What we mostly get here is “Mughal Cuisine”, the food of the Muslim rulers of northern India. This food tends to have meat, lots of heavy sauces, heavy ingredients like cream or almonds, naan, and other tandoori-dishes.
You can find plenty of this food in India- it’s pretty standard “going out to a nice dinner” food. I don’t think much of anyone actually makes it in their homes though. Think of it as the equivalent to old guard French Cuisine here.
This food shares common roots with Pakistani food. It wasn’t so long ago that it was all one country, so it’s not like there is a neat divide.
Everyday food in India varies greatly from region to region- even from city to city. You can sometimes find decent regional Indian food around here, but it’s rare- most people expect to see the same set of dishes in every restaurant and have them taste the same from place to place.
As for vegetarianism and pigs, many people told me it was good that I am vegetarian, especially because I am a woman, but confessed that they often sneak meat now and then. Several Hindus expressed to me revulsion at the idea of eating pork- chicken and goat seem to be the way to go.
Any Indian restaurant I’ve gone to has food that is similar to what my Pakistani parents make at home (it is just a bit ‘richer’ in the restaurants). When I went to Pakistan, the food was also lighter than American Indian restaurants. For some reason, some Pakistani/Indian restaurants like to make their food very greasy.
This is a dish I gave to some Indian friends of mine.
Spicy Balti potatoes and mushrooms with chopped fried bacon.
They said and I quote “It was one of the best dishes they had ever tasted”
However, I had to keep quite about the cultural differences.
I have also given this dish to a couple of Jewish guys who love bacon.
My point is: One day we may all drop the “talking snake” and wake-up
to a World of freedom and expression…
Remove the religious element and we can all enjoy the ‘fruits’ of the World.
The pig= ham, bacon, sausages, chops, black pudding, trotters (French delicacy) Liver, kidneys,
pork-bellies, gammon, boiled ham, scratching’s, pate, etc. The most versatile animal on Earth.
I would also like to add pigs make great pets-more intelligent than dogs and a lot cleaner.
I believe the concept of eating pork comes from the Portuguese who colonised parts of Southern India (hence the preponderance of Christians in Goa and Kerala. In contrast, The British were more interested in commerce than religious conversion).
Pork Vindaloo is delicious (and not fiery hot like the version we are served in the UK).
As a Brummie, I’m here to stake a claim to the invention of Chicken Tikka Masala. And baltis.
Incidentally, one of Tyler Cowen’s rules about finding restaurants that are good relative to their cost is to go to Pakistani restaurants rather than Indian ones.
Indian food is considered hip. Pakistani food reminds people too much of wars. Pakistani restaurants thus have to work harder to attract American customers. Similarly, he recommends that you go to Vietnamese restaurants rather than Thai ones. Thai food is considered hip. Vietnamese food reminds people too much of wars.
Research. A guy I know has to shower after work to get the pig smell off of him. He works in a lab which uses the pig as a research model for human skin.
I’d say Vietnamese is hip. Thai is old hat, at least where I am (UK). I don’t think most Brits would know if their local ‘Indian’ was run by Pakistanis anyway. Or care.
Thai is starting to get old hat in the U.S. Too many of them tried to get a hip crowd, and that sort of attempt always eventually gets a counter-reaction against their hipness. Vietnamese isn’t quite hip. Vietnamese restaurants have been around since the 1970’s in the U.S. It’s possible that they may soon be considered hip again.
Probably a lot of Indian places in the U.S. are run by Pakistanis. That’s not relevant to what I said. The question is what the restaurant advertises itself as, not what it actually is. Similarly, a lot of Japanese and Chinese restaurants in the U.S. are run by Koreans. Pretty nearly all Americans know what Chinese food is and would probably be willing to try it. A large proportion of Americans know what Japanese food is and are willing to try it. Not many know what Korean food is, and it may be hard to sell to Americans.
Well, I’ll take advantage of this zombie to offer: In Houston, eating good food remains in style. Some of Houston’s “hippest” restaurants offer a fusion of local traditions (Southern, Mexican) & new contributors (varieties of Asian, mostly.) The dinner menu for Underbelly offers Korean Braised Goat & Dumplings and Thai-Style Oysters Rockefeller Pan Roast. The place is decorated with photos of the local (cheaper) ethnic eateries that inspired the cuisine. And where chefs still eat on their nights off.
We’ve got a big Vietnamese community; their food has been a mainstay for years. Not so many Thais–but their food is also popular. Also Japanese & Chinese from various regions. Korean, too–several food trucks offer Korean fusion. (Korean spicing works well in tacos.)
A Pakistani co-worker said most local Indian restaurants here served Northern Indian food–much like Pakistan’s. The most authentic local Pakistani place served no alcohol–so he, an easy-going Muslim, didn’t much care for it. (If you’re talking about meat–let’s not forget lamb!) We have southern Indian food from various areas–mostly in neighborhoods far from mine, alas. Lots of Houstonians prefer their vegetarian, extra spicy stuff during our rather hot summers…
Back when I was in grad school, an Indian fellow student would often bring Indian beef dishes to potlucks. He said that they were fairly common in the region he came from, though I unfortunately can’t remember what region that was. They were delicious.
And a friend of the family was a refugee from Vietnam who got rich by starting a small chain of restaurants, back in the late 70s. He had to serve Vietnamese and Chinese food to attract a large enough clientele. I expect that if he were starting fresh nowadays, he could do fine with just Vietnamese.
In the North Eastern states of India such as Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram pork is not an uncommon food item. In the major cities of Assam too, pork is not difficult to obtain. The Christian influence and local tribal customs have something to do with it. Also note that most Brahmins in thispart of the country are non_vegetarians, alThough they typically won’t have pork.
In a book of recipes by the Indian cookery writer Madhur Jaffrey, there’s a fascinating section of the author’s foreword where she reminisces about her schooldays in Delhi, and the lunches, brought from home by her and her schoolmates, which they shared-and-compared at their lunch break; with pupils from a wide variety of different Indian communities / faiths, there was a big range of different things to try.
An interesting sidelight here, on different degrees of strictness re adhering to dietary laws, in different faiths: “Another friend was a Muslim from Uttar Pradesh [the state east of Delhi], known to bring beef cooked with spinach, all deliciously flavoured with chillies, cardamom and cloves. Many of us were Hindus and not supposed to eat beef. So we just pretended not to know what it was… never asked what we were eating [with great enjoyment]. On the other hand, whenever my father went boar-hunting and we cooked that meat at home, I never took it to school. I knew it would offend my Muslim friends.”
Madhur Jaffrey is now aged 80, so this would have been in the 1940s, when India was somewhat less crowded than now. One doubts whether excursions from Delhi to hunt wild boar, would be possible nowadays.
What difference would that make?