Eating such dishes is considered Indian but they are not Indian.

 Eating such dishes is considered Indian but they are not Indian.

I was in the kitchen of a restaurant in Mumbai, India's busiest and most modern city. The cook was preparing the food in the clay pot. Banana leaves, wood and some metal utensils were lying around in the kitchen.

Only local Indian spices were used in the preparation of this dish. The result was that it had nothing like the hot peppers used in Mexico and the sweet potato flavor of South America.

Kasthuri Rangan Ramanujam, one of the chefs, said that the food prepared that day had 'no cauliflower, cauliflower, peas or carrots, but it didn't matter.' I was supposed to use rice, satramundu, kuzambo curry and some vegetables.

They call it 'Shradha Bhoj'. Many Hindu families in South India eat it together on the death anniversary of a close relative. That day was my father-in-law's anniversary.

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The purpose of this event is to bring peace to the departed souls. This 'Shradha Bhoj' also tells a lot about the history of the local food.

Dishes prepared for the occasion may include only indigenous Indian ingredients that have been used in the region for at least a thousand years.

Indian cuisine is recognized around the world for its tomato-rich curries and soft naans. Although the tomato is originally from Portugal and the naan is from Central Asia. That is, many dishes that are considered to be of Indian origin are not really Indian, or contain a lot of Indian ingredients.

Potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots and peas, which are considered staples of Indian cuisine around the world, are not very old in their arrival in the region.

The potato was brought to India by the Dutch in the last decades of the 18th century. Although today it seems surprising that the potato came to India from outside because it is now found every day in Indian dishes in all its forms, boiled, roasted, fried, or stuffed into something.

The late KT Acharya, a historian of Indian cuisine, believed that chillies came to India from Mexico and were brought here by the Portuguese traveler Vasco da Gama.

According to him, Perch fulfilled the country's need for a spicy spice that did not require much rainfall and could be grown all over the country.

Indian television producer Richie Shrivastava says that almost all Indian dishes use tomatoes now. Tomato has come a long way to reach India. From South America to South Europe, then through Britain, the tomato reached India in the 16th century, for which Britain should be thanked.

Ritchie said that over the past hundred years, Indian restaurants around the world have popularized red curry as an Indian curry. He said that because of this, people's familiarity with Indian flavors has also changed. Anyone who doesn't know much about Indian flavors would think that curry made with onions and tomatoes is Indian curry.'

Although the dishes included in 'Shradha Bhoj' reflect Indian cuisine. Things like raw mangoes, raw bananas, yams, banana tree trunks and a special type of grape, which are not considered to be staples of the Indian diet, actually play an important role in this Indian cuisine.

It uses cumin seeds, black pepper, unshelled groundnuts for flavoring.

Shraddha bhoj held in South India is usually attended by only close relatives. Before the meal there is a ceremony in which prayers are offered for the deceased.

Some of the dishes prepared for the occasion, for example fried plantain, satramundu or kuzambo, are prepared at home. In some households, outside cooks are invited to cook.

On my father-in-law's anniversary, I was thinking that so many things have come to India and been made here in the last thousand years, and it is not known which of them is Indian and which is foreign. has been brought.

All these ingredients are used together in the food commonly cooked in Indian homes today. For example sambhar and rice in South India. Sambhar is a thin soup-like curry in which, apart from cumin, black pepper and coriander, potato cut into small pieces is also fried.

Festivals like Shraddha Bhoj are very private events so tourists cannot attend them. They do not get to see or taste the food prepared for such gatherings.

Ritchie said that 'Home is the only place where the culture of food and drink is preserved. There is a lot to be found in Indian restaurants, but they cannot really reflect the culture and taste that is preserved at home.

Ramanujan says that in small gatherings, such dishes are prepared, but on occasions like weddings, when more guests are invited, such food is prepared that can please everyone, so there are many of them. There is also that which came from outside over time.