Well, I cook this way for myself too, but obviously I learned a lot of it from restaurants in America (and Ireland). I’ve never (yet) had the opportunity to go to India.
As I said, I don’t mix chutneys and yogurt into dishes, but it makes a lot of sense to me to have them during the main dishes, especially raita for cooling off after something extra hot.
I love spicy food, but I can’t stand the taste of curry.
Yeah, well, those who grow up with the cuisine don’t need to cool off during the meal. 
So, it’s an adaptation that’s not native to the cuisine.
I forgot the part where you serve it with a dollop of ghi.
That’s impressive. I haven’t tried anything like that. Good eating to you!
It sounds like you’re talking mainly about South Indian/vegetarian cuisine, which is just full of oil, ghi, butter, and cream. In Bengali cuisine – and Panjabi cuisine, too – there are plenty of meat and vegetable dishes that can be made with minimal fat content/frying and still be tasty. Of course, restaurants pile on the cream and butter, but when cooking at home, I use very little fat. Rice and most types of bread can be made without oil. (Okay, you won’t get luchis/puris, but the other breads are good too.)
Well, I had these two mangoes which were clearly not good eating. They were perfect for achar, though.
I cooked rotis only this past weekend with only a little bit of oil on the pan and no oil on the rotis. I did put some spices inside each one, so I guess they were more akin to prontis, but they were healthy as far as bread goes. I had it with my achar.
And isn’t dhal pretty healthy?
Butter chicken and the like are special meals. Mostly what we eat is okra, lightly sauteed/pan-fried, or carrots & peas & potatoes, or stuff like that. I admit I almost never cook Indian meat dishes, though.
Huh, it works so superlatively, I assumed that was by design.
And regardless of a “need” to cool off (by most lights I’m pretty fire-resistant), it shifts the palate, which makes it possible to re-experience heat and flavors in a way that can’t happen if you just keep eating more of the same dish. (Similar principles apply to other combinations; it’s not all about heat and heat-cancellation.)
Hey, maybe we should have a thread for people who like Indian food?
Huh, that’s interesting, because I was always under the opposite impression: south Indian food is lighter and healthier than creamy/oily north Indian (particularly Punjabi) stuff.
Note that I said that our every day food is very light on the oil. My mom often makes curries and things that are light on oil, and even dosais are okay for you. It’s just the puris, samosa, chaats, etc that I love that are bad for you.
Actually besides pooris, I can’t think of any south Indian dishes that are have much oil/ghee/butter/cream. Maybe what we call bisi bele bath?
You mean like this one? 
Wait, what? Lamb’s delicious. Is it really not eaten much in the States, and if not, why?
As for the OP, I can’t answer, as I love Indian food, and all spicy food in general. What I do know is, after watching some friends struggle, red-faced and sweating, to eat more than a few mouthfuls of a Thai curry I made, I will never again claim that something I’ve made “isn’t that spicy”. Apparently my standards are different to most!
For a lot of complex economic, environmental, social, and historical reasons, meat from goat/kid and sheep/lamb is not popular in the United States. Marvin Harris has taken a shot at explaining it, but I’d have to look back to see what he said.
Speaking broadly, Americans will rarely eat meat that’s not from cow, pig, chicken, or turkey.
Indian khichuri and English kedgeree are different animals with the same background.
I lke my khichuri/khichri/khichdi with a dollop of ghee, some fried potatoes, and perhaps a piece of fried fish.
Yes, khichuri definitely needs something fried or crunchy to go with it.
In a pinch, you can use potato chips or potato sticks.
Yes, really. Average consumption per capita is either slightly less or slightly more than one pound per year – but even that’s misleading as it’s likely skewed by lamb-loving immigrants from the ME and elsewhere who are eating several/many pounds a year. By contrast, Americans eat about 66 lbs. of beef and 50 of pork per head per year.
http://www.meatami.com/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/48781
If you picked an average American you would not go far wrong to assume that he: (a) ate lamb once a year, in the form of leg of lamb with mint jelly, around Easter or Passover time; or (b) does not eat any lamb, all year. Mutton? Forget about it, it’d be difficult to imagine where to even get it outside an ethnic market.
Why? Lots of reasons. Supply creates demand to an extent (the reason Kiwis lead the lamb pack at 57 lbs. per year – they’ve got a lot of it!). Lack of a huge sheep industry (can sheep be factory farmed?), unlike the massive cattle and pork industries (which tie into the massive corn/feed industry – can you feed corn to sheep, I wonder?), and industrial chicken farming.
Also, lamb meat is often less marbled than say beef so if cooked like beef (the default), would tend to come off as dry/tough.
That disgusting mint jelly (seriously).
Stereotypically (i.e., mostly truly) white Americans in the past Century (or at least, post-WWII) did not like anything that tasted “strong” – not just spices, but the least bit of gamy flavor in meat was shunned (game also had a bit of a stigma because it hearkens back to the days of hillbillies out in the woods huntin’ for some food). Think American cheese as exemplar.
All your naan are belong to us!
I, for one, welcome our new spicy delicious overlords.
Now you all are making me hungry! I haven’t cooked Indian food in an age because the SO’s allergic to chili (I know, right?!), but right now, I would kill for some pani puri, followed by some paratha and achar. :drool:
Huerta88 – I’ve lived on nothing but daal for 3 months. It gets old. Quick. 
For me, there are a few issues. Disclaimer: I LOVE spicy food, and I love strong flavors. However, the various curries my co workers bring for lunch smell atrocious. I don’t like cumin at all, although I love Mexican food (go figure). I think my big issue is texture. I don’t like Gloppy or chalky food, and 80% of the Indian cuisine I’ve seen falls in those categories. Further, the daals and other veggies my coworkers bring in don’t seem… appealing. They’re from the Mumbai area, FWIW.
Oh…I love lamb. Guess that’s why I never see it anywhere.
I love Indian food. All of it. The only trouble is that the aroma can stick around for a few hours after, so its not a great choice for a midday meal if you’re meeting clients later. For dinner, it’s great.