The Food Fetish

If the title of this blog post, made you smile with delight and glee, then you are totally a food connoisseur (high-five!). With a festival as bright and ablaze as Diwali now round the corner, it was time to write something for my favourite time of the year. Festivals in India are almost synonymous with food and delicacies. No festival is complete unless kids of the house (and I include myself in this) raid the food items kept exclusively for the guests, only to hear a mouthful from their mothers.

With whole of the nation, now getting into the festive feel and already done with the cleaning part, people are now busy in preparation of suitable festive dishes. From alluring and appetizing gulab jamun to the fresh, soft and luring kaaju barfis, which I usually consume in scary quantities, Diwali definitely brings a lot for me. While our Southern counterparts indulged in the tasty Mysore Pak and Coconut Cake, along with the sweet Groundnut Barfi, the Northern India finds solace in sinfully ghee dipped sweets like Besan Laddu, Neelam Barfi, Kesar Pak, Poran Poli and many more.

Sometimes I feel that foreign travellers like Marco polo, Duarte Barbose, Captain William Hawkins, and Thomas Coryat should have exclusively explored the Indian delicacies and carried out research on the food here, after all, we are the reason behind the “Delhi belly”! However, people like me have made up for what those guys missed out. I believe, India has always been a food loving land, only our expressions have changed over time. From the verbal scream of "I am feeling hungry, mom...", we have now moved on to "Give me food @Mom... #Hungry" (Updated 2 seconds ago). 

 With types of kachoris being one of the most entertaining topics in parties and meetings in Rajasthan, the best street vendors of vada pao is a much awaited discussion in parts of Maharashtra, especially Mumbai. Almost half of our food loving population wakes up to South Indian dishes in breakfast and moves up towards north as Sun moves from east to west, ending up with Dal Makhani, Aaloo Amritsari and Shahi Paneer in dinner. That is how we enjoy the diversity of our cultures in India!

As Diwali approaches, let us pledge to be prepared to launch an attack on our kitchens and dry fruit boxes in the house, with lots of aggression and bound by duty (Also with a tablet of dygiene in our secret closets). I wish everyone a great Pre-Diwali week and hope that everyone has a food filled Diwali, as smell of freshly fried kachori enters my room performing an imaginary crazy dance. I Rush!

J