The World - Countries - India Teamwork OP 08
India
Teamwork Oral Presentation
By Inmaculada (01 Intro), Sonia (02 History), Carlos (03 Gandhi), Adela (04 Spirituality),
Montse (05 Taj Mahal), Diana (06 Women), Encarna (07 Microcredits),
Irene (08 Food), Miguel MM (09 Music 1), Tere (10 Music 2),
Esther (11 Movie Industry) -
Y5C, 2006-07
Indian Food
By Irene
(with slide show below)
History of Food
Over the centuries Indian cuisine has been influenced by traders such as the Arabs and the Chinese, and invaders such as the Persians, the Mongols, the Turks, the British and the Portuguese. The tomato, the chili and the potato, which are staple components of today's Indian cuisine, are relatively recent additions. They came to India from America through Europe.
Khus khus was introduced in India by the Greeks, the meat dishes by the Munghal invaders, dried fruits and nuts by the Persians, chilies by the Portuguese and the soup and chutney tradition by the British.
Nowadays, the Indian kitchen can be classified into South Indian, which is famous for its rice, coconut, and curry leaves, and North Indian, whose main contributions are dairy products and samosas, but there are a lot of different varieties even within these, depending on the region and climate.
Main ingredients
- Rice: in India it is known as atta and it is wheat flour.
- Pulses: there are at least 5 dozen varieties, some of them are: chana (bengal gram) that can be cooked whole for breakfast or processed into flour (besan), toor (red gram), urad (black gram), mung (green gram).
- Vegetable oil: the preference depends on the region of India -- groundnut oil is mostly used in the north, mustard oil in the east, and coconut oil in the south.
- Spices: the most common are: chilli pepper, black mustard seed (rai), cumin (jeera), turmeric, ginger, coriander, and garam masala, which is a powder of 5 or more dried spices, commonly comprised of cardamom, cinnamon, and clove.
- Drinks: India´s favourite drink is tea (chai), which is generally prepared as masala chai, tea with a mixture of spices boiled in milk. Coffee is not as important as tea, but it is also drunk in the south. India also has indigenous alcoholic beverages, including palm wine, fenny and Indian beer.
- Curry: it is the English description of any of a general variety of spiced dishes, best-known in Bangladehi, Indian, Indonesian, Malaysian, Pakistani, Thai and other South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines, though curry has been adopted into all of the mainstream cuisines of the Asia-Pacific region. Its roots come from India. Actually, the concept of curry was later brought to the West by British colonialists in India from the 18th century.
Curio
- In India we find the biggest vegetarian population in the world.
- Some religious taboos prohibit eating cow meat.
- India produces more fresh products than any other country in the world, because of its climate diversity.
- Indian sweets are far too sweet for us.
- When you travel by train, you can buy some fruits and nuts in every station because there are lots of pedlars, so each station has its main speciality.
