Regional cuisine

Punjab has the luxury of being an agricultural region with access to plenty of vegetables, wheat, lentils, freshwater fish, lamb and dairy. Anjum says, "the food is cooked with love and gusto, with plenty of spices and layers of flavours.

"A meal often consists of lentils, a vegetable and possibly a non-vegetarian dish served with roti, the wholesome flat bread. My memories of eating in India are all set in the winter months of my holidays. I remember chewing the flesh of the sugarcane to extract every last bit of its sweet juice, eating jaggery-sweetened sesame seeds in winter, biting into the seasonal corn on the cobs, barbecued and spiced, and eating sweet oranges with a sprinkling of salt and pepper to heighten the flavour. The Punjabis treat their food as they do their life and if they were to have a motto, I think it would be 'live, love and eat'!"

Anjum says, "the Bengalis are often considered both the artists and the intellectuals of India. Their food is executed with precision and sophistication. Traditionally their meals were bought in courses with each course being a single dish and each course having a stronger flavour than the last. This was so that the flavours of two dishes were not mixed and each was enjoyed as it was meant to be."

A traditional meal consists of a mound of rice which is eaten with something bitter to start with, followed by lentils, a vegetable dish, then fish and finally any meat. An authentic dessert is simply sweetened yoghurt or another dairy-based sweet. Fish is included in most meals. Bengali dishes are lightly spiced and delicate with a punch of flavour often added with mustard seeds and/or mustard oil.

The cooking of Kashmir has been strongly influenced by the chefs brought in by the Moghul Timur in the fourteenth century. Anjum says, "he came from Central Asia and his food was rich in red meat, yoghurt and rice. His chefs were soon cooking their food at every banquet in the region and were sought after for their culinary skills. They were called 'wazas' and never made people outside their cooking community party to their culinary secrets.

"As time went on they dwindled in numbers and now there are only a handful of these 'supercooks' to chose from for an event such as a wedding, where as many as 36 courses can be served. Kashmir is unique as even the local Hindus who would normally avoid lamb have added it to menus, but cook it in a different way so that two distinct cuisines of Kashmir were born. The main difference is that the Muslims use onions and garlic and the Hindus prefer to use spices such as asafoetida to bring out the flavours of their dishes."

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The cooking of this region is predominantly vegetarian as the local Hindus traditionally avoided meat, onions and garlic. Their diet is rich with lentils, which are ground into a paste to make fluffy savoury cakes, cooked into curries and even made into desserts. Many Gujaratis add a little jaggery to their savoury meals to sweeten them.

Anjum says, "Gujaratis traditionally ate formal meals on large steel plates called 'thalis', where the cook would make a couple of vegetable dishes, a lentil dish, a chutney, a savoury snack and a raita or sweet yoghurt dish, all served at one time in small bowls in the plate. Having said that, for practical reasons they often made large one-pot dishes for the whole family. Non-vegetarian Gujarati food also evolved but mainly through the regions' Muslims who make wonderful biryanis and kebabs using local ingredients and flavours."

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The food of Goa has been greatly influenced by the Portuguese who colonised the region from the 1500s until independence 450 years later. The Portuguese brought with them, among other ingredients, the chilli, the sweet potato, cashew nuts, pineapples and even certain varieties of mangoes.

Anjum says, "the Portuguese were responsible for many conversions to Christianity and with the new religion people eventually let go of their Hindu/Muslim eating habits and ate the Portuguese favourite, pork. This meat soon became a favourite, along with beef, and both are cooked in both Western stews, pies and sausages, as well as the typical Indian curries. The food of Goa also features the local Hindu 'Konkan' cooking that the religious Hindus stuck with and features local vegetables, fish, prawns and rice. Goan food is full on flavour, pungency, colour and history."

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Anjum says, "Kerala is the country's spice garden, growing cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds and black peppercorns, among other things. The region has a diverse repertoire as it is strongly influenced by the three main communities that exist there, the Syrian Christians, the Muslims and the Hindus. There is also a community of Arabs who settled there hundreds of years ago and brought their 'Moplah' cookery, with influences from the Arab world.

"Aside from the staples of the region which are common to all three communities - fish, rice, coconut and the many local spices - these three communities ensure that duck, beef and lamb biryanis and many vegetable dishes abound. Dishes can be either spicy and tame with sweet, creamy coconut adding extra depth."

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