s mountainous, so I suppose the lack of land for really heavy agriculture probably had a lot to do with heading for a steady source of food.
I go out of my way to find a North Indian restaurant. If not, then I will try to find one where the cook is from Eastern Pakistan. Eastern Pakistan and where I am from (Punjab) are very similar. Western Pakistan, not so much. I love all kinds of Indian food (obviously) but of course you love best what’s familiar.
South Indian food is good, but they use a different set of spices to start with…I find it tastes stronger and blends less. It also tends to be spicier to me, but that could be just because I am not as used to it. Of course taste is subjective in general.
As someone else said, every region is different. Gujratis often add sugar to their main courses to make them a little sweet, for example.
Hmmm? Hindus aren’t allowed to eat pork? Even if they’re not Brahmins?
I was under the impression that all Hindus were supposed to be vegetarian (esp. Brahmins) but I think it’s more along the lines that they think it’s a filthy animal + don’t want to be associated with the Christians (because that’s what my father told me when I asked him). But no, I doubt there’s something in the umpteen holy texts specifically prohibiting consumption of pork and it’s a coastal region so fish, which is what most of the local cuisine is focuses on, figures more prominently in the diet.
In any case, pork vindaloo is a well-known local dish.