Background

Indian Cuisine

It is perhaps a little daring to say one can cook Indian cuisine. In truth, it is defined by an entire subcontinent of more than a billion people, which means there are no geographical boundaries to what we call Indian cooking. Even in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the cooking is "Indian".

Strong religious influences and centuries of historical events have produced a world cuisine full of regional variety. At one time, colonial ships laden with spicy cargo sailed westward across the ocean, and to this day, we still can't get enough of Indian cooking.

What we know as Indian cuisine in fact spans an enormous number of different regional cuisines. What they have in common, however, is that home cooking is much more important than in Europe, where most people develop essentially the same eating habits as a result of eating out in restaurants.