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Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Random thoughts - 8/30/06
Wonder why North Indian food is more popular outside India than South Indian cuisine???
Go to any major restaurant in the US and you will see that the major share of the menu(if not all of it) is hogged by nans, curries from the north....if there is anything remotely south indian listed on the menu, more than likely, it will be idli, sambar or dosa.
Now, don't get me wrong....I do love chole bature just as much as I love puttu and kadala curry(though u won't find it on the menu)....but is there a reason why one is preferred over the other outside of India?

5 comments:

Revathi said...

Hmmmmm I guess because the north-indian cuisine is much richer so it would be nice such rich foods in restaurants !!! south-indian food are on the other hand much leaner- thats my thought...

Vidya said...

hmmmm... interesting.. living in the middle of nowhere as I do at present, its easier to get ingredients for North Indian food.

Any decent supermarket will have cinnamon, cloves, cardomom, jeera, chili powder, maybe turmeric and quite frequently coriander seeds too. ingredients like tamarind, tuvar dal, chana dal, urad dal, coconut are impossible to find.

in fact, for my daily cooking of rasam-sambar etc, all my ingredients have to be ordered from Tokyo!! With whats locally available, its way easier to whip up a nice malai kofta than it is to make aviyal! speaking of aviyal, its not easy to get the whole gamut of vegetables required for that outside India and some south-east asian countries...

maybe thats why north Indian food took off way faster than south Indian food did...

And having treated people of different nationalities to good wholesome Indian vegetarian cooking, i believe it takes a genuine gourmet to appreciate the intricacies of a good south Indian meal, with kuzhambu, rasam, kootu, 2 types of vegetables, 2 salads, pachadi, pickle, appalams, vadai and a nice paayasam... hmmm... that made me really hungry...

archie M said...

I really wonder why..May be as most south Indians have beenkeeping their food a big secret. There are very few restaurants in Mumbai which actually serve real original South Indian foob. but any nook or corner you get dosa,idli and other snacky stuff>>>just a thought..

archie M said...

I really wonder why.. As even in cities like Mumbai, you find Idli, vada, dosa, at every nook and corner but to get authentic south indian food" there are sadly very few restaurants..and even they don't serve the original four or five course's of the feast on banana leaf. man,,,I want to go to chennai, hydrabad, kerala,or karnatka for some yummy real south indian fix..

archie M said...

I really wonder why..May be as most south Indians have beenkeeping their food a big secret. There are very few restaurants in Mumbai which actually serve real original South Indian foob. but any nook or corner you get dosa,idli and other snacky stuff>>>just a thought..