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Most Westerners when asked what food they associate with
the Indian subcontinent, will say 'curry', but not every spiced dish is a
curry, and curry is not just one dish. It embraces a whole range of
dishes, each distinctly different according to the spices and herbs used
in varying combinations. Spices, imaginatively used, are the outstanding
feature of Indian and Pakistani cuisine - subtle or pungent, hot or mild,
there is something to suit every palate.
Much of the cooking of northwestern India and Pakistan is
so similar that one, would hesitate to say which dishes belong to one
country and which to the other. Pakistan, being a Muslim country, uses no
pork; but boasts a diet rich in other meats and has as many sumptuous
biriani and pilau as does the celebrated Moghul cuisine of the neighboring
Indian provinces. Lamb is predominant in both areas, and both use spicing
and ingredients such as yoghurt and ghee in dishes that are elaborate
without being hot as well as relying more heavily on wheat-flour chapati
than on rice.
Bangladesh is more than 1,500 kilometers from Pakistan.
With the eastern Indian province of Bengal, of which it was once a part,
it shares more pungent spicing, a tendency to cook in mustard oil rather
than ghee and emphasis on a variety of seafood instead of the fat lamb
popular in northwestern India and Pakistan.
The culinary offerings of southern India are different
again. The coconut plays a commanding role, rice largely replaces wheat,
mustard seeds are widely used as a spice, and chilies come into their own
- as anyone who has tackled a really hot Madras or Mysore curry will
readily acknowledge!
Throughout the subcontinent, different religions impose
food taboos that are rigidly adhered to. Hindus will not eat beef. Muslim
will not eat pork. Buddhist will not take life and so will not even crack
an egg. And many Indians are strictly vegetarian, enjoying a cuisine that
is in a class by itself.
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