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The Balanced Indian Thali: an overview of the region’s cuisine

Each region has is own local produce, culinary heritage and traditions. One best way to sample this is the thali (food served on a large rimmed stainless steel or metal plate or a banana leaf). Thali choices are plenty - North, South, East or West Indian. This form of eating is common in most parts of India.
This traditional meal comprises of vegetables or meats, pulses or dals, salad or kachumbar, rice or Indian breads, curds, accompaniments such as pickle or chutney and a dessert.

The Indian after-mint

Paan is served as a digestive after some meals. The dark green leaf of the betel plant is smeared with a little lime and wrapped around a combination of spices such as crushed betel nuts, cardamom, aniseed, sugar and grated coconut.

Traditional Indian meals not only satisfy the palate, but also provide ample health benefits. The thali consists of a good mix of carbohydrates, proteins, fats and nutrients. It not only satisfies your taste buds but is a perfectly nutritionally, balanced sample of the Indian meal.

Indian food is elaborate, painstaking, and complete; whereas in the Western world the emphasis is on quick, easy cooking and practical one-meal dishes.

How fortunate, then, we are to live in a land where meal times are a warm, pleasurable and wholesome experience, serving as a well-deserved break to get away from the everyday stresses of living.

Interesting facts

All spices and herbs have medicinal properties. Turmeric, for example, is an antiseptic; perhaps that is why it is applied to fish before it is fried. Garlic is good for circulatory ailments, coriander and tamarind for constipation and cloves are good for the heart.
In the mountain-clad region of Kashmir, a green tea similar to Chinese tea, called kahara, is popular it is served sprinkled with almonds and cinnamon, ingredients known to warm the body.
The inherent heating and cooling properties of food determine which time of the year the will be served. For example, curds or yogurt is popularly consumed in summer and nuts and dried fruits, in winter.
In tropical Tamil Nadu, tamarind is commonly used as it has cooling properties.
Much of the south uses its temperature very cleverly to take care of some of the culinary details. Many staple dishes such as idlis, require fermentation. No yeasts are used, as the mean temperature of about 80 degrees F (25 degrees C) does the work quite effortlessly.
A variety of fruits are available in different regions; they are truly nature’s gift to mankind. Apples, oranges and bananas are generally available almost all year round. The banana is the most commonly eaten fruit in India. It is economical, nourishing and easily accessible.

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