How Indian Is Your Indian Food? Find Out....

Indians don’t just love their food, but also love talking about it. Indeed, Indian food has very interesting origins and facts connected to it. Here are a few lesser known facts of Indian food.

Coffee, as popular as tea – especially in Southern India, was introduced by the British. They were the first people to bring coffee into the country and subsequently its popularity spread. And not just coffee, tomato, potato, sugar and chili too are foreign introductions to Indian cuisine. Chili in fact gained so much popularity in India that Indian food has become synonymous with the use of chilies. One of the hottest varities of chili, the ghost chili, was cultivated in India to cater to the heat loving taste buds of India.

The country’s love for spicy food is evident everywhere. No wonder then that India is the largest producer of spices in the world.

Rajma, or kidney beans, is a very popular dish of India. It is a spicy bean curry similar to the American chili. Rajma with rice is a staple in Northern India though it is enjoyed in all parts of the country as well. But, very few people know that rajma is not of Indian origin. It was brought into the country from Mexico and then found a huge fan following in India.

India has the lowest meat consumption per person index in the whole world. Not surprising, considering that 40 percent of the Indian population is vegetarian and many do not even eat onion and garlic.  The upside to this is that India also has the widest range of vegetarian dishes in the world.