Unscrambling Indian Cuisine [paperback] Arunava Bose

Indian cuisine being diverse is considered to be an art. However, it can be very confusing at times where tiny differences in preparation can altogether create something new. Also, often, people would consider food items to be the same thing with different names but in reality there are slight differences. These differences may be between different cuisines for different Indian states and many at times between dishes within the same cuisine. For example, most of the people would consider Shingara (Bengali variant) and Samosa (north Indian counterpart) to be the same thing with different names. However, there is a thin difference between the two items. The current piece of work tries to collect all the differences between similar (but not the same) dishes or food items in Indian Cuisine. It also tries to answer couple of interesting questions related to dishes available as a part of Indian Cuisine. The attempt is to outline the thin differences in Indian dishes so that the next time one visits any Indian restaurant and tries to order something; you would know exactly what you are requesting to be put on the plate. The book explores the various cuisines belonging to the different states and union territories of India. It surveys the characteristics of these cuisines, their features and some of their specialities. It also tries to investigate the characteristics of fusion cuisines like Indian-Chinese, Malayasian-Indian, Indian-Singaporean, Indian-Indonesian and Anglo-Indian cuisines.